Most don’t know I have been following bitcoin from the very beginning. When I first heard about it I felt that it was revolutionary and would change the world, but now…
I started out being only a watcher and looking at what it was doing. Meaning how the price fluctuated, how some business started to accept it as payment, and how people started to use it to pay or donate bitcoin to others. It was at this time I felt like I need to do a little bit of research.
So that is just what I did.
I watch YouTube videos about it, read Forbes, and looked over the information on the Bitcoin website. While doing that “research”, I discovered that you don’t have to pay for Bitcoin, you can mine Bitcoin. BINGO!
I just found a way I could be a part of this wave without having to use my personal money because of the volatility of the currency.
You can probably guess what I did next… research. But based on everything I was reading I had some big questions.
- How do you mine bitcoin?
- What do I need to mine bitcoin?
- Is mining bitcoin illegal or is it legal?
- Etc.
After going through the battery of questions I had about it and looking up each answer to get a clear picture, I decided to move forward into this unknown abyss.
Fast forward, six or so years later and I have been mining every since. I have had downtime a couple of times based on moving, changing servers, adding more miners and things like that. But all in all it has been pretty consistent.
I guess I should have told you this post was not details about bitcoin and how it works, but more so my experience with bitcoin and how excited I am to have made my first transaction using the currency today.
I was going to make a purchase online and I could have used my credit card. Which I didn’t want to at this site I never shopped at before.
I could have used my PayPal account which is what would normally have been my go to while online shopping. But, when I got to the payment screen there was an option that took me by surprise because I don’t normally see this.
The option, BITCOIN!
I said to myself, well you have been stacking up bitcoins for the last couple of years and the value is pretty high so why not try to make a purchase using it? And so, I did.
Let me tell you, when I clicked the Bitcoin button the page refreshed like it would if you were making a paypal payment but didn’t ask me for any information. Instead, it reminded me of when you are using Wal-Mart Pay to check out at Wal-Mart.
I was presented with a 2-D barcode and an option to click a link and use my CoinBase account. There was also a timer that was counting down which gave me, I think, 15 mins (more than enough time) to make the payment or my transaction would stop processing and I would have to reinitiate the transaction.
I chose to open my iPhone and using my Coinbase app scan the barcode to send the payment. Pointed my camera on the screen at the barcode and ¡viola! payment made!
It was one of the most seamless payments I have had the pleasure with making. If I could use BitCoin everywhere this smoothly, checking out would be a lot faster which means less frustrations for customers and more money for businesses.
So, if you are a business owner and you accept Bitcoin on your site or in your store I would like to get your comments below. Let the other readers know your store name and your website so they can use Bitcoin also.
Or if you are fed up with the current payment options I would like to hear it down below in the comments. What are your frustrations or what do you like?
Also if you have used bitcoin to pay for anything I would like to hear that also. How did it go for you? Did you run into any issues?
