If it is a coffee, just accept it at the first block, that should only be a few minutes. For the rare occurance of an orphaned block, it is still less of a loss than the normal credit card processing fees for a typical day at such a place.
The Bitcoin protocol is designed to make it average 10 minutes between each block, so on average the wait is 5 minutes. And if I was Starbucks selling a coffee, I probably would be willing to accept zero-block transactions, especially if the user has one of those rewards cards. Just re-charge them next time around. Only very rarely will they need to eat the cost of a $4 coffee, in exchange for not paying 1%-2% on every single purchase.
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If it is a coffee, just accept it at the first block, that should only be a few minutes. For the rare occurance of an orphaned block, it is still less of a loss than the normal credit card processing fees for a typical day at such a place.
First block may take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour. No one knows when the next block will be discovered.
Are you just going to hold up the line while you wait for the next block? Or are you going to just accept zero-block transactions?
The Bitcoin protocol is designed to make it average 10 minutes between each block, so on average the wait is 5 minutes. And if I was Starbucks selling a coffee, I probably would be willing to accept zero-block transactions, especially if the user has one of those rewards cards. Just re-charge them next time around. Only very rarely will they need to eat the cost of a $4 coffee, in exchange for not paying 1%-2% on every single purchase.