Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

seymour-locksmiths.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 243 posts

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

#221

Post by sparkie »

root_axis wrote: post #176
sparkie wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier because it doesn't require any sign-up. You simply download some compatible software and you're ready to run. Every other of the 87 services requires sign-up, which means filling out forms and uploading photos of ID. If you're lucky to be in a well-developed country with proper ID, you might be able to get an account!

You need to sign up for a bank account if you want to use bitcoin in practice. Meeting up with random people in the streets to trade money for digital currency is definitely not easier than signing up for Venmo.

Venmo has the prerequisite that you have a bank account. That excludes a massive portion of the human population from the get go, and puts various obstacles in people's way depending on their background.

Acquiring bitcoin will become incredibly simple with services like azte.co, which work in pretty much the same way that most people used to top up their pay-to-go phone less than 20 years ago. People forget how rapidly things move.

If you think at the level of "this is how it works now", you will never comprehend the potential of Bitcoin. The exchanges which operate in the bitcoin space now will be about as relevant as phone booths were as a means of making phone calls remotely. People will forget they ever existed.

The way most people will acquire Bitcoin in future is the way they currently acquire fiat money - in exchange for their time and labor. There won't be any other "exchange" process.

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

#222

Post by walterstucco »

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.

It's called "Your bank's app"

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

#223

Post by walterstucco »

ecwilson wrote: post #42
joshstrange wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good comparison that I had never thought of. You are 100% right, the user experience for BTC is terrible and not likely to get a whole lot better. Even coinbase can be a PITA sometimes, it's really the Ubuntu of the crypto-currency world IMHO. Also quick question: When was the last time you thought about the swipe-fees for your CC? I'll answer for you: Never. Yet with BTC and other crypto's this is a…

Depends on the industry. For very large transactions, like if you are paying a home improvement contractor for something, they will often make you eat the fees if you want to pay with a credit card. So you end up having to figure out where your checkbook is (probably collecting dust in a box somewhere). I give Bitcoin and LN a continuous pass on UX for now. We're in the infrastructure phase -- growing trust and impro…

I'm 41, I'm from Italy, never used a check in my entire life.

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

#224

Post by sparkie »

bluejellybean wrote: post #213
sparkie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also reversible. With bitcoin, it might take a bit longer, but transaction are non-reversible after a few confirmations. Any other system can reverse payments even 6 months down the line. Sucks for businesses.

I've heard this argument a few times now and while yes this is true for Bitcoin, there is nothing stopping another project from implementing this feature. Smart contracts, for example, make this type of feature open to any developer who wishes to code it. In my view, Bitcoin is like MySQL and cryptocurrency/blockchain is SQL. Sure bitcoin has specific limitations but any other generic cryptocurrency doesn't have to i…

"Blockchain" is a database, but bitcoin is much more than its storage backend. The reason you can't simply replicate it is due to the monetary policy. In a world where anyone can make their own cryptocurrency, and we have "bluejellybeanBucks" and "sparkieSterling", how much value are these silly currencies going to have?

Their value will converge towards zero as more of them are printed and less of them are actually useful for representing value. The whole point of Bitcoin was to solve this inflation problem. If you don't care about inflation, you don't need a "blockchain" to begin with.

Bitcoin has the network effects, and it also required the creation (inflation) of some initial set of distributed digital asset because it was the first of its kind, and could not piggyback off of some other scarce, verifiable asset. Every other "cryptocurrency" that came afterwards, could piggyback of a scarce digital asset and avoid the inflation problem. They had Bitcoin to piggyback off.

In future, all "blockchain" projects will be implemented as sidechains to bitcoin, or as payment networks which transact in Bitcoin and therefore don't create inflation by design. Things like the Liquid sidechain, Sidechain One (drivechains), Rootstock, Lightning network, etc. These are the "implementations" which will be competing for users, but they'll all be functioning on the same currency, because any currency other than Bitcoin is destined to lose value with time, due to the inflation they designed into their system.

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

#225

Post by hrdwdmrbl »

oarsinsync wrote: post #58
hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Lightning has been released. It works. There are multiple implementations. It isn't perfect. Version 1.1 should fix a lot of the shortcomings.

Sounds a lot like if 'early access' was a thing, and duke nukem forever released a half baked first level that was difficult to use, and didn't really amount to anything beyond being able to point to a 'release'

Except that this is a protocol, not a product. And there are multiple teams building implementations. HTTP 1.0 didn't have some pretty fundamental features like keep-alive. But regardless of whether or not LN even ever works well, there will be something that does. Maybe not bitcoin, but a lot of smart people are trying a lot of different things. Just cause pong sucked doesn't mean there can't be great games.

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

#226

Post by sparkie »

tim333 wrote: post #193
sparkie wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only he was using a trustless cryptocurrency rather than a "trusted" custodial entity, he would never have had that problem.

My friend lost trustless cryptocurrency that would be worth well over $400k today by forgetting about it and formatting his hard drive.

He clearly didn't value it highly enough at the time.

You're implying that if he didn't accidentally lose his private keys, he would've had the nerve to hodl it till now and wouldn't have cashed out when it was valued less on the USD markets.

Some banks will shut your account after a long enough period of activity. There are statutes of limitations which may prevent you from claiming any assets you had lodged in the bank if you suddenly remembered you had the bank account N years later.

There are pros and cons to both Bitcoin and the traditional banking system. With Bitcoin, you can at least chose for yourself, whereas the decisions are made for you when you use custodians.

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

#227

Post by jki275 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #218
A2017U1 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their exchange rates are terrible deals and blatantly taking advantage of people who only see the upfront fee and don't think further than that. Get the feeling they'd have no problem making money with zero fees but that would suddenly make customers think twice about it.

Can you open account with US dollars as a currency and transfer money there without any conversions, then withdraw and exchange locally?

Yes, you can, and that’s what most people do.

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

#228

Post by tim333 »

sparkie wrote: post #226
tim333 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend lost trustless cryptocurrency that would be worth well over $400k today by forgetting about it and formatting his hard drive.

He clearly didn't value it highly enough at the time. You're implying that if he didn't accidentally lose his private keys, he would've had the nerve to hodl it till now and wouldn't have cashed out when it was valued less on the USD markets. Some banks will shut your account after a long enough period of activity. There are statutes of limitations which may prevent you from claiming any assets you had lodged in the…

He minded it on his mac back in 2010 or so when it wasn't really worth anything much and then forgot it was there when the machine malfunctioned. Easy come easy go I guess and it wasn't worth much at the time but would be now.

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

#229

Post by ykevinator »

jrumbut wrote: post #43

Regardless of what it was, it is really cool to see someone do a follow up on their experience being an early adopter of a technology in their business. You see so many "why we're choosing this" and not so many "how it went a few years down the line" posts.

Agreed. I love retros too. Amazing that some people in this thread don't want to hear it.

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

#230

Post by stakhanov »

Ruphin wrote: post #131
stakhanov wrote: post #121

The biggest argument against bitcoin, in my mind is this: Regulators really only get involved in allowing/prohibiting innovations very late in the game. I'm thinking of how Air BNB and Uber were allowed to grow really huge despite being blatantly in violation of a lot of laws in a lot of places (for example restrictions around subletting in contracts between tenants and landlords, regulations around running businesse…

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are an active issue for regulators right now. Statements have come out from several parties that confirm networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities. The SEC is actively shutting down ICO schemes that are deemed securities. Things are moving slowly because it's a complicated topic, but we are seeing more and more guidance from regulators like the SEC and others. AirBnB and Uber…

I did not say AirBnB and Uber "got killed" by regulators. I said that it had, at one point, reached a level that was clearly beyond what was within legal limits, and that afterwards "large parts" of that got shut down. BTW: This is a trend that is still ongoing and we have by no means reached the end of it, especially in Europe where there is a lot more regulation around who gets to be a taxi or a hotel (see Madrid taxi strike raising awareness about Uber's illegal role in the market there)

The SEC ruling that bitcoin is not a security is not really saying anything much as there are many facets to it (should the law treat it as being somehow equivalent to cash? equivalent to transactions carried out by banks?). It's also not saying anything about this pesky little thing that Americans keep forgetting about called "the rest of the world" and even if bitcoin is not in voilation of any laws that exist now, that doesn't mean that new laws won't be brought in to outlaw bitcoin etc. etc.

Post reply on HN