So I wanted to use Bitcoin for an actual online payment transaction.
The user experience was absolutely atrocious.
“Exchanged” fiat money into Bitcoin at Coinbase. Easy enough. After all, it’s a billion dollar exchange-listed crypto exchange.
Then wanted to pay a small amount on a web site. The merchant used Coingate to handle crypto payments. Their web site, too, looks very professional.
So professional in fact, that they warn you ahead: “because transactions from exchanges get sent after a significant delay and sometimes the exchange charges a fee from the sent amount. As a result, transactions often arrive too late (when the invoice has already expired)” And that lines up with the explanation at Coinbase.
Yeah, I know, there’s a layer-2 network with Lightning. But alas, it seems unsupported by Coinbase.
But back to Coingate. After all, their FAQ is quite helpful in recommending sending from my own wallet. So where do I get one of these “wallets”, then? They also provide that info on their FAQ. In fact, there’s two wallets they recommend:
The first one looks rather in design. Not only in being English-only and their web site design, but also in their advice: “Electrum binaries are often flagged by various anti-virus software. There is nothing we can do about it (…) Finally, if you are really concerned about malware, you should not use an operating system that relies on anti-virus software.”
The second links to a Github page. Where they tell you they’ve changed their name and, oh, also warn you of fake app in the app store.
Seriously, does any normal person want to figure all of this stuff out, to make payments online?
Oh yeah, and regarding that electric car I wanted to buy - its manufacturer withdrew Bitcoin payments only a couple of weeks after announcing them with great fanfare.