Need some fuel? Pay with Bitcoin!
That's right, the things you can buy with Bitcoin are expanding!
Did you know that you can purchase gasoline with Bitcoin, at least in some parts of the country?
Texas based oil and gas data company, Oilfield Intel LLC announced a few years ago that they would accept Bitcoin at their retail gas station. This marked the first in the industry to do so.
Then a few months later, the Cosmic Market in Greeley Colorado announced that they would be accepting Bitcoin at their retail gas station and also manually in their convenience store as well.
Those were exciting developments but haven't spurred much adoption up to this point.
The real exciting news comes from an inventor...
Andy Schroder invented a new way of purchasing fuel via Bitcoin.
He designed and built a fuel machine that allows customers to scan a QR code and send Bitcoin instead of using more traditional means of payment to fill up their vehicle.
If this were to catch on, it could change the entire way we as consumers obtain commodities that we use every day.
Schroder hopes to adapt his design to incorporate the new Lightning off-chain payments technology, which would allow for real time micro-payments which could take his payment idea mainstream.
So far, he is having some issues incorporating the technology.
As it operates now, the payment processing system refunds any unused portions of the Bitcoin prepaid amount. A fixed amount is prepaid upfront and the unused portion is distributed back to the customer.
That second part is causing a bit of hangup with using the Lightning technology.
Schroder is currently using Bitcoin Improvement Protocol (BIP 70) which creates a receipt for the customer and also automatically provides a refund address to the seller.
The Lightning invoice protocol doesn't appear to accommodate such refunds.
A possible fix could involve fitting cars with an on-board digital wallet, although that would be more of a longer term fix for the problem and not one that could likely be implemented in the very near term.
Schroder is going back to the drawing board, figuring out how he can make this all work, but if history is any indicator, he will figure out a solution in no time.
Stay informed my friends.
Sources:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/paying-bitcoin-gas-pump-1398810681/
https://www.coindesk.com/creator-of-worlds-first-bitcoin-fuel-pump-plans-lightning-support/
Image Sources:
https://www.coindesk.com/inventor-creates-commercial-bitcoin-fuel-pump/
https://www.coindesk.com/creator-of-worlds-first-bitcoin-fuel-pump-plans-lightning-support/
Follow me: @jrcornel
Amazing gas station :) good choice
Hi ,
Thanks for the great content
OMG lol, instead of diesel only or credit card only pumps now there are Bitcoin only pumps! :)
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That's awesome! I literally just wrote about accepting Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum in my taxicabs! Check it out. https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@thatdude/taxicab-now-accepting-bitcoin-litecoin-and-ethereum-steem-is-next
That's really great, you can spread the knowledge about cryptos to the passengers
That is awesome! I can't wait till you add steem. :)
In the works! I'll let you know when I do. :)
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Amazing....
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@space-man/one-easy-way-to-mine-is-cloud-based-mining
Sweet
Great
I can see this implementation working better with other currencies that take less time to verify the transaction and have no fees. Interesting to see cryptos expanding with real life use solutions.
Yes those are my thoughts as well. That is why he is trying to implement the Lightning network. He also said he would be looking at adding other currencies to broaden it's appeal.
Gas is so 19th century. Let's purchase some hydrogen or some algae fuel man, bring on the future !! (-:
I think you mean, back to the future! :)
yeah... that too ! (-:
🤔😎😂😂
A lot of people in the comments here are talking about transaction fees.
Just a quick note on that for anyone who might not know - Credit card transactions have fees associated with them that are unknown to the card user. These fees are typically 2-3% plus a flat transaction fee of $.10-$.50, and are billed to the retailer. So while you may be paying $30 at the pump, the gas station is only getting $29 of that, give or take.
Bitcoin will allow you to pay $29 at the pump and then a small transaction fee. So your gas will be cheaper even with the fee.
The much bigger challenge is the transaction time. Credit cards are near instant and it's going to be a major hurdle for mass adoption of bitcoin until the transaction time is much faster.
Bingo! Thanks for the clarification.
It's coming, although there are surely some bugs to work out yet. In my opinion, the main key is to, yes, work out the details, but to find a solution that keeps the transaction costs to a minimum. Obviously, high transaction costs would really hurt mainstream adoption.
Yes, that and the speed of the transaction. If it can be as fast as swiping a card then we have something here...
Bitcoin has no real value, its just a digital asset, kind of like a digital car. should something happen to the economy, its outright useless.
This is great news and demonstrates the network effect of bitcoin, over the Alts. You don't hear stories of coin X being accepted anywhere! Sooner or later there will be A cras and the majority of coins will not recover. The key coins will continue to thrive though. coins will continue to thrive though.
Damn that's awesome!