111–120 of 198 posts
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You can't do any of that with cash either...
What does cash have to do with this discussion?
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No bitcoin will fix that because you can't reverse the charges. So there is no risk in shipping because you are 100% positive that you have the money you expect you have.
I fully expect this is part of the user experience Stripe will sell. If I buy something through Stripe using bitcoins and get stiffed, is Stripe going to tell me "too bad" when I complain to them?
No, they won't, because Stripe isn't suicidal.
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> Marginally higher costs that inevitably pass to consumers Massive statement that I sincerely doubt is true (increased revenue off of increased liquidity drives prices down for everyone).
I don't understand this statement. It's controversial that an extra cost attached to every transaction in a big wide chunk of the economy will bring up costs to consumers. It's not very different to sales tax.
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.…
"The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary." Bitcoin doesn't need to "support a global economy" for it to be useful/successful. "Right now more half of Bitcoin supply is already own by someone" Are you saying one entity owns half of all Bitcoins? I've heard the figure of a few percent thrown around, but never half.
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That's a good point, BTC doesn't have that figured out yet but I bet Stripe will be able to help figure that out! We handle that for ACH if you're interested.
Bitcoin does have the capability of "2 of 3" authorizations which can mitigate some of the upfront risk. The idea being that a payment only completes after 2 parties approve it, the 3rd being an independent 3rd party in this case (who could be configured to auto-approve if a complaint isn't filed in x days).
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What does cash have to do with this discussion?
Cash is still an extremely common and well-accepted method of payment for brick and mortar stores, despite the fact that it (like Bitcoin) doesn't have all the consumer protection features of credit cards.
But I'll play the moving-the-goalpost game. For in-person transactions they have some similarities. They both have no chargeback or consumer protections, but we're receiving goods immediately so thats not a very large issue. Cash is instantaneous, unlike Bitcoin. Cash doesn't have exchange risk. Cash doesn't have transaction fees, while Bitcoin does. So cash is actually superior for an in-person transaction.
If I'm going to do an in-person transaction and am not going to use my card, why would I not use cash? If I don't want to carry cash, why would I not use my card? And if its an online transaction, then chargebacks are definitely something I want, even with a trusted merchant. So whats the use case for bitcoin? The OP proposed one use case; I assume that there are people who find that valid. It is not a case that interests me, personally, and that prompted my response.
Given the recent guidance from the IRS regarding bitcoin (it's property like stocks or bonds... http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/0325irsbitc... ) I wouldn't try to use it as a day-to-day currency. Every single transaction will represent a taxable event, requiring calculating cost-basis and capital gain/loss. If Stripe were announcing today a "pay with MSFT shares" feature, people would ridicule them.…
There are some things to be skeptical about, but the IRS hasn't made Stripe's use of Bitcoin any harder. They have to keep super-careful records anyway.
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> The best solution IMO is to use a risk analyzer to determine the number of needed confirmations As I understand it, you can still feel pretty safe with 0 confirmations if you're monitoring the bitcoin network for double-spend attempts over the average network propagation time. If you don't see any double-spend attempts anywhere on the net by the time most of the net has seen your transaction, you're probably good.…
As you said, even if the original tx has propagated, a double spending tx with a higher fee will jump the line in a miner's mempool. Never assume miners are altruistic - they seek primarily to maximize their profit. Propogation is a useful heuristic, but its not a panacea.
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If you had the option to tap a Bitcoin card and have the same experience, but save 3% on the transaction, would you?
> but save 3% on the transaction, would you It's my understanding that it's explicitly against the merchant agreement with the big CC players to have different prices for different payment methods. Of course, that's difficult to enforce in practice for every Ma and Pa operation, but if you're operating on any scale, where a significant portion of your revenue comes from CCs, that will be an issue.
Plenty of gas stations have a CC price/gal and a lower Cash price.
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.…
"The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary." Bitcoin doesn't need to "support a global economy" for it to be useful/successful. "Right now more half of Bitcoin supply is already own by someone" Are you saying one entity owns half of all Bitcoins? I've heard the figure of a few percent thrown around, but never half.