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New Starbucks Partnership With Microsoft Allows Customers To Pay For Frappuccinos With Bitcoin (cnbc.com)
Earlier this week, Nestle said it was jumping on the blockchain bandwagon, today, Starbucks said it is ready to top that. From a report: The Seattle-based coffee giant is working with Microsoft and a leading global exchange on a new digital platform that will allow consumers to use bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies at Starbucks. Starbucks along with Intercontinental Exchange, Microsoft and BCG, among others, is working to launch a new company called Bakkt that will enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend cryptocurrencies on the global network by November. The platform with convert bitcoin and other cryptocoins into U.S. dollars that can be used to buy a Cold Foam Cascara Cold Brew, Matcha Lemonade or anything else at Starbucks. Starbucks has consistently been at the forefront of embracing new technologies. For instance, it added support for mobile payments in 2011. In May, it was estimated that Starbucks' mobile payment solution is more popular than those of Apple and Google.
In a statement, Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments for Starbucks, "As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks. As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers."
According to Starbucks spokespeople, Motherboard reports, Starbucks doesn't want bitcoins, but it's willing to help people spend them -- the venture is an exchange that will allow people to convert their cryptocurrency into US dollars, which they can then spend at Starbucks locations.
In a statement, Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments for Starbucks, "As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks. As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers."
According to Starbucks spokespeople, Motherboard reports, Starbucks doesn't want bitcoins, but it's willing to help people spend them -- the venture is an exchange that will allow people to convert their cryptocurrency into US dollars, which they can then spend at Starbucks locations.
The problem with bitcoins is that they are too volatile. That $5.00 Coffee you bought today could have a opportunity cost of $15.00 next year. Vs using the Dollar where that $5.00 would have an opportunity cost of $5.15 the next year.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
... mouth-to-mouth to try and create a market nobody asked for.
You know, like Air Pods.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Pay For Frappuccinos With Bitcoin
Nope. First you'll transfer bitcoins to them (ie. give away control of your bitcoins, hello hacker target). Then you'll pay with your totally-not-a-bank balance.
No one actually pays for anything with bitcoin. People pay for things with real money. It might've been liquidated from bitcoin somehow, but it was paid for with real money.
Hipsters ... buying hipster coffee ... with hipster money ... using their hipster phones ... so they can sit their with their hipster Macbooks ... using their hipster apps to post pictures to hipster social media ... so that other fucking hipsters spending their hipster money in hipster coffee shops can all knowingly nod their hipster beards in what passes as a hipster gesture of approval before posting their own hipster drivel.
It's mother fucking hipsters all the way down, I tell 'ya.
Service like BitPay can make it converted to USD instantly, or a part of it. For instance if you want to sell TShirt for Bitcoin you could keep 20% in BTC and 80% in your local currency.
Which actually has less value, Bitcoin or Starbucks Frappuccinos?
Starbucks' mobile payment solution is more popular
Not with people like me. Stuck behind someone trying to reload an account. Or doing the iPhone shake, trying to get the reader to recognize a screen barcode.
I've got cash. I'll just be a moment. Please.
Have gnu, will travel.
We just need Dominos to start accepting Bitcoin for pizza and we will have come full circle. I imagine they will cost significantly less than 10,000 BTC each though.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Hipsters ... buying hipster coffee ... with hipster money ... using their hipster phones ... so they can sit their with their hipster Macbooks ... using their hipster apps to post pictures to hipster social media ... so that other fucking hipsters spending their hipster money in hipster coffee shops can all knowingly nod their hipster beards in what passes as a hipster gesture of approval before posting their own hipster drivel.
It's mother fucking hipsters all the way down, I tell 'ya.
Let me guess... you disliked hipsters before it was cool to dislike hipsters.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
$5 worth of bitcoin will be worth about zero next year. That $5 cash would be worth $4.98 next year due to inflation. The cup of coffee will keep your productive which is worth $100+ depending on your level of income.
If you had invested in NVIDIA 5 or 6 years ago, you'd have a 10x return on your money.
Turns out the shovels are a lot more valuable than the dirt being mined
Work Safe Porn
HODL!
PedoPesos are ment to be HODL...
or your going to be SYFL...
BTC seems to depend a lot on its brand/image as a cool counterculture for affluent technoanarchists and people who want the aesthetic of being one.. I can not imagine a joint venture with Microsoft and Starbucks will help that image.
"proof I was able to most efficiently turn a quantity of electricity into waste heat."
But that isn't the reason for the calculations. The calculations are done to verify transactions are legitimate so nobody can post fake transactions (double spend) to the blockchain. We can argue about how efficient that process is or isn't but it is incorrect to say the proof is only turning electricity into heat. It's purpose is more than that.
If a Starbucks manager is under pressure to increase monthly sales. (And who isn't these days. See Wells Fargo) It won't take him long to capture your Latte order and, say, triple it.
More generally, is anyone tracking BitCoin's attack surface?
Do people even drink those anymore?
and they're doing something screwy to hide the actual backend exchange and eating the fees. On a $5 coffee there's probably enough margin there to get away with it in exchange for the advertising bump they're getting and if the exchange rate results in losses more than the advert is worth they'll quietly stop taking bitcoin like Valve did.
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So how many bitcoins do I need to buy a frap?
Ok, an honest question about the sustainability of bitcoin.
Two features of bitcoin seem to be unsustainable:
1) The complicated processing necessary to make bitcoin work is rewarded by "mining" new coins. People use their computers to work for money.
2) The ultimate number of bitcoins is limited and "mining" will get harder and harder until there are no more coins.
So, what happens when that last coin is mined? What incentive will there be then for people to volunteer computer power to make the exponentially more complicated bit coin system work? Seems like, after there are no more coins, the system is going to collapse.
Hmm, so my coffee will cost £1 tomorrow and then £15 the day after, then maybe 30 pence?
Can they also add an option to transfer my portfolio to their brokerage and buy frappuccinos with my Philip Morris equity and Greek 10Ys, because that’s precisely what they are doing here. It makes no sense on so many levels, although I’m certain some Bitcoiner somewhere will be excited about this and use it in the most inconvenient way imaginable.
Starbucks was going to get involved with blockchain technology eventually. Starbucks is a chain, and there's one on every block. Synergy.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.