Amazon recently opened its first "no checkout" store in Seattle, now followed by Sainsbury's opened similar "till-free" store in the UK. Such environment, where there is no cashier or even point of sale per se, is ideal for cryptocurrency payments. Till-free/no checkout stores are obviously unsuited for cash payments (or vice versa?), so the only option (besides crypto) is plastic card, or the card linked to your mobile phone app (i.e. Apple Pay). But what if you need some privacy and don't want to use plastic card? Maybe privacy is not that important for some people in grocery stores, but there will be other kinds of till-free stores... Or you simply don't have a bank account and plastic card, or your card is not accepted by Apple Pay? Here crypto goes on stage, because it combines the best features of two words: cash (it's anonymous and secure) and plastic cards (it's virtual and can be used on mobile phone).
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Here is more details about Bakkt - a Microsoft/ICE/Starbucks plan to centralize Bitcoin (and I guess other cryptocurrencies in the future) trading. Imagine that dozens of mutual funds, pension funds, and endowments hold Bitcoin in the Bakkt warehouse. If Asset Manager A buys $200 million in Bitcoin from Asset Manager B, the Bitcoin tokens simply move from B’s account at Bakkt to A’s account at Bakkt, via a trade on the ICE exchange. The total number of Bitcoins held at Bakkt doesn’t change. Let’s assume that millions of those transactions happen every day, all inside the Bakkt ecosystem. Bakkt simply keeps a ledger of those offsetting Bitcoin debit and credits. The individual purchases and sales don’t need to be broadcast to the blockchain. Basically, Bakkt warehouse is going to be another centralized exchange with private version of Bitcoin Lightning, a singleton proprietary off-chain settlement machine where all fees associated with transactions are paid to the single owner of the warehouse. Such approach obviously contradicts the principle of cryptocurrency decentralization. Although unlike credit card payments system banks are not part of this scheme, corporations are still going to set the rules of the game. You will have to have an account in this system in order to pay or get paid, which means there is still someone who decides whether you are or you are not eligible (not to mention privacy and security concerns associated with any centralized system).
The topic of my presentation:
CRYPTO IS UNDER SIEGE. POINT-OF-SALE MIGHT BE THE ANSWER, BUT ONLY IF DONE RIGHT Despite the fact everyone is discussing cryptocurrency, its potential and its progression, it still remains niche and cluttered: crypto in real estate, crypto in gaming or crypto in transportation. What about the average crypto owner? In the end, it will be these people that will be responsible for the mainstreaming of cryptocurrency. The everyday crypto owner isn’t going to buy a house with Bitcoin, for example, but would relish the opportunity to pay for a dinner with crypto. Yet as long as crypto remains niche and inaccessible, cryptocurrencies will not proliferate like once imagined. All Internet service in Algeria, both mobile and fixed line, will go off for an hour after the start of each high school diploma exam to stop any leaks. I am trying to imagine what would happen if something like this was done in the US...
Argentina raises interest rates to 40%. The rises are aimed at supporting the peso, which has lost a quarter of its value over the past year.
It's time for Argentina to move to cryptocurrencies! http://www.bbc.com/news/business-44001450 I will be speaking at BlockDev Conference 2018 in San Francisco on April 19. "PRO TALK: Buying an Espresso with Cryptocurrency - The Successes and Challenges of Integrating with Point-of-Sale".  I like this quote from Forbes article about segwit2x failure:
“One key takeaway is that it now seems clear that the base Bitcoin protocol is more of a digital gold than an improvement on PayPal or Visa. Having said that, better versions of those payment systems can still be built on top of that base Bitcoin layer.” "The lesson from the Internet is, anything that China bans, invest in it"
This is good comment to recent news on China's crackdown on Blockchain ICOs. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/6y0xvz/remember_fred_wilson_on_bitcoin_from_2014/?st=J76LKSO1&sh=a4a23c9f |
  Books
 Bitcoin for Nonmathematicians: Exploring the Foundations of Crypto Payments
 Hacking Point of Sale: Payment Application Secrets, Threats, and Solutions
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