24 June 2014 / Telegraph – I can clearly remember the first time I used a ZX Spectrum, the first mass-marketed home computer. After learning a bit of basic programming, I was left wondering: what’s the point?
I felt something similar the other evening after paying for a pizza online for the first time using Bitcoin, the new digital currency everyone is talking about. It was slightly fiddly, but rather fun. Yet having munched my way through the pizza, I couldn’t help noticing that it tasted pretty much the same as those I’ve paid for with cash or a debit card.
So what is the big deal about Bitcoin?
When the first home computers came along, you had to be a geek to use one. Only later have iPads and smartphones become so magnificently intuitive that you don’t even need an instruction manual.
I suspect it’ll be a similar story with Bitcoin.
Right now, not many retailers accept them. To pay for a pizza with Bitcoin, you need to find a website like TakeAway.com first. But that will change.
Helping make Bitcoin more user-friendly are entrepreneurs like Jonathan Harrison, whose firm SatoshiPoint is setting up a string of Bitcoin ATMs across Britain. Soon, Bitcoin could be as readily convertible into physical cash as any other currency.
The CoinPocket app I downloaded to store my Bitcoins is, by chance, next to my retail bank app on my smart phone screen. How long before the latter starts to accept payments from the former?
Just like computers, Bitcoin will become more user-friendly….. Read more
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglascarswellmp/100277255/bitcoin-does-more-than-pay-for-pizza/
