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Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#51

Post by srdev »

ejfox wrote: post #25
hnnewguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which are awful, but necessary for now As a consumer or business? Because as a consumer, I've never had a complaint about my CC, ever. With the NFC chips built into all new CCs (at least here in Canada) I tap my card and leave. You can't get more convenient than that. As such, I don't think credit cards are going anywhere.

If you had the option to tap a Bitcoin card and have the same experience, but save 3% on the transaction, would you?

It depends on a lot of other factors. Are my bitcoins on the card insured against loss or theft? Can I reverse the transaction if I get stiffed? If the answers are "no" and "no", then I'd probably still prefer my credit card for peace of mind. 3% isn't a huge discount in the grand scheme of things, and I get 1-3% rewards on my credit card for most purchases.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#52

Post by cperciva »

dergachev wrote: post #23

Actual article by cperciva about accepting bitcoin via stripe, not sure why that wasn't linked directly: http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2014-03-27-tarsnap-bitcoin.h...

That's currently the #2 story on the front page. I submitted both, but people are voting up the link to Stripe more.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#53

Post by josephlord »

The interesting part of this from my point of view is how Stripe will manage the conversion of received bitcoin back into dollars. Will they directly sell bitcoin to consumers themselves or trade on one (or more) of the exchanges.

Stripe are obviously taking the risk of the volatility so will probably want to keep the bitcoin float that they hold fairly small. They also need to keep a reasonable margin on these transactions and watch for people who don't complete transactions unless the price moves in their favour (after the price has been quoted).

I assume refunds are of bitcoin to the agreed dollar value not the same number of bitcoins as was spent, otherwise there would be risks there too.

Edit: Found this in other story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7481219 (http://recode.net/2014/03/27/stripe-merchants-will-soon-be-a...)

Payments will arrive in their bank accounts in seven days or fewer. Neither Stripe nor its customers will hold onto the bitcoin, meaning the businesses that accept bitcoin will not be subject to the volatility of its price. Collison said his company is working with a variety of undisclosed partners to exchange the bitcoin into local currency in near real time.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#54

Post by tomasien »

tomasien wrote: post #4

The concept that Stripe may be moving away from strictly supporting Credit Card payments (which are awful, but necessary for now) and into alternatives is so exciting to me that I am literally shaking. We're building infrastructure to make bank-to-bank transfers palatable to consumers and drive their cost toward zero, but it's only if thought leaders like the Collisons embrace the move away from CC's that the move wi…

The rush to defend credit cards on this thread is staggering but extremely interesting to me! It seems the consensus is that in the absence of an ideal solution, we love credit cards (especially in the USA). Two really important things:

1. Consumer protections are not a Credit Card thing - chargebacks and literally every single protection CC's give you are legally mandated by Regulation E - all payment processors must have them in place. It's unclear how this will relate to BTC, but other solutions (including my own) have this to the letter the same way CC's do. CC's want you to believe it's them, it's not - the US Government made those regulations.

2. Yes Billing and Shipping Address are needed in every instance - but there are better ways than typing them out, especially on a mobile phone. Sure there are services that can save that info for you, but a better solution is a network that already knows that info. Stripe could build that with their "remember me" features, I've built that by using the information your bank has. There are solutions, and we need them to move into mobile commerce where it's impossible for every app to have your info pre-saved. In a world outside the browser, we need better options.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#55

Post by foobarqux »

ejfox wrote: post #25
hnnewguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which are awful, but necessary for now As a consumer or business? Because as a consumer, I've never had a complaint about my CC, ever. With the NFC chips built into all new CCs (at least here in Canada) I tap my card and leave. You can't get more convenient than that. As such, I don't think credit cards are going anywhere.

If you had the option to tap a Bitcoin card and have the same experience, but save 3% on the transaction, would you?

But you won't save 3% because the payment processor is going to charge you, at least eventually. And if the fee is low enough that it competes with CC then the CC companies will simply lower their prices. The CC companies can afford a price war, everyone else can't.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#56

Post by wyager »

piokoch wrote: post #24
tomasien wrote: post #4

The concept that Stripe may be moving away from strictly supporting Credit Card payments (which are awful, but necessary for now) and into alternatives is so exciting to me that I am literally shaking. We're building infrastructure to make bank-to-bank transfers palatable to consumers and drive their cost toward zero, but it's only if thought leaders like the Collisons embrace the move away from CC's that the move wi…

"which are awful, but necessary for now". I am not sure what is exactly that awful in having free credit for X days, rewards for making purchases (which effectively cancels fees) and, the most important thing, chargebacks. I can understand Credit Card issues from seller point of view, but for clients (that is most of us), they are not that bad. Bitcoin will have to provide the same level of consumer comfort and safet…

> the most important thing, chargebacks.

Chargebacks are awful. 99% of the time, the merchant is a trusted party with a reputation to uphold, and the customer is a nobody who either couldn't care less about or couldn't be held to their reputation. Established companies won't go around overtly scamming people. The only time that chargebacks are really a good thing is with the very uncommon untrusted-merchant sale (like a new seller on Ebay with little/no feedback).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#57

Post by mbesto »

tomasien wrote: post #4

The concept that Stripe may be moving away from strictly supporting Credit Card payments (which are awful, but necessary for now) and into alternatives is so exciting to me that I am literally shaking. We're building infrastructure to make bank-to-bank transfers palatable to consumers and drive their cost toward zero, but it's only if thought leaders like the Collisons embrace the move away from CC's that the move wi…

I've seen a lot of replies to this comment that are missing the point tomasien is trying to make. BTC can actually completely wipe out the need for VISA, MC, etc. as it can serve for the underlying technology for transactions.

The only thing stopping this from happening today is illiquidity of the BTC(insert fiat currency) market. Once we see more liquidity, this dream can become a reality.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#58

Post by srdev »

tomasien wrote: post #36
tomasien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Card payments in person can be great - swipe and go, why not? Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Even at it's best in the Stripe Checkout model, it's less than ideal and extremely unsafe - it's so unsafe that American Express is RUNNING COMMERCIALS ADVERTISING HOW UNSAFE THEIR PROCESS IS! For your conveni…

Can't respond to individual comments - chargeback protection is NOT a credit-card thing - it's a consumer protection called Regulation E that all payment processors must have. We have it for ACH for example.

That seems to be at odds with how Bitcoin works with the handful of large retailers that accept it. Reading online experiences, there are a subset where they order something at Overstock/Tiger Direct, the order does not go through, but the Bitcoins are sent, and they are told to complain to Coinbase. The alternative is I spend 5 minutes on the phone with a third party to issue a chargeback. ACH are also reversible by a third party (the bank).

Is my understanding flawed? How does a chargeback work when a third party does not exist and the protocol does not allow chargebacks.

Edit: Note that the merchant itself doing a refund is not equivalent. The important feature of a chargeback is that its a third party issuing it.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#59

Post by pbreit »

Guvante wrote: post #49
tomasien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Card payments in person can be great - swipe and go, why not? Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Even at it's best in the Stripe Checkout model, it's less than ideal and extremely unsafe - it's so unsafe that American Express is RUNNING COMMERCIALS ADVERTISING HOW UNSAFE THEIR PROCESS IS! For your conveni…

Bitcoin is equivalent to cash, of course businesses want a cash equivalent as their method of online payment. However many consumers have gotten used to the protections credit cards offer.

No it's not. Since businesses have to convert most or all of it to real cash and it can take hours or days for this process to complete, there would be padding built in to account for the volatility.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#60

Post by a-priori »

rebelidealist wrote: post #48

I wish all these resources spent & millions of investment dollars would go to a better version of Bitcoin. BT is a major breakthru but it is still in an alpha stage. The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary. This is because for hundreds of millions of people to use BT, the supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.…

I disagree, because Bitcoin's monetary policy can be changed at any time. In fact, Dogecoin, which uses a fork of the Bitcoin code, just changed theirs a short time ago, without much fuss, to a continuous inflation policy like you mentioned. I agree that for either of them to be used as a currency (rather than just for speculation), a low and stable level of inflation is necessary.

But that's all about inflation in the long term. In the short term, the rate of inflation depends on other factors such as the rate of capital moving into the Bitcoin economy and the rate of Bitcoins being lost.

So right now, there's no reason people should hold back on adopting Bitcoin because of its current monetary policy of having a fixed maximum number of coins. It's not like there's a fixed amount of money or time that can be invested in it; there's no reason people like Stripe and merchants can't do their bit at the same time core Bitcoin developers do theirs..

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