Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#161

Post by xd » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

exit wrote: post #160

xd wrote: post #157

It shows your customers that you are a forward thinking company. Bit of a loaded assumption that; accepting bitcoin has nothing to do with being forward thinking. Bitcoin appeals to human greed, that's it. The comments comparing this to Linux and TCP/IP is apples and oranges. Why would I as a hard working member of my society with a house and kids invest money into a system completely unregulated. I'm all ears.

at a base level its regulation is completely transparent and algorithmic, unlike the closed-door regime of central banking.

You invest in bitcoin and lose your key or it's stolen.. how does that work out in the end?

Edit: don't get me wrong, I have crypto currency I've blown many a kw/h on. But you can not as a society rely on a currency with such flaws. Hell maybe insurance startups will popup to handle the issue but I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#162

Post by tim333 » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

notamerican wrote: post #81

cal5k wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? There's a huge amount of currency flowing to and from North America to Europe, Asia, etc. Just because the euro zone has standardized their banking system doesn't mean a) that America will ever do the same ( cough the metric system cough ), or b) that all movement of money across borders should be strictly the purview of banks. In Canada alone people send $23.3B/year back to their country of origin in the form of…

Nobody mentioned the Euro Zone before you did; they're talking about Europe "as a continent", for the most part. Living in the UK, national payments are instant , with very few exceptions. And having lived in both Switzerland (where they use CHF), and Germany (Euros), I can say it's much the same across Europe. International payments within Europe are fast too; a couple of days if you're changing currencies, and fast…

>bank's exchange rates are criminal!

Transferwise is easy and are about 0.3% off interbank.

Interactive Brokers are a pain to set up but some tiny amount off like 0.02%

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#163

Post by argo_ » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

dmitriid wrote: post #117

argo_ wrote: post #99

Bitcoin on-chain transactions are almost on its historical peak again: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=al... This forum has been denying bitcoin since the first time someone posted about it: first time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793 second time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

Less than 10 transactions per second while spending more electricity than several medium-sized countries. Yup. Technology of the future that we are fools to dismiss.

The technology still evolving. 10 transactions is not and will not be the limit. The Lightning Network already proved that a much higher volume of bitcoin transactions can be made without slowing down the bitcoin network.

I like to think the energy consumption of the bitcoin network is an "idle energy":

10 transations/s = mid-size country

100 transations/s = mid-size country

10.000 transations/s = mid-size country

An increase in transations do not directly increase energy consumption.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#164

Post by exit » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:30 PM UTC

Ruphin wrote: post #120

Many posts here about how Bitcoin is not user friendly, and how it can't compete with existing (digital) payment solutions in terms of UX. My experience with it is quite the opposite, and I prefer paying with Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies in most (but not all) situations. My phone has a wallet app with some small amount of Bitcoin on it. If I have to pay for something, all it takes is opening the app, scanning a QR code,…

> The downsides are that my phone effectively has a bundle of cash strapped to it, and when I lose the phone my cash is gone too.

you should have the root mnemonic of the wallet stored separately, in which case you would be able to regenerate the private keys and access your funds again.

i can recommend the eclair wallet, by acinq, for android. as well as traditional on-chain transactions, it also supports spend-only lightning channels. receive functionality is being tested on testnet and should arrive on mainnet soon.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#165

Post by argo_ » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

wcoenen wrote: post #116

argo_ wrote: post #99

Bitcoin on-chain transactions are almost on its historical peak again: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=al... This forum has been denying bitcoin since the first time someone posted about it: first time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793 second time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

I'm not sure on-chain transaction rate approaching new highs is cause for celebration. Last time the rate of new transactions exceeded bitcoin's capacity, confirmation times became erratic and fees unpredictable. Why do you think this won't happen again?

The bitcoin software is not the same as before, updates have happened in the meantime. Now, 40% of all transactions happening are SegWit transactions, a lighter format which enables the network to handle a higher volume of transactions simultaneously. SegWit transactions are also cheaper in terms of fees.

So, the number of transactions can exceed the previous high without colapsing the confirmation time or fees.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#166

Post by paulgb » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

pjkundert wrote: post #158

"Why does no one want to pay their local locksmith with Bitcoin?" The reasons given (few customers have it in a hot wallet ready to use, slow and expensive for small payments) are not the reasons! Even if many people had it, and the expense was lower -- few people would use it. The real reason? Gresham's law: a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". Given 2 forms of commodity money in circulatio…

You're mixing up two things. Gresham's law applies when the conversation rate is fixed, not when it is set by the market. It's not the same as a currency being deflationary.

Hayek wrote about the confusion: https://fee.org/resources/denationalization-of-money/#VI.%20...

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#167

Post by tim333 » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

CedarMadness wrote: post #111

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood bitcoin transfers could take days. If so, that's not really very liquid?

It depends really. Transactions are usually processed based on the fee associated with them. If the network is exceptionally busy and you send a transaction with a low fee, yeah it'll take a while, but when creating the transaction you can adjust the fee (and most wallets will give you a few options) to make your transaction more valuable to miners, so it will be picked up more quickly.

Bitcoin from wallet A to wallet B usually only takes about 20 minutes but fiat -> bitcoin and bitcoin -> fiat can take a while, typically a day or so each and more if backlogged.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#168

Post by mikeash » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

GreenJelloShot wrote: post #142

mikeash wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it get any easier than one of the 87 different mobile apps that let you send money to another person with a few taps?

The fact alone that are 87 different mobile apps makes it difficult. Which one do you use? Is there a difference? Having one single, well-branded app is easier to use than 87 random no-name apps.

While this is true, Bitcoin does nothing to solve that problem. It just adds even more choices to the pile.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#169

Post by blancheneige » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

xd wrote: post #157

It shows your customers that you are a forward thinking company. Bit of a loaded assumption that; accepting bitcoin has nothing to do with being forward thinking. Bitcoin appeals to human greed, that's it. The comments comparing this to Linux and TCP/IP is apples and oranges. Why would I as a hard working member of my society with a house and kids invest money into a system completely unregulated. I'm all ears.

because it's not your society. it's that of your elites.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#170

Post by easymodex » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

short_sells_poo wrote: post #48

fyfy18 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the issues with "international banking" are infact just issues with North American banks. I can transfer large sums of money around Europe and it will arrive in few days at the very latest. Within the same country transfers mostly arrive the same day (often it's under 1 hour), and sometimes that happens internationally too. Oh and I don't need to pay anything for that. A few years ago I was working in the Mid…

> Most of the issues with "international banking" are infact just issues with North American banks. This. Whenever someone says that Cryptocurrencies solve money transfer problems, I look where they are based and 99% of the cases it is the US. In Europe, transferring money is the same internationally as it is nationally. Type in the IBAN and the name of the recipient and they get it the same day, or latest the next d…

>Technically, a money transfer could take miliseconds - updating a couple of database rows.

I'm a devops engineer at a somewhat large company (4mil+ daily users) and in my years of working with servers and databases, even in this professional enviroment, I've seen some crazy things go down. That's why I find the thought of having basically the whole world's money state written in some databases which are so simple to update, insanely scary.

And that's also why I really love bitcoin and the whole blockchain idea. I could go on about the reliability and transparency of it but the general opinion around here is somewhat aginst crypto currencies so to each his own.

As to the people saying it's difficult to use and has an unfriendly UI. I might be just one of those nerds it's aimed at, but I feel it's the simplest way of transfering money. I mean really, you just put in an address, hit send and the other party gets it. It won't get delayed, no bank will call you about the funds, no conversion fees, etc. Yes there is a transaction fee which makes it a bit odd to buy coffee with, but for small amounts I don't need the whole world to confirm my transaction, I can use whatever other solution. But for big amounts hell yes, I want to use bitcoin. It's my hard earned money and I don't trust anyone with it.