
Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin - jonsouth
https://news.bitcoin.com/japanese-pay-utility-bills-bitcoin/
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ulrikrasmussen
I keep hearing about Bitcoin being used to pay for commodities, but will this
actually ever scale? With a maximum transaction rate of ~3.5 transactions per
second, won't any practical application of Bitcoin for the masses eventually
have to be implemented by a bunch of trusted third parties operating off the
blockchain and bundling transactions? At that point, we seem to be back to
using credit card companies who just happen to use the blockchain for clearing
transactions with each other.

~~~
kang
There are scaling solutions like lightning network being built and the blocks
are not full. Also for a cup of coffee you don't need so much security so go
use litecoin or something, why not.

~~~
repomies691
Why wouldn't I just use some trustful centralized solution for a cup of
coffee? In fact, I myself prefer to use credit card for these, where I don't
actually have to trust the payment method provider, but the payment method
provider trusts me to pay the bill one month later. I don't see how bitcoin
can compete on this sector, except for privacy issues.

~~~
rrobukef
You really do have to trust your payment method provider to protect you
against fraud. You have to trust it not to committing fraud. Your payment
method provider does not 'trust' you to pay the bill. They trust that they
have the bigger stick and better lawyers.

~~~
hueving
>You really do have to trust your payment method provider to protect you
against fraud. You have to trust it not to committing fraud.

Any major credit card provider in the US provides this with no hassle. I've
had people steal my number with 4 different credit card providers and the only
thing I've had to do is call them and identify the bad charges. The only
inconvenience is the 3 minute phone call and waiting a week for a new card.

~~~
Natanael_L
Which results in a high administrative overhead

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Mendenhall
A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from
inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I
was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send
me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People
can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank
account or waiting etc. I was able to spend it on things as well. Sure its not
the most convenient thing to buy most things with yet but its still very new.
I am not some bitcoin advocate or anything but just the ability to do
something like that I thought was very useful.

~~~
Frondo
Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to
become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all
currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to
deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-
sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in
those decisions.

With dollars, I get to vote regularly for people, and those people appoint
someone to call the shots on "how dollars work". So does everyone else (well,
registered voters, but you get my drift). They don't need to be versed in
printing or ACH or whatever to have their voice heard.

With bitcoin, if I'm not happy, where do I go to have my voice heard? Saying
"code up your changes and get 51% of the network on board" isn't the same, not
even same ballpark, or neighborhood, as "here's your ballot, citizen".

So that's my beef with bitcoin.

~~~
microcolonel
Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's
_actually_ fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair?
Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?

~~~
Nursie
How is "the people who can buy the most hashing power have the most votes"
fair?

That's the bitcoin majority...

~~~
Natanael_L
The hashing power follows the economic majority, not the other way around.

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kalleboo
> The service is the first of its kind in Japan, where Bitcoin is still a
> novelty in daily consumer life.

Where is Bitcoin _not_ a novelty in daily consumer life?

~~~
helthanatos
Wasn't there an article a few weeks ago that said bitcoin was on its last
legs? Did I imagine that or did that happen?

~~~
tylersmith
It's died at least a hundred times by now
[https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/)

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dvcrn
What is the advantage of this? Here in Japan every creditcard is giving you
some kind of bonus program and encourages you to use that card for your bills
so you automatically aggregate amazon / rakuten (japanese amazon competitor) /
ANA / etc points.

I mean, I guess I could exchange every month my yen into bitcoins and then pay
with it, but why?

~~~
nicky0
It would be convenient if you have an income or savings in Bitcoin.

Some people are attracted to using Bitcoin as a day to day currency and
payments system, to reduce their dependence on mainstream banking. The "be
your own bank" philosophy.

Admittedly right now Bitcoin seems like a novelty, but it will never reach
wider use without small "pointless" steps like this.

~~~
joosters
_It would be convenient if you have an income [...] in Bitcoin._

Miners, drug dealers, and who else exactly?

~~~
hueving
Ransomware authors, hitmen, online gambling sites, politicians, etc. All of
your favorite people are in!

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atemerev
Already implemented in the canton of Zug, Switzerland.

(Incidentally, this is where Vitalik Buterin, author of Ethereum, resides).

~~~
mtmail
I can add Hanover, Germany to the list.

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ungzd
Now you can pay for electricity consumed for mining bitcoins with bitcoins.

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camillomiller
Finally a way to get the dark web marketplaces incomes flowing back into the
economy!

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surprised_dev
Looks like the last season of Mr Robot was predictive.

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Arkaad
* Some Japanese * Electricity Bill

~~~
a_bonobo
The rollout map includes Kanto (Tokyo), Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto), Chubu (Nagoya),
that is the majority of population in Japan: 42,607,376 + 22,755,030 +
21,714,995 = 87,077,401 out of a total of 127,110,047, 68.5%

Bigger map on homepage:
[https://coincheck.com/en/blog/2353](https://coincheck.com/en/blog/2353)

~~~
ekianjo
You forgot Kobe in Kansai.

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ekianjo
> most japanese prefer it as a speculative investment.

Lol, you mean the 0.0001 percent of Most Japanese actually.

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csomar
I'm not sure if this is news or not.

You can pay for anything you can buy online (PayPal, Skrill and most payment
processors) and with Credit Card using Bitcoin.

In fact, you can create virtual credit cards with bitcoin without any
verification for amounts smaller than $2,500.

However, here is the catch: It comes with around 5-10% premium to the Bitcoin
spot prices on major exchanges (Coinbase, circle, etc..)

So unless you are buying with something like Gemini (where bank transfers are
free) and you are not getting any premium on the bitcoin price, this is not a
novelty.

I don't know how accessible Bitcoin is for Japanese consumers; and how much
it'd cost (premium over spot) to buy it. But if it is, indeed, easy; this can
be huge.

If you are a heavy consumer (say $5,000 per month), 5% will make around
$250/month in savings, or $3,000/year. That's something worth the hassle.

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pinaceae
can != will

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gjolund
But why?

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andy_ppp
In Japan right now and hardly anywhere seems to take card. It's a very cash
focused society in my opinion, but really it's impossible to tell what would
make sense to Japanese people, everything here can feel almost deliberately
contrary at times; they eat KFC on Christmas day, all the locks turn anti-
clockwise to open and people aren't fat despite massive amounts of refined
carbs.

~~~
dennist
Really? I use my credit card for maybe 70% of my spendings. It's true you
absolutely need to have cash on you for the occasions when you can't use it
but I can buy a 30 yen chocolate bar in every convenience store here. Compare
that to Germany where I think no supermarket takes credit cards and even to
use electronic cash you have to spend a minimum amount.

~~~
adrianN
Almost every German supermarket takes credit cards usually without a minimum
amount. I use mine to pay for almost everything.

~~~
dennist
Oh interesting, I didn't know. A lot must have changed in the last couple
years. I was just there this month and didn't notice any credit card logos at
the checkouts and just assumed they still weren't accepted.

~~~
kalleboo
IIRC in an earlier thread about this someone said that things changed quickly
in Germany once the EU started enforcing lower interchange fees.

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xedarius
A friend of mine who lives in Tokyo told me that in Japan it's near impossible
to transfer money from one bank to another. He told me the way Japanese people
transfer money between banks was to draw the cash out in one and pay it in to
another. I'm prepared to be corrected if this tale isn't true.

However, with this in mind, it seems like quite a leap from a non-electronic
intra-bank system to Bitcoin. On the other hand, it may be the poor banking
system that's created this.

~~~
patio11
_A friend of mine who lives in Tokyo told me that in Japan it 's near
impossible to transfer money from one bank to another_

Go to any of your bank's ATMs with your ATM card and/or passbook. Select 振込.
Input amount. You will be asked the bank, bank branch, and 7 digit account
number of the person you are sending it to. You will then be (typically) shown
a screen which shows you the fee (100 to about 500 yen depending on bank and
size of transaction) and lets you adjust your telephone number or name if
required for the convenience of the firm receiving your payment. Hit OK. If
done within banking hours, the payment is effectively instantaneous. If you
cannot follow these instructions, you can ask a teller to assist.

If you're doing the transfers between your own accounts _and_ they're at
different institutions then one will occasionally see people withdraw to cash
and then immediately redeposit in a second account, to save the ~300 yen or
whatever.

In related news, Japan is a major Western country and banks do not communicate
via couriers and smoke signals, contrary to impressions your friend may have.

~~~
lmm
> Japan is a major Western country

Um...

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euske
Here we go again, I'm learning yet another "Japan is weird/oddly advanced"
thing from a non-Japanese source...

I believe all Westerners want Japan to be weird and perverted. ALL of them.

~~~
krapp
This is a Bitcoin article written for a Bitcoin news site, I don't detect any
"weird Japan" vibe in it anywhere.

