IT HAPPENED!! I bought coffee with bitcoin for the first time today. The video is hilarious :-)
Buying Coffee With Bitcoin
“Do you mind if I film this? I’m trying to buy this coffee with bitcoin.”
The barista laughs - “yea, sure.”
From across the coffeeshop, the manager hollers at me: “Whoa, I’m interested to see this!”
I whip out my Shift card, powered by Coinbase… it hooks up to my BTC wallet on Coinbase and spends money like any other debit card — no fees — as easy as it gets. The barista takes the card, swipes it into the machine…
APPROVED
The staff are so excited they accidentally pour me two coffees.
Here’s the VIDEO EVIDENCE lol:
So much fun!
The coffee was delicious by the way.
Huge Props to Coinbase for the Shift Card
I have to say that Coinbase’s Shift card is AMAZING. It cost me $10 to order it, which was payable directly from my bitcoin wallet. It took about two weeks to arrive in my mailbox, then activating the card took five minutes.
The video above occurred about one hour after activation. It’s quick and hassle free.
At first, I was nervous about ordering the Shift card. Coinbase gets a weird reputation some times - conspiratorial type people will tell you that your money isn’t safe there, etc etc. I wouldn’t keep a large amount of money on Coinbase - it’s more risk than is necessary - but that’s also true of PayPal or any other company like that.
When it comes to putting a few hundred bucks into a “checking account” (or in this case, bitcoin wallet), Coinbase is safe and easy. I have much greater control of my money here than I would via PayPal or a bank account.
No More Checking Accounts
At this point I can’t imagine using a normal checking account with a major bank. There’s just no reason to do it. Big banks are cumbersome and difficult to work with. Coinbase is much easier.
I think from now on I’ll keep my day-to-day spending money in a bitcoin wallet and a few extra emergency funds in PayPal. That, plus a little bit of cash in my wallet, is enough to keep me afloat regardless of any short term situation that arises.
The New Financial World Order
Easy, secure, and under my own control. That’s the new financial way. I’m grateful to Satoshi and everybody who came after him for building the cryptocurrency model… after buying this cup of coffee, I’m even more convinced that we can change the world.
Do you have a Shift card or other bitcoin-enabled debit card? How do you feel about it? If not, why haven’t you given it a try?
I want one of these. I’ll have to look into the t&cs. Is it only available in the US? What about Europe?
I have just checked the site and you need to live in the USA to get the card. Hopefully this will change in the future!
only USA, i don't know why :-/. I wonder if I could use it in Europe if I was traveling?
I think you can use it overseas but people who live overseas can’t get one.
How will you track capital gains with frequent minor purchases? Is there integrated tracking with the debit card?
Pretty easy to keep track of it this way because I'll have a detailed transaction history where I can see what the bitcoin was worth when I load it up vs. how much it's worth when I spend it.
I'm just assuming I will have a few days where I have to just spend 8 hours a day doing math on my cryptocurrency for tax purposes, haha... Gonna do the bulk of that work in January 2018.
Thanks. Looking like I will be doing the same.
Amazing. The video was hilarious haha. If it were me asking the cashier my heart would have been pounding out of fear that it wouldn't work and I would look like an idiot. It worked though. They were probably like "I wonder if he is from the future?"
I don't have a card of my own but I like the TenX project. They have a card as well, though I think there have been some issues with it recently? I would need to look into that further though
Haha it probably helps that I visit this coffeeshop 5+ times a week so they all know me. I was happy that she let me film the attempt!
I see. Makes sense. That would help
The only thing that would have made it better if you hosted the video on another blockchain :P but yeah, cool either way. Congratulations!
Maybe with Monaco Cards, many more can do it in the future.
You know, I wish I could... The problem is that YouTube is the only reliable video hosting that embeds into the steem post. I don't want people to have to click away from my post to watch, ala DTube or LBRY.
In case of DTube, they don't have to.
About reliability, you're right, but I still would do it if I were you, just for fun ;)
Yeee! Rad. Just got mine in the mail!!!!!!
I can't wait to try it out.
Woo! Get some video if you're brave enough haha
Is Shift card parent company also registerd as a bank? Also, all those cards depend on major player like Visa. That could be a huge problem in the future.
Not sure. It does depend on Visa, but I don't see that as a problem. I think we are a long, long way off from visa being threatened by BTC, even if it does reach broad mainstream usage.
This is really fascinating. Is the merchant charged with a fee for the transaction? If not, small business owners are going to love this.
It does have the VISA logo on the front, so I suspect the merchant gets the same fee as ever. That is a shame... but if merchants accepted cryptocurrency directly, they could reduce fees! It would have to be Litecoin tho, bitcoin's transaction fees are way too high for that use right now.
I want one! So far, I have only wanted to add money into crypto, not take it out. But, I would be more willing to add more if I could use it if I had to.
My only concern would be the volatility of keeping my free cash in crypto rather than fiat.
The volatility is kind of fun, lol. I'm only keeping day-to-day money in there anyway, nothing I am afraid to lose. So far my stash has gone up by a buck or two... that's a free coffee!
At first I thought you were going to talk about tenx. It'd so sad that in my country, we can't stop like this with bitcoin
Yea it's a shame :-/ hopefully they will enable it for other countries soon. I think it has to do with Coinbase being heavily regulated in the USA.
Yes that's the issue
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