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Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

coinforcoffee.com

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're wrong. Starbucks certainly makes 'good' coffee. Can you make better coffee? Absolutely. I'm enough of a coffee snob that I rarely get coffee while I'm out, preferring to make it at home where I can control all the variables. That being said... claiming that Starbucks isn't 'good' coffee is just hipster silliness... Yes, I realize it's mainstream now, and your fedora fits in better at Philz, but Starbuc…

42, not a hipster, no Fedora (well I have a VM running it). I like my coffee in the morning, french press at home (Peet's Garuda). Peet's if I am out and about and once in a great while when I get a chance I love to make it to Philz. I have disliked Starbucks coffee before it was cool thank you very much :) The comment about Starbuck was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I guess I can see it being taken as Hipster fashion.

Hey, can I have some of that nice coffee you're having? I live in Russia. I can send you some of Art. Lebedev's (don't know if it's any good, but they roast their own mix, so you can compare) I can PayPal you the money and you'll ship me the coffee. You can ship to my US-based P.O. box.

I run Ubuntu on my laptop and CentOS on KVM CentOS VM on a server.

Please drop me a line via email (in profile) or any other means (Facebook et el.) http://about.com/nleschov

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that discount funded though? I mean, who is paying the other 10%?

Right now? Us.

So you put USD on Starbucks gift cards, sell the code to be used for a drink and receive the money in BTC. You're amassing BTC from disparate sources but it seems you'd be paying a slight premium, however you wouldn't need to register with any exchange.

You do get a pre-loading bonus of bitcoins to play with and you can use those to generate profits - like 1000 people put $10 worth of BTC on the app, spend $5 on a coffee then you have $5000 in BTC to "play" with, eg to sell on.

This does all look pretty suspect.

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#94

What exchange rate do you get for your bitcoin? Does a user even see the potential exchange rate before the transfer? What margin (if any) are you taking on the currency exchange? Why is the site so lacking in details?

We use the current Coinbase exchange rate. No margin on the exchange. We're trying to keep it simple / focused on newer bitcoin users, but I can definitely flesh out the FAQ. The refund math is also in the user's favor- more about that in other comments.

You should use BitPay's BBB (Bitcoin Best Bid) instead, it's looking at all a number of exchange order books and giving your the best price: https://bitpay.com/api/rates/usd

Disclaimer: I work at BitPay.

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use the current Coinbase exchange rate. No margin on the exchange. We're trying to keep it simple / focused on newer bitcoin users, but I can definitely flesh out the FAQ. The refund math is also in the user's favor- more about that in other comments.

You should use BitPay's BBB (Bitcoin Best Bid) instead, it's looking at all a number of exchange order books and giving your the best price: https://bitpay.com/api/rates/usd Disclaimer: I work at BitPay.

Hey! Are you in the Atlanta office?

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#96

I assume one has to wait something like 10 minutes to stop double spending. I want coffee now not in 10 minutes.

To be clear, you don't have to wait 10 minutes- we've just had issues with the websocket stuff. Refreshing the page works if that doesn't. Unless something broke, you can pay and get a card in under 3 minutes.

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#97

Major plus for your website to feature a Nexus instead of an iPhone. It instantly gives me a comfortable feeling of professionalism. I like the idea of the app and its well-executed. However, even if I would get a 100% discount I wouldn't take it. Starbucks equals common denominator hyped hipster coffee charged for at premium rates due to its viral-branding and A-locations. I would rather drink water from a sprinkler…

I couldn't agree more. Not to mention, in virtually any reasonably sized metropolitan area there are generally plenty of places that simply make better tasting coffee.

Definitely. We're still figuring out how to address the smaller shops, since they have a variety of payment systems.

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#98
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a big opportunity for money laundering, so I doubt it.

Oh please. You cannot "launder money" with Starbucks gift cards unless you use a completely ridiculous definition of the term (which occasionally you find over-enthusiastic regulators doing, but that is no excuse).

Also, I hardly believe that the Starbucks gift card market has enough liquidity to be useful to launder a substantial amount of money, so nope, no laundering here...

Re: Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin

#100
post #27

I'd like to hear a real economist's take on this but from my personal opinion Bitcoin will never take off as a transactional currency because of it's inherently limited nature, and here's the reasons contributing to it: 1. There's a finite amount of them that can ever be mined 2. There's no central governing body control the rate of inflation/deflation through monetary policy. By definition this creates a deflationar…

this is an example of where I'd love to see the new HN mods close off-topic threads. No offense the parent, but your general musing on the feasibility of Bitcoin - amount to thread jacking given the original topic above
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