> Two, woah! Blimey the free market provides us two options!
You said there were "no options to pay in the phisical world".
I proved you wrong, because there are. Just one option would have proved you wrong, yet in reality there are far more than one. In Amsterdam alone.
And so your arguments start to move. Now it suddenly needs "a large adoption" and not a "niche" (mollie, btw is one of the largest, if not the largest PSP in the netherlands). And they shift from "no-where where I can pay" to "you can pay, but very few people actually do so".
You could also just admit that you were wrong because you were not aware that there is an actual community out there, even in your hometown, who accepts Bitcoin, pays with it and as such makes it an actual payment system. You could admit that you were not aware of this, but that now you are, you know that Bitcoin is used; just not in the way you envision it, or not by the people and companies that you would like to.
Also note that many people (I'm not aware that you did this!) mention that bitcoin is both a failure because no-one ever pays with it, yet also mention that it is a failure because the confirmation times are high and fees are growing; which is a direct effect of too much people using it.
> You said there were "no options to pay in the phisical world".
No, I said I didn't notice them in the physical world (and I still haven't, fwiw). Never seen any physical store say "we accept Bitcoin", never. I was clearly talking about my anecdata which is still, from my perspective, valid.
That has a different meaning than what you make out of it. I never wrote about the online world. You gave as example Thuisbezorgd; that's not the physical world. That's not a brick & mortar store. They're a virtual middleman service.
I avoid them btw, because I can get cheaper deals by cutting them out as middleman and giving a higher tip to the hard working delivery boy instead.
> (mollie, btw is one of the largest, if not the largest PSP in the netherlands)
Really, never heard of. I guess iDEAL and PayPal just went out of business. Good luck competing with iDEAL, btw.
> You could also just admit that you were wrong because you were not aware that there is an actual community out there, even in your hometown, who accepts Bitcoin, pays with it and as such makes it an actual payment system.
The existence of something doesn't describe its state or, in this case, adoption level. The adoption level (or market penetration) is very important in the subject of payment systems, but you prefer to ignore it and spout red herrings like this instead to pursue your character assasination agenda.
> You could admit that you were not aware of this, but that now you are, you know that Bitcoin is used; just not in the way you envision it, or not by the people and companies that you would like to.
I was aware Thuisbezorgd accepted Bitcoin. I was also aware that it wasn't being used much, as I quoted. That article was no news to me. The question whether its used or not is important in the discussion as put forth above. Is it used a lot? No, not really (far less than 1%). The question about transaction costs/time was also still up in the air. I guess you don't know the answer to that either.
> Also note that many people (I'm not aware that you did this!) mention that bitcoin is both a failure because no-one ever pays with it, yet also mention that it is a failure because the confirmation times are high and fees are growing; which is a direct effect of too much people using it.
My orig. point was it doesn't scale.
As for what you wrote here the fact transactions happen doesn't mean people are paying with Bitcoins in the physical world. It might as well be a bunch of astroturfers (the way Reddit came to existence), or a bunch of people buying drugs (the way Silkroad ran). You don't know.
But we do have a statement like the one from Thuisbezorgd.
Now I'd like to see a statement from a serious computer manufacturer like Apple or reseller like Media Markt or Bol.com stating they accept Bitcoin (all I read is businesses like Steam quitting accepting Bitcoin as payment method instead). Things like that are a sign of widespread adoption. What isn't a sign of widespread adoption: 8 bloody restaurants/pubs in the capital city (!!) accepting Bitcoin. That's a sign of a tiny, irrelevant niche.
PS: Oh, and with regards to the bubble, we didn't discuss Tether.
They do the iDeal, Sofort, Creditcards, Bitcoin And so on, for some of the largest ecommerce platforms in the netherlands, as well as the majority of the small ecommerce shops. They are a PSP, which is very much a middleman, which is why you may not have heard of them.
Albert Heyn, Deliveroo, Douwe Egberts are just a few of the larger Dutch brands that use Mollie.
Note that not evey merchant using mollie will have Bitcoin enabled, I'm not sure if e.g. ah.nl has the bitcoin option enabled, but I haven't checked them either.
I'm leavin this discussion here. You come across as someone who has some axe to grind with Bitcoin. Which makes you appear angry, frustrated and shifty. There are places where you can spend your bitcoin. In Amsterdam. A lot. I've spent mine in some. There are places where you can spent your Bitcoin in my hometown, I've spent them there. I've seen stickers on doors, in both Amsterdam and Arnhem (And Barcelona, Berlin, Antwerp, Ghent). My wife and I were selling her stuff on several markets in Amsterdam (and festivals such as Lowlands), my wife has a "bitcoin accepted here" sign. You may not have seen it, but it was there. I know, because I was there. And you know what? People buy stuff with bitcoin from her. Very few, true, but they do.
But as soon as I point this out, it suddenly does not count as places to spend your bitcoin in the physical world because you haven't seen them yourselves, or because you decide that the volume processed there is too low. I'm out.
> They do the iDeal, Sofort, Creditcards, Bitcoin And so on, for some of the largest ecommerce platforms in the netherlands, as well as the majority of the small ecommerce shops. They are a PSP, which is very much a middleman, which is why you may not have heard of them.
Their entry on Wikipedia got deleted. That's how relevant they are. They're a BV with <= 50 people. MKB.
iDEAL/Currence is a PSP as well.
How important has Bitcoin been for Mollie? Do you have any data on the absolute or relative amount of Bitcoin transactions?
> Note that not evey merchant using mollie will have Bitcoin enabled, I'm not sure if e.g. ah.nl has the bitcoin option enabled, but I haven't checked them either.
??? Hello? Have you ever ordered on ah.nl??? I order there practically every week. You pay either in store if you pick it up, or you gotta pay by PIN if they deliver. You CANNOT pay online. Do you get that? They got barely time to deliver the groceries in your house. Do you think they'd be cool to wait till the Bitcoin transaction was finalised? Who are you kidding?!?!?!
> You come across as someone who has some axe to grind with Bitcoin.
Of course I do, its akin to MLM. I already burned my hands on that. Why would I want other people to get burned by scammers?
> or because you decide that the volume processed there is too low
You never refuted the volume being important premise. You had the opportunity to do this in your previous 2 posts but you neglected that by coming up with more niche examples which simply don't prove the existence of a Bitcoin techhub as you put forth in your earlier post. I know there are niche examples, and I know you're well aware of them. Here, have a cookie. What I'm interested in is figuring out how important Bitcoin is for the Amsterdam Area. From what I can tell by the data I have we have:
* Adoption (market penetration). Terrible. Only a few niche cases.
* Volume. Terrible. One data point from Thuisbezorgd, one data point from yourself.
And this isn't rocket science its reflected by the lack of large online stores accepting Bitcoin. Its reflected by the high transaction fees, and slow transaction speed. You say that's a sign of Bitcoin being used for legit transactions in the physical world. Where's the proof for that? Nothing we observe points to that. Might as well be bots to ensure people cannot and do not cash out their Bitcoins. All you've proven is that there are quite some niches which reluctantly accept Bitcoin, and very few data on volume. The rest is all red herring & ad hominem.
You said there were "no options to pay in the phisical world".
I proved you wrong, because there are. Just one option would have proved you wrong, yet in reality there are far more than one. In Amsterdam alone.
And so your arguments start to move. Now it suddenly needs "a large adoption" and not a "niche" (mollie, btw is one of the largest, if not the largest PSP in the netherlands). And they shift from "no-where where I can pay" to "you can pay, but very few people actually do so".
You could also just admit that you were wrong because you were not aware that there is an actual community out there, even in your hometown, who accepts Bitcoin, pays with it and as such makes it an actual payment system. You could admit that you were not aware of this, but that now you are, you know that Bitcoin is used; just not in the way you envision it, or not by the people and companies that you would like to.
Also note that many people (I'm not aware that you did this!) mention that bitcoin is both a failure because no-one ever pays with it, yet also mention that it is a failure because the confirmation times are high and fees are growing; which is a direct effect of too much people using it.