Bitcoin Conference Admits Fault With Currency For Ticket Purchase Policy

Bitcoin Conference

Would you like to travel to around 1 year ago and tell yourself to invest in Bitcoin? I know I would. Given the way, the crypto-currency has exploded in the last 12 months, it’s no surprise that a conference is being arranged in North American with the sole intention to celebrate it’s success and discuss the future.

The conference, however, has had to address one mildly embarrassing problem. It’s a bit like that Pokemon Go festival that wasn’t able to get Wifi installed.

While the conference is accepting all Crypto-Currencies as payment, Bitcoin has specifically been identified that any payments will need to be made by no later than 2 weeks before the conference and that anything later will not be accepted.

In answer to this, the conference holder has had to grudgingly admit some of the currencies current shortfalls. Namely, how long it takes for a transaction to process.

Sorry, No Bitcoin

Initially, I thought it may have been due to the transaction cost. This is, after all, part of the reason why gaming publisher Steam decided to no longer accept the currency as payment.

In a report via the Metro, the conference has stated that largely the reason for them not using Bitcoin is that the transactions take too long. The organizers have said: ‘Due to the manual inputting of data in our ticketing platforms when paid in cryptocurrencies, we decided to shut down bitcoin payments for last minute sales due to print deadlines.’ 

While this does sound perfectly reasonable, please note that their definition of ‘last-minute’ is 2-weeks. It does, in addition, highlight one of the major stumbling blocks for Bitcoin. A company such as VISA can process over 20,000 transactions a second.  Bitcoin on the other-hand only manages 3-7.

The conference, however, was ironically going to discuss this matter. Specifically, the mainstream adoption which could see crypto-currencies take the final step towards being a common, everyday, thing.