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Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

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Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#141

Post by Daishiman »

smabie wrote: post #127
Daishiman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you can't buy anything with crypto, as evidenced by an entire thread full of solutions that either, a) nobody uses, b) are terribly difficult to implement as a layman, or c) are possibly vehicles for fraud. As a guy who had no fear compiling Gentoo kernels 15 years ago, saying you can actually use BTC to pay for things is about a feasible as saying that 2005 was the year of the Linux desktop.

This isn't actually true, there are many ways to buy stuff with crypto.

This is about as useful as saying in 2005 that you could play games on Linux.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#142

Post by IThoughtYouGNU »

defaultprimate wrote: post #132
Geee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a problem when you're operating with inflationary currencies, and that's why bitcoin might be better, despite its high volatility. Bitcoin is volatile in short-term, but long-term deflationary. Fiat currencies are stable in short-term, but long-term inflationary. It's a trade-off, and it depends on your circumstances which allocation works for you.

>but long-term deflationary Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

I mean, except that it's actually limited in the code itself.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#143

Post by smabie »

Daishiman wrote: post #141
smabie wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't actually true, there are many ways to buy stuff with crypto.

This is about as useful as saying in 2005 that you could play games on Linux.

I have coworkers that don't have bank accounts and just have FTX debit cards. Is that good enough?

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#144

Post by mousepilot »

arcticbull wrote: post #120
arcticbull wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 BTC = 1 BTC, how much USD each one is worth varies due to its inherent lack of fungibility. 1 BTC is better thought of as a booster pack of 100,000,000 NFTs.

Curious the downvotes, the thread is discussing how the prior history of a bitcoin can cause it to be worth less in some contexts. The different value of the same asset based on its history is the definition of non-fungible in the classical sense. If one satoshi can be "tainted" by its history it is not equivalent to any other satoshi. Lack of equivalence = non-fungible. Now Zcash and Monero would be fungible.

Glad it was still dark enough to read, I had no idea some lumps of bitcoin are worth less because of a wallet they touched. Thats an incredible flaw, and really a big downside of bitcoin.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#145

Post by djangelic »

defaultprimate wrote: post #132
Geee wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a problem when you're operating with inflationary currencies, and that's why bitcoin might be better, despite its high volatility. Bitcoin is volatile in short-term, but long-term deflationary. Fiat currencies are stable in short-term, but long-term inflationary. It's a trade-off, and it depends on your circumstances which allocation works for you.

>but long-term deflationary Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

True but he’s not talking about performance, he’s talking about availability, and since Bitcoin is set to a certain limit the scarcity of it will rise as people lose access to their private keys.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#146

Post by kibbleble »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #26

There is Kasisto which uses Monero (XMR). https://github.com/amiuhle/kasisto > Kasisto is a Point of Sale payment system to accept the cryptocurrency Monero. The only requirement is an internet connection, there are no third parties involved. > To be fast (confirmation within seconds), Kasisto accepts unconfirmed transactions. If you're not using a middleman, then I think it would be wise to use a private-by-default…

Monero is so underrrated. It's always "bitcoin this, bitcoin that" as if that's the only currency which matters.

For now, since fiat onramps are pretty obvious, people report their taxes like normal. Record each transaction until it's good enough, give or take some under-the-table cash.

Here's an interesting project that's trying to encourage crypto adoption: https://cryptoforthehomeless.org/

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#147

Post by q1w2 »

Geee wrote: post #125
q1w2 wrote: post #93

I don't have a recommendation - I just want to make you aware of a major issue other stores have... > We do not intend to convert to traditional currency unless needed. This is a big risk due to cash flows. Most stores operate on a margin on merchandise that is under 10%, with a turnover on goods averaging months. If a currency fluctuates in value more than ~10% over several months, this can easily drive an otherwise…

This is also a problem when you're operating with inflationary currencies, and that's why bitcoin might be better, despite its high volatility. Bitcoin is volatile in short-term, but long-term deflationary. Fiat currencies are stable in short-term, but long-term inflationary. It's a trade-off, and it depends on your circumstances which allocation works for you.

> This is also a problem when you're operating with inflationary currencies.

Not really, because you are continuously buying and selling, and raising your prices as you go along with inflation.

> Bitcoin is volatile in short-term, but long-term deflationary.

Long-term is not relevant for the issue I'm describing. It is a short term fluctuation that drives you into cash-flow bankruptcy.

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#148

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

joshmarlow wrote: post #109
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not public lists, with exception of official government sanctioned addresses. Only the chain analysis companies have the (valuable) data so the future seems to be that businesses will need to pay for a subscription and share data with them, if you want to transact BTC. The algorithms are not clear either, because that information could be used by adversaries with tainted coins to try to evade detection For…

I'm still wrapping my head around the concept of Coin Mixing, but I wonder how helpful that would be - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/coinjoin.asp

If you accidentally accept funds linked to a sanctioned terrorist address or something, and then mix the money... I hope you have a good lawyer

Re: Ask HN: Practically accepting cryptocurrency for businesses without middlemen?

#149

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

Geee wrote: post #134
hda2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poisoned by 'black' bitcoin. Can you expand further on this? Is there a public list of blacklisted addresses we can download/query? How far does the association extend for an address to be blacklisted by other entities?

Some exchanges have been known to blacklist addresses, because they might have to follow certain AML/ATF orders. That's also why they don't accept completely anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero at all. Legitimate merchants and users in bitcoin ecosystem should push back against overreaching censorship, and treat bitcoins as fungible commodity. Merchants and users shouldn't start censoring transactions themselves.…

>Also, if you're using Bitcoin with Lightning Network only, it's not possible to become associated with blacklisted addresses.

This is not true, there are many ways to gain information on those transactions.

> Some exchanges have been known to blacklist addresses, because they might have to follow certain AML/ATF orders. That's also why they don't accept completely anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero at all.

It is necessary to react when you receive funds linked to illegal activity. Pretending that BTC is fungible when it is not can't change that. Accepting fungible goods like monero, cash, gold is generally legal though. So exchanges like Kraken do trade Monero but still do their due diligence on BTC transactions

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