Photo by Andrew Catellier
Testing Bold Claims
For Boulder Blockchain’s last meetup of 2018, we held a party where crypto was the only accepted payment for beers. Crypto’s usefulness has long been projected into the future — something that will be great someday, just not today. But the time has come where crypto is not only faster, cheaper and more trustless, but also just more convenient.
Beers for Crypto
The biggest issue with going all-crypto is the chicken and egg problem: very few people actually have crypto in a spendable form. To address this, we split the venue into two sections, each with its own theme.
Outside: 2018. A human-powered Crypto ATM took your cash and gave you crypto in return. No credit cards, no PayPal, no Venmo. Fuck those guys — between Wells Fargo’s fraud, PayPal’s trustpilot reviews, and Venmo’s privacy issues, the bar was set pretty low.
Inside the speakeasy: 202X. Fiat has become horrendously inflated, traditional finance has collapsed, and crypto is ubiquitous. Welcome to the future.
Photo by Dan Shields
Going 100% Crypto
At Devcon IV in Prague, Paralelni Polis taught us a valuable lesson about being idealistic. The Institute of Cryptoanarchy requires all purchases to be made with crypto only. No exceptions. Sticking to that ideal forces a much deeper look at the available tools and what actually works.
Which Currencies Were Accepted
We sold 68 beers and transacted well over $400 in pure crypto. We accepted Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, DAI, and xDai.
For people who showed up without any crypto, we suggested the Burner Wallet. It gives you a wallet within seconds: no app download, no seed phrase, no email. Just scan and go.
We also used the Burner Wallet as our POS system. We printed out pre-populated QR codes for beer transactions.
Photo by Dan Shields
As transactions were sent, they popped up immediately on the bartender’s iPad.
Photo by Dan Shields
For currencies with variable block times, we sold wooden Solidcoins as an interface to the bar.
Photo by Andrew Catellier
Most of the value was sent over the xDai network since most attendees were new to crypto and it was the simplest experience.
[Chart: Amount spent by currency]
Comparison of Performance and Fees
Payment settlement time and fees are vital metrics. Bitcoin was the outlier for transaction times with its ~10 minute blocks. The Lightning Network has the potential to address this.
[Chart: Bitcoin transaction times are a drag]
Litecoin and xDai outperformed everyone else on fees. Litecoin came in at $0.000664666 per transaction. xDai was even cheaper at $0.0000231. You could send 15 Litecoin transactions or 432 xDai transactions for just a penny.
[Chart: Transaction fee comparison]
For comparison, credit card processing through Square takes 24-72 hours to clear and charges $0.49 on a $6.50 beer.
That makes credit cards 17,280 times slower and 21,212 times more expensive than the xDai network.
Looking Forward
The meetup was a blast and a genuine glimpse into the future. It was encouraging to see we’re closer than most people realize to mainstream adoption.
The most noteworthy takeaway wasn’t that crypto was faster, cheaper, or more trustless than traditional payment methods. It was that it was actually easier to use and quicker to onboard.
The critical test for mainstream adoption: most people don’t care about bits and Bitcoins. They just want less bullshit in their way.
We still have a long way to go. The tech is alpha software. Comically, for some users the wallet pulled up the selfie camera instead of the rear camera for scanning QR codes.
Photo by Dan Shields
Of the 22 new Burner Wallet users that night, only 1 has used it since. We need to get crypto into more hands and give people more places to spend it.
Challenges aside, I’m extremely excited about 2019. This is the year we break through with meaningfully useful applications.
Shoutouts
- Colorado Blockchain
- Michael Green — for organizing the Boulder Blockchain meetup
- Austin Griffith — building like a madman and giving us the Burner Wallet
- Casa — for sponsoring the event, and Paul Brower for making it happen
- Dan Shields — for the photos and being a crucial part of the CO blockchain community
- Andrew Catellier — for the awesome photos
- Jonathan Palmer — partner on Solidcoin and co-host
- The Riverside — awesome venue
More Pictures
Photo by Andrew Catellier
Photo by Andrew Catellier
Photo by Dan Shields
Photo by Dan Shields
Photo by Andrew Catellier
Photo by Andrew Catellier