Bitcoins can now be used to pay for Domino’s Pizza

[patio11]

Bitcoin: a currency for which capability to buy pizza is noteworthy, required custom programming, comes with a 10% novelty tax, and is incapable of maintaining a single price for 24 hours.

[euroclydon]

Surely there is more to the Bitcoin movement that a desire for a currency that's worse than those sponsored by nation states. Just pointing out that Bitcoin sucks does nothing to address the underlying reason why people want to use Bitcoin. Where I live, alternative currencies seem to have sprung up as a response to feelings of disgust with the current economic system, or mistrust of government or bankers.

States and groups are looking at how the federal reserve is currently purchasing more than half of all newly issued U.S. Treasury Bonds, and drawing the inevitable conclusion that the the failure of the system is accelerating. The natural end to an inflationary currency is BOOM! There is a desire out there for a deflationary currency. Bitcoin is deflationary, right?

Now I think Bitcoin Sucks is sound economic advice because for every altruistic financial scheme, there have been a hundred scams, but I don't know if Bitcoin has the potential to be useful if we experience hyperinflation.

[ig1]

I used to work in actual currency trading and currency volatility is a pretty well understood problem when your dealing with smaller currencies (especially currencies used in politically unstable countries). You just need to maintain a bid-ask spread that's wide enough to protect you from the typical volatility (based upon recent historical data) and have a real-time trigger that suspends trading if the volatility exceeds your spread.

[Tichy]

Accepting credit cards requires custom programming, too, and I think it also comes with a fee.

[drchaos]

Almost every new technology is more expensive at first, may be difficult to deploy and requires additional effort to be made interoperable with existing stuff, so what exactly is your point? BTC solves some hard problems in an interesting way, that this comes at a price is a no-brainer.

[drewblaisdell]

Every currency is incapable of maintaining a single price for 24 hours.

[viraptor]

Is there any currency which maintains a single price for 24 hours? (apart from those artificially connected to value of other currency)

[jerguismi]

Well, at least your bank nor the goverment didn't know that you were buying that pizza. Unless the pizza broker service or Domino's is working with the goverment.

[SlipperySlope]

Merchants accepting bitcoins increasingly have real time price quotes in bitcoins.

Likewise, the Bitcoin Foundation operated its finances in 2012 without a conventional checking account, adjusting the bitcoin salaries of its employees each quarter.

[drpancake]

A famous Ghandi quote springs to mind.

[moe]

Three of your points are wrong, the 4th is shared with every other currency.

I don't understand why this unreflected bullshit sits at the top of the thread (and I'm not even involved or affiliated with bitcoin).

[WettowelReactor]

The fact that a currency like bitcoin with all the shortfalls you are describing has any traction is more indicative of the feeling we have about our current options.

[FernandoEscher]

If by not maintaining the price for 24 hours means that you're spending less and less bitcoins for it, then yes, you're right.

[fwr]

It's the future!

[jlgreco]

Ah, but it is a currency.

[mseebach]

This is not in any meaningful sense "paying for pizza with bitcoins" anymore that hauling your TV to a pawnshop, they buying pizza with the proceed is "paying for pizza with TVs" - it seems to exchange bitcoins for USD, then it buys a pizza for you with the USD.

From the narrow perspective of a BTC-miner, yes, it's relevant, but for subscribers to the lofty goals of a central-bank-independent/anonymous currency it's pointless.

[n3rdy]

> This is not in any meaningful sense "paying for pizza with bitcoins" anymore that hauling your TV to a pawnshop, they buying pizza with the proceed is "paying for pizza with TVs"

Thanks for outing my startup idea. :-(

[redthrowaway]

It works for the very small set of people who have bitcoins they haven't bought with a traditional currency. This is bigger than the set of miners, but not by much.

[ragmondo]

That's exactly what I thought. Apart from the person who takes your TV to the pawnshop charges you for taking it a 10% commission "in case it's worth less by the time it gets there" but with no refund if it's worth more. The frustrating thing for me is that ... it's just "too simple" . Hell I think I'm going to start a website luxury-cars-for-bitcoins.com and see if any suckers want to sell out.

[crdoconnor]

Fed #1: Look, we've got all of these transaction details for people who have bought and sold marijuana. How do we chase them down, though?

Fed #2: Well, 1) we'd need to give the stoners something they love dearly. 2) that thing would need to come attached to their address.

[SlipperySlope]

Has any other bitcoin news media event happened in the last few hours? Not the pizza deal because that is somewhat old news - but this HN post? The price jumped up from 24.5 to 25.5 and I don't see any other trigger!

Back in 2011, I learned about bitcoin mining from HN and solved two blocks myself with a CPU miner. Those coins are worth several thousands of USD today. Thank you HN ...

[owendbybest]

One theory is the increase in online gambling sites who use bitcoin. Gamblers are buying it up.

[SlipperySlope]

Ah, I see that the BBC reported this story in last few hours too.

[axusgrad]

A few years ago, someone bought a pizza for 10000 Bitcoins. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0

[gst]

For that amount of Bitcoins you can buy a house nowadays.

[SlipperySlope]

Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt current payment processing. The main advantage to merchants is fraud reduction. Bitcoin transactions cannot subsequently be reversed by the customer once received by the merchant.

Additionally, bitcoin transactions have lower transaction fees than credit cards, wire transfers, cash couriers, and so forth.

No wonder that more startups are developing bitcoin applications.

[icebraining]

On the other hand, the main disadvantage for consumers is fraud increase, for the same reason.

[SilasX]

I don't get why people keep promoting the "no chargeback" aspect of Bitcoins, since the potential for chargebacks is often a good thing, and essential for establishing trust. Furthermore, Bitcoin (like any reasonable currency system, including cash) allows you to layer a protocol on top of it to allow intermediaries that can do chargebacks in the case of bad behavior.

"No chargebacks" = "hey, just like with physical cash, someone can just run off with it once you transfer the money". Sure, sometimes that's what you want, but it's not something you have to accept as a result of using that currency type or unit.

[redthrowaway]

This would be far more impressive if Domino's now accepted bitcoin. As it is, it's just a very expensive exchange service.

[RaphiePS]

I wonder if there's a generalized solution to this issue; that is, the inability to pay for most things using Bitcoin.

If I remember correctly, Visa will let you create a "virtual" credit card so you can shop online without giving out your actual information.

I bet a "bridge" between the Bitcoin and credit card systems could make a lot of money. Does anyone know if this is feasible?

[sams99]

Bitcoins can be used to purchase marijuana, Bitcoins can be used to buy Dominos Pizza ... coincidence ... I don't think so.

[majmun]

there will be order pizza API in future

if( dateTime.Now == friday ) { orderPizza(pizzaType, pizzaSize); }

[mercurialshark]

Bitcoin mining can pay for sustenance (in theory). The future is here and it is delicious!

[jauer]

"However, it’s unlikely that the customer would be able to actually track the order through Domino’s online order tool."

Actually, so long as they have your phone number for delivery issues/to give the driver directions you can track any Domino's order by phone number on their web site (https://order.dominos.com/en/pages/tracker/#/track/order/). Last time I looked they were passing json around or something and it was easy to scrape.

[bfwi]

The exchange rate between USD and BTC is quite volatile. Either they have to constantly change the bitcoin price, or your pizzas will frequently get quite a bit cheaper or more expensive.

[ravenp]

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of anonymity? With coins being hard to get in the first place and a large fee, I can't see anyone using this.

[btilly]

Bitcoin is a currency. The point of it is to buy things.

Because it is based on encryption, it can provide both hiding of who you are, and strong proof of who you are. But it is cool that it can also supply you with pizza.

[Tichy]

BitCoin itself is not anonymous, although you can attempt to make it so. But anonymity is not the main selling point of BTC.

[throwaway125]

While it may be easy to transfer bitcoins anonymously, spending them anonymously on tangibles is just as hard as spending any other kind of money anonymously. Tax evaders are often caught because their lifestyle and assets are inconsistent with their reported income, and not necessarily because government is able to follow their money.

from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths

[jerguismi]

It is useful if you happen to have some coins and want to spend them without converting them to USD. Useful to some. I don't see how it defeats the anonymity. If you fear that the pizza service is run by FBI, you can always use your coins through a mixer.

[TBCM]

Great, pizza! The more things we can buy with this virtual currency, the better! If you'd like to start using Bitcoins check out http://thebitcoinmaster.blogspot.com

[mongol]

How is an income of Bitcoins taxed?

[mahyarm]

Same as the income of a cash only business.

[hooo]

Would you only be taxed when converting it back to $$?

[return0]

I wonder how dominos lawyers will feel about their brand name being used in connection with bitcoins, which so far are useful mostly for illegal trades.

[camus]

you can now convert your drug money into pizzas , neat!

[crdoconnor]

Even neater, the feds can now convert your transaction trail used to sell drugs into a physical address.

[mtgx]

I'm not sure why people make this kind of jokes. Yes some Bitcoin users use Bitcoin to buy drugs. And? What's your point? One of the most popular drugs is about to get legal soon in US.