Although we have used Bitpay I didn’t realize it was available for brick and mortar physical transactions since we’ve never done any. On that end it puzzles me how on earth anyone would ever use them?
Bitcoin can take minutes and even hours to confirm! Can you imagine waiting at the restaurant held hostage because “your transaction is unconfirmed?”. This is the advantage fiat processing still has.
But, really I think Bitpay should rebrand to use currencies that are actually usable for instantaneous transactions at retail or restaurant.
They should be using a currency like Ripple or Lumens which is nearly instant. There are a few currencies that have these properties but any Bitcoin or Ethereum derivative is simply not going to cut it in my opinion.
Personally I don’t know a single person who has or would use any of these coins for payments, we all reach for the cash, debit or credit. These are people like me, who are crypto enthusiasts but we also value convenience and what works. And I think a lot of the cryptoworld is stuck in a dream world that simply doesn’t exist. Now, for us in IT we and the customer can often wait over night for the transaction to be confirmed, but at a grocery store or restaurant neither the seller or customer would be impressed.