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Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

bitspend.com

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#61
post #32

It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins. And until that changes, what good does it do to be able to spend them?

I can't say I'd noticed. Admittedly it's not trivial, in that I don't know of anywhere you can just show up with a credit card and buy a bitcoin, but it's hardly rocket surgery to fund a MtGox account.

It's not hard, but it is very slow: create MtGox account; create Dwolla account; add your traditional checking account to Dwolla; initiate a xfer from checking -> Dwolla; wait (days) for xfer to complete; initiate Dwolla -> MtGox xfer (wait days); buy bitcoins with USD funds on MtGox.

I started that process purely for the fun of some small-time speculation, but the whole hassle of the process made me realize why Bitcoin is important.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#62

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc) When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i…

Really, bitcoin isn't even a consideration until I can pay my bills with it.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#63
post #16

How are you guys mitigating the volitility. Arbitrage? Seems to me with +- 10 USD in one day, if an order comes in during a top when the quote from newegg is for $20K and suddenly the exchange tanks you'll be stuck with a heavy loss. Of course, it works the other way too...

Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into USD. If a customer sends bitcoin and wants to cancel before the order is placed, then there is no problem. We will just refund them. Customer always comes first.

>Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into USD.

... thanks to speculation.

If the market adjusts and people start heading for the exits, bitcoin will become highly illiquid.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I give you 1 bitcoin and you give me a donut, we've agreed that 1 bitcoin is worth a donut. (it is similar to the situation with barter, in the U.S. it is taxable and the IRS will expect you to put a dollar value on the income and be able to defend the valuations you use)

Huh, I did not know that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter#Tax_implications .

I believe that is why coupons say they are worth $0.0001

Guy wins free donuts and is issued a $237 tax bill.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Astros...

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#65

ideas: - make bitspend a place for users to buy bitcoins - make bitspend a place for users to cash out bitcoins - build a reputation and move into ebay and amazon payments (can you become some type of power buyer or affiliate) - collect testimonials - provide a bookmarklet or plugin so users can browse the shopping sites transparently but pay on bitspend - a person could have an item they want to buy for say $30, ins…

You've gotta be real careful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Crime_and_fraud

From a purely economic standpoint, is it always in someone's interest to be fraudulent? You might get away with $x if fraudulent and 3 x $x if not. If you're selling rice and cookies at a supermarket and a mafia boss wants to buy them, what are you going to do, turn him away?

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#66

Here's my theory (from right field) on where the free lunch is coming from: Bitspend is a hosting company that has invested a lot of extra rack space into mining equipment. They see the giant bubble brewing and have realized that bitcoin needs some legs to stand on. If bitcoin survives, Bitspend's mining operation makes a huge profit. If it crashes, they lose a lot. So giving people an easy way to use bitcoin as an a…

It's not a free lunch. They can sell the bitcoins on the market if they need USD.

Only so long as the market doesn't crash.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#67
post #32

It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins. And until that changes, what good does it do to be able to spend them?

It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins.

I'd drop at least one "really"; you just need a decent AMD GPU. The relatively wimpy one in my iMac can generate 0.1 BTC/day, which at current exchange rates is a few dollars. It would be easy to do 5x better than that with a PC tower, without going nuts with a dedicated mining rig.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perfect for me as someone who does not live in the US. I live in Peru, don't have access to real electronics, cannot order from newegg without a US credit card / US address. If this site really does mail forwarding, then it would be awesome for me. I just wish they also did clothes, books, maybe amazon.com or something.

You can use BTCBuy to buy amazon gift cards with bitcoin, just redeem the code on your amazon.com account, and you can buy it whatever you like.

BTCbuy also does newegg cards too: http://www.btcbuy.info

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#69

Here's my theory (from right field) on where the free lunch is coming from: Bitspend is a hosting company that has invested a lot of extra rack space into mining equipment. They see the giant bubble brewing and have realized that bitcoin needs some legs to stand on. If bitcoin survives, Bitspend's mining operation makes a huge profit. If it crashes, they lose a lot. So giving people an easy way to use bitcoin as an a…

Don't even need that. BTC has been growing in "value" significantly over the past month or so. If they just wait a month between receiving bitcoins for payment and redeeming them for cash or whatever, that'll likely be a reasonable return on investment.

Assuming, of course, that trends continue.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perfect for me as someone who does not live in the US. I live in Peru, don't have access to real electronics, cannot order from newegg without a US credit card / US address. If this site really does mail forwarding, then it would be awesome for me. I just wish they also did clothes, books, maybe amazon.com or something.

You can use BTCBuy to buy amazon gift cards with bitcoin, just redeem the code on your amazon.com account, and you can buy it whatever you like.

BTCBuy won't ship to me though. Amazon only ships a very small number of products to Peru. Electronics and clothes not included.
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