Here we are at the gas station Let's go see if they'd actually take Bitcoin here
Excuse me, quick question Do you guys accept Bitcoin, no? Do we take Bitcoin? No Have you heard of Bitcoin? Oh, okay I'm doing a survey about Bitcoin Not interested
Cryptocurrencies and digital assets marked the frontier of the technological world They are the Wild West of the Internet Loosely regulated, highly volatile entities that may well become the future of global currencies in as little as a decade But can they be used to lead a sustainable lifestyle? Is it possible to live solely off of Bitcoin in 2019? In essence, what does it take to go fully digital? I have made one rule for myself to follow Every purchase that I make has to be made with Bitcoin
With a rule that simple, how hard can this challenge really be? First things first, we're going to set up a Bitcoin wallet After a little research, I decided to create a Coinbase account Since I didn't have much prior experience with crypto, it seems like the simplest, safest and easiest platforms to use Number two, we're going to find out if we can buy some food I mean, we're in New York City
There's gotta be somewhere in New York City that accepts Bitcoin There will be someone There has to be There has to be There has to be
I've looked online to see where the places are that like on Yelp, they give you a list and I called almost everyone on the list and almost everyone didn't accept my call Oh my God, why are they even on that list? Exactly How are you going to survive? Here I was living in New York, the financial and food capital of the world No food delivery service, no direct access, no third party retailers, nothing I was just utterly baffled I mean, how could this be possible? I decided to talk to a couple of my crypto savvy friends to find out It's a scalability issue, which means that when a lot of people are using the network, the network slows down and becomes incredibly expensive to use and doesn't work properly
Doesn't function as it's supposed to So all these different networks need to solve the scalability problem if they want to really have a lot of throughput, a lot of transactions happening at the same time Right now, if today, if you were to tell me Bitcoin is going to have the same amount of transactions or needed to support the same amount of transactions as Visa, it wouldn't be feasible It'd be too expensive to transact It'd be too slow
You can't wait five minutes to buy something You can't sit there and be like: you get those 16 confirmations yet? Yeah they have like the bitcoin waiting area over to the side and everyone is just corralled in there It would be full Oh your transaction is complete Number 135? Finally I can leave
135? Yes, yes! I'm here, I'm here, I'm here Surprisingly enough, living in a densely populated metropolitan area like New York City does not actually translate into more Bitcoin options There are only a handful of restaurants in New York that actually directly accept Bitcoin Of that handful, three of those restaurants are actually owned by the same French chef So I'm at the La Sirene right now, as you can see
I came in and all I did was I just mentioned that I was going to pay with cryptocurrency And the waiter went and got the chef Chef came out He gave me this nice beer here And he told me all about his Bitcoin process
Do you think that cryptocurrencies will totally replace fiat currencies? It will, but not now But it will, definitely will Now we're talking about 30 years Yes, 30 years Everything is going to be a total, global currency revolution in the next 30 years? Not saying it's not going to get messy, of course, but definitely crypto will replace fiat, it's safer
And you can track if you want cash That means if you don't want to accept your cryptocurrency because you want to be anonymous, it's your problem So what do you think is the biggest obstacle for Bitcoin in the future The big obstacle in the future, I think, it's the lobbies, of course, Federal Reserve, some banks I'm not saying all, because Chase Save is bad that they invest heavily, you know
And much more the problem of the energy, they have to resolve the energy That's a future problem That's the only obstacle I can see That doesn't mean that we put the Bitcoin totally down No, it's just not moving that much
That's all But they'll find a solution So here I am And I'm about to pay for my meal with Bitcoin They have the iPad, so the tablet
And I've got my phone here and I'm going to scan There we go So that pulls it up And I'm going to confirm And that's that
So now we have this It's pending And that is the process right there So that will go through Hey, excellent, look at that
How f&#@ing cool is that, right? Yeah, I just paid in a restaurant with Bitcoin That's it As cool as that may be, eating at a French bistro three times a day obviously isn't a sustainable option And given my inability to purchase groceries with Bitcoin, I began looking for alternative options My backup option is to go on eGifter
It was one of the retailers that is known to take Bitcoin, and I want to see if I can buy some sort of gift card that will let me purchase dinner tonight We are going to open up eGifter Buy with Bitcoin here We're here with the crypto and they're like: come up and give it to us We want the crypto
I'm sure that all bright, smart, intelligent people watching this video can clearly see the limitations of e-gift cards So I just eat Chipotle every night? Do I just get 2, do I just save $10 and eat Chipotle every night? That sounds disgusting, but I mean, not exactly the broadest range of views, right? Thankfully, I was going to have some time to ponder these issues without the anxiety of actually having to deal with them Here we are in an airport Fortunately, there was a Dunkin Donuts and I still have some money left in the gift card that I bought earlier with Bitcoin I was headed down to Florida for a quick visit with my family and more importantly, to try to explain Bitcoin to my grandfather
But at least I wasn't going to have to pay for any meals Oh, there are a lot of places that have Bitcoin Correct What do you know about Bitcoin? Not very much I try to stay away from it as much as possible
And here I had the brilliant idea of getting my dad to try to explain Bitcoin to my grandfather Not only would I get to see what my father had learned, I would also get to see what my grandfather thought about this little project Would not consider myself to be an expert or even especially knowledgeable about it But what little I know is that this is a new type of currency that's not connected to any sovereign state With Bitcoin, there is no bank involved
The transaction is only between you and me directly So there's no way for a bank to control or even know about what transaction, what we're doing Right So it's very decentralized and there's no central authority that is kind of watching One of the big problems in computer science is generating random numbers
What do you think? Like I'm still going to stay away from it Back in New York City, I found I had the same obstacles as when I left But this time I had a plan So you're probably wondering, how did I survive? Oh, f#@k That's a lot of text, right there
Yeah, whatever We don't care about this shit There it is Look at that Life on Bitcoin just got easier
That are the truest words I've ever seen written Activate it Load it Spend it Oh, yeah
There it is The BitPay debit card, my lifesaver and most blatant loophole You transfer Bitcoins to the BitPay wallet, exchange the Bitcoin into dollars directly to BitPay and then load the dollars onto the card Yes, I realize I'm not actually spending Bitcoin when I swipe the card, but if I didn't have a bank account and all my money was in Bitcoin, then this would be a useful option for transforming my Bitcoin into spendable currency Either way, it was my saving
It actually doesn't work anywhere, everywhere See that – decline So that means, what does that, what does that mean, mom? That mom will pay for a very nice dinner you bought me It's pretty embarrassing So that is like one thing that's going to be, that's probably going to be really annoying is that I'm gonna have to do two network transfers, one from Coinbase to BitPay and then one from BitPay to the card
2 network transactions So I double the network fees So if you're in Europe, you can get a Coinbase card, which pretty much does the same thing Except it's with Coinba Regardless of the inefficiency, what really mattered was that now I was able to finally buy some New York pizza Hi, can I please have two slices of the chicken? Thank you Oh, yes With the challenge coming to a close, I wanted to get some outside perspectives on the trials and tribulations I had endured
And who better to ask than those who have been closest to me throughout this journey – my parents It's been really interesting watching you do this project It's also been a bit difficult to watch, because I watch you go in with a lot of enthusiasm and do this and quickly get discouraged when you are really hungry and couldn't buy anything and couldn't figure out with Bitcoin I see how stressful it's been for you to try and do this You know, it's a very challenging kind of task
How do you even approach it? What do you do? To what extent can you really live off with Bitcoin, what compromises you have to make? So, I've seen that's a stressful experience for you, but also a learning experience for a lot of things you had to figure out I think it's been hard for you Way, way back at the beginning of this video, I named the two biggest questions of this challenge Is it possible to live exclusively off of Bitcoin? And what does it take to go fully digital? Simply put, at this point in time, Bitcoin does not have enough purchasing power to bring it into the mainstream It's nearly impossible to live off of Bitcoin without any third party involved
But I'm confident that in today's world of unstoppable and breakneck technological advancement, solutions will inevitably and eventually be found For everyone else who has a heart, soul and maybe a few extra dollars to spare, keep your ears high, your nose to the ground, because before you know it, you may be able to buy a lot more with Bitcoin than just delicious, monstrously sized portion of the finest French fondue Paid with Bitcoin Easy as 1, 2, 3
