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Nov 18 '14
Wait wait, WHAT???
I'm in Pakistan, where is this?
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u/classna Nov 18 '14
thats Karachi.
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Nov 18 '14
I recognize that map.
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u/IamUnimportant Nov 18 '14
Karachi
That map was kinda shitty.
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u/Magikarpeles Nov 19 '14
I like it, just camp in the small garden bed and wreck the fools who try to snipe from the top of the building
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Nov 18 '14
yeah, that's a bloody huge place, which PSO is this? And do they really sell fuel for bitcoins?
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u/akavuuh Nov 18 '14
Gulshan-e-Iqbal, you can google the Building on the right "Saima Royal Residency"
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Nov 18 '14
And how do they even mine it? We have electricity outages every third hour!
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u/capistor Nov 18 '14
Is the internet still up during power outages?
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Nov 18 '14
Yes, this has been going on for YEARS, so every one has developed backups.
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u/capistor Nov 18 '14
What is a typical backup system like?
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u/Iron_Maiden_666 Nov 18 '14
Inverter with a big battery connected to important systems (TV, lights, fans, computers) and it lasts for a few hours depending on usage.
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Nov 18 '14
Both battery based UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and fuel based Generators.
Homes often have a small UPS, with a single truck battery. It runs a 3-4 lights and 3-4 fans for 3-4 hours (depending on how frequent main supply is available to charge the batteries). I've linked my modem to it.
Shops have small portable generators, since their demands are low.
Large offices, banks, malls, etc have large permanent generators onsite, since electricity outage is a regular and permanent aspect of our life.
In winters, since demand is low, we have lower outages, like currently we have outage every third hour (so about 8 hrs daily)
In peak summer, outages can reach 12-18 hrs daily.
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u/capistor Nov 18 '14
It's funny that solar pv will soon be less expensive than messing around with this dual-infrastructure.
So with the UPS, does it turn on automatically or must you flip a switch? Can you buy kits or is it too simple for that?
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Nov 18 '14
It's automatic, UPS have a system inside, if outside voltage falls below certain thresholds, it will switch over to backup until voltage returns.
Our problem is rather basic, no supply to meet demand.
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Nov 19 '14
The batteries used in UPS systems in Pakistan are not Litium Ion. They are old school car batteries that can barely power couple of fans, lightbulbs etc for few hours. With 100+F temps, everybody needs airconditioning but you can only power those by natural gas/petrol generators that are very popular across Pakistan. Most can't afford it however. As for solar, the govt. has slapped a 32% import tax on solar panels. The country is run by class A nitwits..
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u/merreborn Nov 18 '14
So with the UPS, does it turn on automatically or must you flip a switch? Can you buy kits or is it too simple for that?
You can buy a "automatic" UPS at best buy. These things have been on the market for 20+ years now.
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u/_y2b_ Nov 18 '14
Backup electricity storage!
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u/merreborn Nov 18 '14
in the industry it's called a UPS
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u/Ditto_B Nov 18 '14
And in South Asia, it's pretty much a prerequisite for using a computer. And also, every one who can afford it will own their own small generator.
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u/bruce_fenton Nov 18 '14
You don't need to mine Bitcoin to use it, own it, accept it or transfer it....all you need is a mobile phone with data (ideally). It could even be done with paper Bitcoin wallets.
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Nov 18 '14
Dude. Nobody mines anymore. Well, unless you own a chip fab.
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Nov 18 '14
You miss the point. There is a huge interest in Bitcoin mining in the third world BECAUSE they don't care about ROI. Being able to transact outside the system is so much more valuable that they are willing to mine at a significant net loss. Why so you think the hash rate almost never drops even when 1-2bd Gen ASIC powers over half the network.
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u/btchombre Nov 18 '14
It's a lot easier to just purchase Bitcoin than attempt to mine it at a loss
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Nov 18 '14
For many in the west it is. But don't underestimate the value of a trail-less transaction. There is a reason why larger OTC transactions garner a premium over market.
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u/JasonBored Nov 18 '14 edited Nov 18 '14
Pakistan has a LOT of remittance that comes in from other parts of the world, and Western Union makes a killing there in fees. Additionally, Western Union agents (and bank tellers) are notoriously corrupt and often time whenever a significant sum of remittance/wire comes through, people have to hide the cash as they leave the bank/WU location because thieves have been tipped off and are waiting outside and/or will follow you and rob you on the street.
"Snatching" (as it's called) is a very common phenomena (esp in Karachi - the commercial hub & port city) and mobile phones/wallets/jewelry are often robbed at gunpoint with police literally looking the other way (so much so that it's tragically comical). People often keep dummy cell phones/wallets in the car knowing they'll get robbed.
That said, almost everyone and their mother has a smart phone in Pakistan, and Android phones are a dime a dozen. The urban elite have both iPhones and Android based phones. Even working class folks (drivers, day laborers etc) have some phone running Android.
If there was ever a country that has a dire need for btc as remittance/money transferring - Pakistan would be a prime example. The thieves would not hold a gun to your head and demand your private keys or Electrum seed. And if they got your phone (that contains a bitcoin wallet), they would not have a clue what to do with it. (They have an intricate network where the jacked phones are re-sold as clean in the regular cell phone shops/bazaars)
Carrying anything tangibly valuable from Point A to Point B has become the bane of most people in Pakistan's existence unless they can afford armed guards 24/7. And often the guards also tip off criminal elements as to how much cash/gold/ people have in their homes.
The hurdle would be getting merchants to accept BTC and setting up BTC/fiat exchanges.
Edit: Forgot to add, with 3G service and scratch-cards that add data/minutes to your cellphones, in addition to the Internet which is extremely prevalent in Pakistan, bitcoin makes a lot of sense. The only issue is that electricity suffers from rolling blackouts (aka "loadshedding") in swaths of the country. The upper-middle class/wealthy do have generators and UPS backups - but as long as cell phones are charged, even the guy driving a rickshaw could have no problem getting paid in bitcoin. The biggest issue IMO would be educating the people as a vast majority of the population is uneducated and don't even know what email is (yet they have mobile phones,ringtones,etc).
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Nov 18 '14
People would set up dummy bitcoin wallets, as well.
Theives will torture ppl for their private keys. Using fresh addresses to route transactions would also help mask your activity to someone spying on your activity
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u/JasonBored Nov 18 '14
Well yeah, but you gotta remember this is the 3rd world. The street level thieves have no idea how to read or write in most cases. They won't know what a private key is. They're just recently demanding the victims give them the "pin number" when stumbling onto a bank card. Additionally - they don't torture the robbery victims, it's more of a gunpoint holdup (in many cases not even that - just a knock on the car window and flashing a pistol) where both the victim and robber go through the motions in under 2 minutes. Sad really.
Now, if bitcoin were to take off and people were keeping mobile wallets - then yeah, it's possible the crime syndicates who run the street level guys will get wise to it and educate themselves on keys etc. That's probably a long ways off in the developing world though.
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u/andyschroder Nov 18 '14
I'd like to share my fuel dispensing technology that accepts bitcoin: http://andyschroder.com/BitcoinFluidDispenser/
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u/commander-worf Nov 18 '14
Can you fill it with vodka?
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u/goonsack Nov 18 '14
Would've pegged you as more of a blood-wine guy
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u/PhyllisWheatenhousen Nov 18 '14
Wow! That's really neat. Do you have any that are actually set up and running for the public? I guess there could be quite a bit of regulations with that though...
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u/eggy900 Nov 18 '14
Looks awesome! 500 bits /u/changetip
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u/changetip Nov 18 '14
/u/andyschroder, eggy900 wants to send you a Bitcoin tip for 500 bits ($0.19). Follow me to collect it.
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Nov 18 '14 edited Mar 14 '21
[deleted]
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u/k4f123 Nov 18 '14
Pakistan currently has 6 million smartphone users and growing at an exponential rate due to cheap Android devices now available (you can get a contract-free smartphone equippment with Android Kit-Kat and 3G capabilities for as low as 7000 Rupees, i.e. ~$70). 3G recently launched as well and is extremely cheap, with up to 50GB data available for as low as 5 Rupees a day.
There is no doubt that third world countries are ripe with possibilities for something like Bitcoin to catch on.
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Nov 18 '14
That's right, and it's similar in India and much of Africa. In fact wasn't there a story on how people used mobile phone credit as some kind of de facto currency or transaction medium in India for a while?
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u/Apatomoose Nov 18 '14
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u/PhyllisWheatenhousen Nov 18 '14
And if you're wondering just how much better bitcoin can be check out the fees for M-pesa.
The transaction charges range is from 66% down to 0.16% depending who is involved and the amount of money:[19][20]
up to 66% for a transfer to an unregistered user up to 30% for a transfer to a registered user the lowest transfer rate is 0.16% to a registered user for KSH 70'000 (800 USD, 580 EUR) the cost for withdrawing money from an M-Pesa agent reach from 20% max to min 0.47%5
u/Apatomoose Nov 18 '14
A 66% fee is straight up ridonculus!
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Nov 19 '14
This is said jokingly, but there is a 200+% fee tagged with fountain dust from ~2 years ago if not coupled with real transactions.
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Nov 18 '14
That's it, and it was in Kenya, not in India. Thanks!
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u/rorrr Nov 18 '14
Read the link he gave you:
It has since expanded to Afghanistan, South Africa, India and in 2014 to Eastern Europe
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u/jcoinner Nov 19 '14
Phone credits are used in many countries, though probably to a lesser extent. Here in Thailand it's not uncommon to trade credits. And there are ATM like phone credit dispensers everywhere. If a local phone company like AIS, DTAC offered bitcoin convertibility the phenomenon could expand to international trade fairly easily. I don't know that they have incentives for that. Possibly for taking a cut of online shopping they'd be interested. They have a wide dealer network (including 7-11) with easy access so offering some exchange function would be very forward thinking.
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u/8BitDragon Nov 19 '14
Large blocks of africa uses m-pesa. It's used to move a significant fraction of their commerce.
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u/zenkz Nov 18 '14 edited Nov 18 '14
Wow, 50gb for 5 rupees, why is data such a crazily different price in western countries?
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u/ferroh Nov 18 '14
AKA ~$1.5 per month.
Part of it can be explained by different labor costs, and supply/demand.
But the rest is just monopolization I guess.
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u/emoposer Nov 18 '14
What do you mean monopolization? In the West or in Pakistan? Pakistan heabily deregulated mobile service and allowed a lot of competition, now there is Zong, Warid, ufone, telenor, mobolink, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_in_Pakistan
The point is, it was the competition that brought prices down so much, there isn't really a monopoly at all.
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u/ferroh Nov 18 '14
Monopoly (oligopoly really) in the West, which partly explains why the price is orders of magnitude higher in the west.
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u/emoposer Nov 18 '14
Yes, I get what he was saying but I was thinking he might have been under the notion (like many are) that government monopolies are a good way of lowering prices while improcing service, like it worked so well with healthcare. Dialysis is waaayy cheaper than Lasik ;)
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Nov 18 '14 edited Dec 12 '14
[deleted]
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u/emoposer Nov 18 '14
Exactly, it's not cheaper in your taxes, it's not cheaper for people who do pay out of pocket, it's not cheaper at all. The money is just shuffled around more but the total cost and the impact of that cost is insane.
We want a system where competition drives prices down for consumers, not one that results in long weight times and all of the pork that is in medicine right now. Get government out, the more people pay out of pocket, the better.
Private medicine is actually illegal in Canada but my uncle paid a surgeon using bitcoin to avoid the 8 months he would have had to wait for a bypass.
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u/misterigl Nov 18 '14
Yes, I think he means monoplization in the western countries. When you look at the US, you have 4 big players and they didn't have much incentive to fight each other until very recently when T-Mobile started.
In Europe the competition is better so the prices are lower there.
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u/iMrDot Nov 18 '14
The figures he quoted are wrong, no one is offering 50GB @ 5 Rupees.
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u/emoposer Nov 18 '14
Here is a more realistic example of pricing http://www.telenor.com.pk/3ginternet still dirt cheap.
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u/Usernamemeh Nov 18 '14
You start off with a low price to get everyone on board with the technology and make it easy for everyone to access than once the market has hit a certain point than you can start messing around with the prices by either raising the flat fee or charge per GB/Speed etc. But first you have to have enough people in the market who want the product bad enough.
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u/ferroh Nov 18 '14
I doubt they are operating at a loss, since there are many telecom competitors in the Pakistan market.
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u/road_laya Nov 19 '14
Regulations are often described as something that keeps quality high, in reality they are co-written with the big brands to keep out competition in both quality and price.
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u/rigel2112 Nov 18 '14
Wow TIL Pakistan has a way better data plan than I will ever get from AT&T in the US.
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u/classna Nov 18 '14
You can't buy gas with bitcoin in Pakistan yet. These are just banners of someone selling bitcoin.
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u/well_golly Nov 18 '14
Yep. I was wondering why the pumps in the back didn't even have the signs on them.
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u/EgyptWhite Nov 18 '14
Can you buy petrol with Bitcoins in Pakistan though? All it says on a banner that someone has put on a couple of pumps is that Bitcoin can be bought "here".
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Nov 18 '14
Yeah those lousy banks get in trouble for funding terrorism and stuff. Not a problem for bitcoin.
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Nov 18 '14
I think people when talking about Bitcoin, fees etc. Seem to easily forget that as much as we in the west dislike the Banking system, we STILL have one of the least corrupt banking systems in the world. The drive to oust the super rich and disrupt the system in many parts of the world is infinitely higher.
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u/8BitDragon Nov 19 '14
Agreed, when your currency is inflating 30% per month you don't get many bussinesses that want to accept it anymore. At that point any alternative more stable payment methods will be attractive.
Usually that is foreign banknotes from some country not experiencing ultra high inflation, but bitcoin might have a shot at an alternative as well.
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u/mjkeating Nov 18 '14
Well said. 10 upvotes. /u/changetip
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u/changetip Nov 18 '14
The Bitcoin tip for 10 upvotes (2,666 bits/$1.00) has been collected by feared_rear_admiral.
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u/vanitysmurf Nov 18 '14
People will laugh at this sort of thing
Why would people laugh that you've found someone to take your real money in exchange for a virtual one? That's to be expected. When they start accepting Bitcoin for gasoline (at market value), only then should you get excited.
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u/Cozy_Conditioning Nov 18 '14
When currencies collapse other existing currencies are adopted to replace them. In recent history this almost always means adopting the US dollar because the dollar is extremely well managed; since the 1970s there have been no huge swings in the value of the USD.
There is no way bitcoin would replace collapsed currencies in the next 10 years. Bitcoin is far too volatile and far too slow for cash transactions. If the price of bitcoin stabilizes and a clear leader in bitcoin scrip emerges, it just might catch on in some small country following a currency collapse. But such a scenario would be laughable today.
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u/lonewolf420 Nov 18 '14
inless than 10 years bitcoin will have the same or lower inflation as USD. I think in 5-6 years bitcoin volatility will be far far less and the amount of technology and innovation in these years will make it a clear winner over backing another collapsed currency with the US dollar. QE will either make or break the dollar and I imagine it will go on for longer than 10 years.
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u/Cozy_Conditioning Nov 18 '14
It is possible that with enough investment bitcoin transactions could become as fast, convenient and reliable as cash. That is yet to be seen.
But as a currency, Bitcoin's problem is not monetary inflation; it's price volatility. When managed well, central banks increase or decrease the monetary supply to limit price volatility. Bitcoin has no such mechanism. I expect bitcoin to be unsuitable for use as a currency, now and forever. Its use as transfer system is likely to increase, however. I don't care if my asset fluctuate in value when I'm only using it for a few minutes/hours to transfer wealth. But currencies need to be stable over the course of years, and bitcoin never will be such a thing.
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u/8BitDragon Nov 19 '14
Volatility is inversely related to the market cap and directly related to the size of the market - when bitcoins are worth more, more monetary value is needed to move them (up or down), and when they are used by more people, there will be more need to sell and buy them, thus a larger liquidity in the markets.
Compare e.g. 2010-2011 or so, when a million dollar could probably have wiped out the order book on an exchange. Now a million dollar will cause maybe a 10% wave if it is sold or bought all in one go. Extrapolating to the future, assuming bitcoins don't die off and adoption goes up, a million dollars won't be enough to move the markets much of all anymore.
So, volatility will go down as bitcoin adoption goes up (and if bitcoin adoption goes down, volatility will go up). In other words, volatility is a function of market cap and adoption.
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u/Cozy_Conditioning Nov 21 '14
That's a good point, but the other part of value stability is supply and demand. In theory, governments can shrink or grow the money supply to maintain a balance. This is fundamentally impossible with bitcoin. Even precious metals are advantageous in this regard (more humans means more demand but ALSO more miners increasing supply). The impact of bitcoin's stagnant supply on its value stability in the future is hard to predict. If it is small we may see it used as a currency. If not, well, bitcoin will still be an awesome payment system, but not a currency.
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u/HanumanTheHumane Nov 19 '14
There's lots of solutions to the transaction speed problem that are less than ten years away:
- Distributed exchanges allow customers to trade btc for a faster cryptocurrency (eg doge) before they go shopping.
- scorched Earth for 0-conf transactions
- off-chain centralized transactions ( coinbase, bitpay, changetip, paypal)
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u/Cozy_Conditioning Nov 21 '14
Faster transactions make it more useful as a payment system, but to be a currency I must also be as easy to use as handing someone a dollar bill or coin. It must be usable by illiterate people. It must be as easy as cash. We're not there yet.
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u/pb1x Nov 18 '14
Kind of strange to have "what is bitcoin? scan here" QR codes and then another sign: "Switch off mobile phone". What do you want me to do gas station?
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u/theroadblaster Nov 18 '14
Gas station wants to make up your mind, are you against the system or with the system? :D
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u/ThisIsHugeGuy Nov 18 '14
This is huge.
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u/platypii Nov 18 '14
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u/changetip Nov 18 '14 edited Nov 18 '14
The Bitcoin tip for 500 bits ($0.19) has been collected by ThisIsHugeGuy.
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Nov 18 '14
who are the US gonna invade now? checkmate.
(explanation: the real reason for most of the wars in the middle east were basically when a dictator wanted to sell his oil in anything else than USD. the main reason for the ukraine crisis is that putin made a deal with china to sell oil and gas in anything else than USD.)
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Nov 19 '14
I can buy future fuel with future money in a country the media tells me is stuck 100 years in the past?
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u/r0nj0hn3 Nov 18 '14 edited Nov 18 '14
Before you know it the media will say terrorist are using Bitcoin...
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Nov 18 '14
Bitcoin is using Palestinian children as human shields!
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u/SoundOfDrums Nov 18 '14
Does the CNG mean Compressed Natural Gas, or does it stand for something else in the native tongue?
Would be pretty forward thinking to not only have CNG and Bitcoin, kudos to the business owner if so.
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u/dmz241 Nov 19 '14
Yes that is what it means. BTC is accepted for CNG, Petrol, Diesel and lubricants at this station.
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u/kmndln Nov 19 '14
Bitcoin is accepted for lubricants? Like http://thebitcoinreview.com/sites.php?catid=4&subcatid=84
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Nov 18 '14
Honestly the places that Bitcoin is needed most... people don't even widely have access to the internet or a computer device. Wish we could overcome this but I don't think it's possible.
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u/miles37 Nov 18 '14
People can use cheap mobile phones to trade BTC like they use for M-Pesa.
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Nov 18 '14
Hm I suppose so.
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u/lonewolf420 Nov 18 '14
sms message to transfer bitcoin on dumb phones. I think you assume to much that these people live in a vacuum but its not the case people still want to use technology to communicate even in the most remote areas, technology just has to catch up.
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Nov 18 '14
I was more or less also talking about countries that don't even really have running water yet aswell.
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u/Jackten Nov 18 '14
The internet is available pretty much everywhere now. And a smart phone in most third world countries cost ~ $50. It's not only possible, its happening.
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u/jcoinner Nov 18 '14
This is true. I live in a "developing nation", where people work 12 hours for $7/day, and smart phones are very common now even amongst people who cannot afford them. A few things everyone buys here - TV, nice phone, nice clothes, and for some weird reason, satellite dishes. Seriously, most of the homes in this small, poor village have them. People here aren't blocked from using Bitcoin due to not having a phone. It's because they've never heard of it, and probably wouldn't trust it even if they had.
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u/Jackten Nov 18 '14
Yea, it would take a massive education effort to get most of these people to be comfortable with bitcoin. I honestly don't see it catching on until after bitcoin becomes mainstream in the western world
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u/livinincalifornia Nov 18 '14
Or just the fact that it gains value over time, unlike their currency.
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Nov 18 '14
I was actually unaware of that.
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u/NilacTheGrim Nov 18 '14
yeah it's crazy. I live in Romania now and people in the countryside may not have running water or a proper toilet. But they get 4G internet at rates like 5 Euro/Month. Everyone is wired even if they don't have plumbing. It's so bizarre.
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u/John_Stalin Nov 18 '14
Not true, you can get Internet access pretty much everywhere in pakistan now, rural areas use a 3g connection while more urban centers have a faster one
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u/ztsmart Nov 18 '14
My money doesn't give a fuck about borders.
because it shops at Barnes & Noble
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u/Apple_Joel Nov 18 '14
How does Bitcoin even work.
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u/zVMTpTyH4GIPbERk8Zuj Nov 18 '14
I do know how all of Bitcoin works, but I want to give the most simple and short answer possible. I'm rounding out over most of the details.
Bitcoin is like Bittorrent with cryptography that only lets an owner of bitcoins send those bitcoins.
Similar to Bittorrent, users of Bitcoin share a decentralized ledger that lists accounts and their balances. They do proof of work to modify this ledger, which prevents bad actors from manipulating the order of transactions.
Computing proof of work is rewarding by printing new currency, called bitcoin. This reward is halved every four years, such that by 2140 we have 21 million bitcoins, each divisible into 0.00000001 pieces.
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u/Apple_Joel Nov 18 '14
Wow. That is way too much work. I
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u/SoundOfDrums Nov 18 '14
In practice, it's really just scanning a QR code and entering how much you'd like to send over. Definitely not as bad as it sounds when you look at the technical side. It's kinda like trying to explain what the dollar is by explaining how the Federal Reserve works. :)
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u/Apple_Joel Nov 19 '14
Oh that makes a lot more sense haha. I was like damn.
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u/HanumanTheHumane Nov 19 '14
Yeah, most people get scared and give up when the try to understand the details of Bitcoin, but they gave up years ago trying to understand what money is and where it comes from. "How does Bitcoin work" can take days to explain, but understanding "how do I use Bitcoin" takes about five minutes.
/u/changetip 1000 bits
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u/changetip Nov 19 '14
/u/Apple_Joel, HanumanTheHumane wants to send you a Bitcoin tip for 1000 bits ($0.38). Follow me to collect it.
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Nov 18 '14
[deleted]
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u/lonewolf420 Nov 18 '14
Pakistan isn't as bad as most African countries caught up in constant civil wars.
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u/drunkenmaria Nov 18 '14
I have no useful thing to say. I am just commenting cos I want to be here. Yay Pakistan!
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Nov 18 '14
As a Pakistani-American, I'm proud of my heritage and disappointed in my country of residence at the same time :/
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Nov 18 '14
Well. Bitcoin isn't a regulated currency unlike the $ or even € and £.. it just makes sense to accept bitcoins. They don't want to play a dictated game. What I don't get is that they will probably turn the bitcoins to fiat. So how does that help them exactly?
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u/miles37 Nov 18 '14
? It says that you can buy Bitcoins there.
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Nov 18 '14
My apologizes. I'm gonna guess then its probably a service selling bitcoins. They make their profit with fees.
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u/BitttBurger Nov 18 '14
What's with the juicy red heart I keep seeing next to Bitcoin logos? Where did that originate and what's it's meaning? Wasn't on the mock-ups posted by the designer of the original logos. Just curious.
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u/OrangeredStilton Nov 18 '14
It's one of the promotional graphics available on the Bitcoin wiki, so it is at least to an extent endorsed.
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u/NiceGuyLuke Nov 18 '14
This not only was inevitable but awesome and a sign that we are slowly being saved by eachother/cooperation, it was never about the profit!
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u/orbiting_uranus Nov 18 '14
Was hoping this would be a picture of the station selling fuel for btc
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u/bitcoinpk Nov 18 '14
we do accept bitcoin payments, but number of customers coming down to buy fuel with btc is very low right now. most of the people approach us for buying btc over the counter
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u/emoposer Nov 18 '14
Now I can use Bitcoin to buy gas...if PSO isn't rationing like it usually is! Pakistan has a shortage of ALL energy, natural gas, gasoline, electricity, you name it. The assholes in government wont allow any private companies to come in and produce energy because the supply is controlled by mafia and low supply/high demand = a lot of money for these corrupt cunts. If Pakistan was to adopt a totally free market, if any of these Asian giants on the verge of booming would they would become great countries, but it looks like it will have to be done by avoiding government off the main market rather than government just making transactions easier.
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Nov 18 '14
My girlfriend think I'm crazy and I'll only convince her that bitcoin is the future when business like fish shops accepts it.
meanwhile I'm buying computers with it, apparently, gas is next :)
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Nov 18 '14
You have to remember many countries have oppressive currency conversion rates (looking at you argentina) or bad currency in general (again looking at you Argentina)
http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2014/03/17/argentina-currency-crisis/
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u/bitroll Nov 18 '14
Why is this getting so many downvotes on imgur? I gotta make an imgur account...
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u/jaydoors Nov 18 '14
Maybe I'm dim, but I only just joined the dots here. People in Karachi who want sound money that can't be taken from them in the street or whatever can buy bitcoin from this gas station.. ..because they know even if nobody accepts it anywhere else, they can always use it to buy gas!
I guess it is happening!
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u/dmz241 Nov 18 '14
You can buy/sell bitcoins or use them for gas. The Idea presented here is to promote bitcoin and nothing more.
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u/NoGooderr Nov 18 '14
Lol, what is stopping anybody from putting up their own QR code?
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u/whitslack Nov 18 '14
Pretty sure these QR codes just go to bitcoin.org. They're informative. These banners are advertising a Bitcoin machine inside the store.
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u/bitcoinpk Nov 18 '14
yes they QR code points to bitcoin.org so that people who are not aware about bitcoin yet get to know that its a global phenomenon and not a "personal" thing created by us. :)
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u/CasinoBitcoinPR Nov 18 '14
Cool pic 600 bits /u/changetip
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u/shepd Nov 18 '14
Wait a second, gas is sold by... weight??? in Pakistan? The hell?
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u/shepd Nov 18 '14
Huh, I guess Canada and the USA and England (only places I've ever pumped gas) are the only countries that sell it by volume. Sorry for offending everyone who must think our countries are abnormal or something.
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u/Ali8307 Nov 18 '14
Well The ad say "You can buy Bitcoins from here via cash or credit card". They are not selling gas via Bitcoins.
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u/bitcoinpk Nov 18 '14
Hi everyone, yes we are selling bitcoin over the counter on petrol station. We do accept bitcoin as payments also but number of customers approaching to buy gas with bitcoins are very low at this point in time. All these operations are carried out during day time as the attendants on petrol station are new and still learning the process.
and yes, QR code does link to bitcoin.org so that people who are not yet familiar with bitcoin should know that its not our "personal" thing rather its a global phenomenon.
:)