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Shopify accepts Bitcoin

ecommerce.shopify.com

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Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#51

Post by pakitan »

atmosx wrote: post #45
pakitan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's why I agree that bitcoin is "digital gold", rather than the Holy Grail of ecommerce. But that doesn't make peercoin a good idea. If I want to spend I have credit card and a paypal account, I don't need whatevercoin to help me with that.

I totally get that and I agree with you. My initial point stands though: As a currency BTC is/has failed. As an asset might work, but I don't know for how long.

"Failed" is a strong word and it's still too early to tell. Sure, I don't think it will ever be used predominantly as an exchange medium but that could be a nice "bonus" functionality. A lot of it depends on how bitcoin-friendly governments are. For example, if a global network of bitcoin ATMs can be built, this could practically put Western Union out of business.

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#53

Post by d4vlx »

knodi wrote: post #52

Bitcoins are better not spent these days as they seem to increase in value almost 10%-20% daily.

To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments.

If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#54

Post by oleganza »

d4vlx wrote: post #53
knodi wrote: post #52

Bitcoins are better not spent these days as they seem to increase in value almost 10%-20% daily.

To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments. If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?

One way to start selling a bit of your stash is to actually spend some part of it. No hassle with exchanges, no fees and no tax implications.

Historically, people were more willing to "cash out" by spending coins during boom periods: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popu...

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#55

Post by oleganza »

atmosx wrote: post #35
pakitan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflationary currency makes sense from economics point of view, if you can force it onto people, as governments do. No one will hold inflationary currency voluntarily, if they can choose a deflationary one, all else being equal.

Sure, but no one will spend a non-inflationary currency when he can spend an inflationary one.

Imagine if you spent $1000 for bitcoins a year ago and now they are worth $40000. Wouldn't you enjoy spending a little bit of it here and there, spread the word etc? If you are a hard believer, then you'd probably wait till it's worth $100000 and maybe then, you'd spend a little here and there?

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#56

Post by krrrh »

kristopher wrote: post #22

For those who had a hard time finding the official information, I will repost it here: Brian Alkerton Shopify Employee Hey Everyone, Just a quick update on this: our Bitpay integration is feature-complete and can be added to your store now. Due to the fact that it's a very new feature and not something we're ready to roll out to all stores just yet, you will need to contact me to have it enabled, and I may want to fo…

  One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way 
  as the other credit card processors on Shopify,
  meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with 
  Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors.
This is so half-assed, and frankly sort of typical in terms of the strange limitations that Shopify saddles you with (similar to how it took them 5 years to fix their database so you could modify a shipping address as a merchant). Sure, it would be fun to have a button that allows a customer to pay with bitcoin if they want to or are able to, but how many merchants would forgo credit card processing in favor of bitcoin? This "feature" is link-bait, and nothing more at this time.

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#57

Post by d4vlx »

oleganza wrote: post #54
d4vlx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments. If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?

One way to start selling a bit of your stash is to actually spend some part of it. No hassle with exchanges, no fees and no tax implications. Historically, people were more willing to "cash out" by spending coins during boom periods: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popu...

> One way to start selling a bit is to actually spend them.

That is what I was getting at, in order for Bitcoin to have a reason to exist people must spend them on goods and services. Bitcoin most likely would not exist for long if it became purely a store of wealth. Not that that will happens but many people are treating that way.

> no tax implications

Wouldn't that be tax evasion?

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#58

Post by wcummings »

It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it. I prefer Bitcoin for online purchases, if a vendor accepts it, I'll use it. Purchases aren't tracked, or being sucked up by some SIGINT program, no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right) and I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#59

Post by oleganza »

atmosx wrote: post #48
snitko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is up to you to decide whether you are convinced or not. If you have any logical counter-arguments, then great, I would be willing to listen to them, discuss them and change my mind about deflation. However, simply saying "it doesn't work this way" and "it's more complicated than that" is not a way to argue and seek truth.

My argument is about currencies not inflation or deflation. The primary service provided by a currency is facilitating the exchange of goods. Being inflationary is imperative for the population to use it. It is true that currencies are forced upon population by governments (or any form of governance) and it's true that anyone would rather be holding an asset that will not lose value over time compared to one that wil…

Do you realise that for something to be money or currency (e.g. medium of exchange), it must have value? How do people know what is the value of 1 BTC or 1 dollar or 1 ounce of gold? They look at how much other people are willing to pay to hold it. Why would people hold gold, dollars or bitcoins? Not only in speculation that they will be worth more tomorrow. But also because they are more marketable than groceries and no one know exactly what you want to buy tomorrow. So we want to hold some cash for the short-term and long-term future - we never know what exactly we'd want to buy.

For transactions the exact value does not matter, only matters how liquid this value is. And liquidity is measured by number of people willing to buy that assets at that price. In case of Bitcoin, the more people want to hold it, the higher the price will be (because they need to buy them from someone and outbid others).

Now, imagine Bitcoin and Freicoin. Freicoin loses value ("demurrage") over time. So people would be motivated to hold bitcoin instead. So Bitcoin will gain bigger liquidity and higher value. People will see that Bitcoin is more sellable on the market and thus is wider accepted. So they can rely on Bitcoin's price when doing transactions. While Freicoin remains less liquid and thus less suitable for exchanges.

The currency is the most marketable, most valuable asset. And to make it so it must be the cheapest to store and transport, hardest to produce and impossible to counterfeit.

Re: Shopify accepts Bitcoin

#60

Post by aestra »

pallandt wrote: post #11
RickHull wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries. This is quite asinine. I assume you've never tried to purchase an item in country A from merchant A' accepting currency A'', while you are in country B using bank B' with an account denominated in B''. The hurdles, generally, are numerous and diverse. Any lack of hurdles is quite exceptional, and complete…

While I agree that it shouldn't be automatically assumed that someone who has bitcoins to spend will use them for illegal purposes, I'm curious as to what specific hurdles you encountered as mentioned in your post? In my country at least, if you want to purchase something online and in a different currency than your account and CC's denomination, the conversion is done automatically for you at checkout, at whatever t…

Most US Companies charge a strangely large "currency conversion" fee for this privilege.
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