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Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#141

Post by tomasien »

gamblor956 wrote: post #89
tomasien wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regulation E only applies to specified forms of electronic funds transfer. For example, it would not apply to prepaid cards. It is not clear that Regulation E would apply to Bitcoin transactions, and so far most retailers and BTC payment processors have taken the stance that Regulation E does not apply to BTC transactions.

Solid point. Sometimes I forget if I'm talking about Knox or BTC - either way, Reg E is NOT a CC thing

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#142

Post by aestra »

hnnewguy wrote: post #134
aestra wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I don't want to tap my card and leave. I wish I could turn off that "feature." A way credit cards are bad for consumers? Science proves that you tend to spend less money when you pay with cash, especially on unplanned and/or impulse purchases. I guess the p…

> I don't want to tap my card and leave. Then don't. No one forces you. Use signature only, or "chip and pin".

No, but I'd rather not have my credit cards have that option in them. Basically, I do not like the fact someone can tap my card and then get money from it. I just am not a fan of that type of payment, because it is too easy. I don't like the argument "don't use it" because it isn't an optional "feature," if your card has it, it has it. You cannot turn it off.

http://www.mymoneycoach.ca/credit_rating/how-to-protect-self...

"a $3 smart card reader purchased online can steal people’s credit card information if the thief can get close enough to your purse or wallet.

I know you're thinking "you're not liable for fraud." Doesn't mean I want fraud to happen, that it isn't a pain in the ass.

Especially unsettling is the RFID chips in passports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09...

http://www.emc.com/emc-plus/rsa-labs/staff-associates/epc-rf...

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#143

Post by mriou »

kalleboo wrote: post #99
hendzen wrote: post #76

Awesome. Now to see how their integration works with regards to confirmation time. The best solution IMO is to use a risk analyzer to determine the number of needed confirmations. 0 conf for small payments for a merchant with a low fraud rate, with increasing confirmations needed as the size of the payment grows. I would look at BitPay's checkout flow to see the state of the art here. Also hoping they implement the p…

> 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.…

> 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

The above is much easier said than done. First, you're assuming you can have a good enough coverage of the network which is hard to assess. You need to do a constant topology analysis to see how well-connected you are. Second, you need to ask a chosen set of peers for all the transactions they have in their pool. And wait until they all reply. Third, you need to be pretty good at normalizing against malleability on all those transactions.

After doing all of this, the scheme is still not bulletproof. The blockchain exists for a reason.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#144

Post by pbreit »

seabee wrote: post #140
pbreit wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting kicked out of the system.

Only if the incentives of the third party align this way, which is very unlikely as many merchants burned by PayPal/eBay can attest to.

We used to kick chronic chargebackers out of PayPal and I would assume that still the case to some extent.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#145

Post by gnaritas »

danielweber wrote: post #108
netcan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have said, risk=chargebacks which bitcoin does fix. with CCs merchants basically have to trust customers and being overseas makes you untrustworthy (like to chargeback). Lots of other things imply risk. The only way to reduce it is by finding out more about customers: full name, current location, previous location, chargeback history and anything else that the merchant, CC company, payment gateway and 3rd p…

You've described why merchants would want it. Now describe why consumers would want it.

Lower prices due to decreased risk on the merchants. If it's better for merchants, it's better for consumers too.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#146

Post by gnaritas »

danielweber wrote: post #112
voxic11 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if I use bitcoins to buy something and then the vendor doesn't ship it to me? 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.

Stripe isn't the vendor, they're the payment processor for the vendor; that decision isn't up to Stripe, it's up to the vendor. Your relationship isn't with Stripe, it's with the vendor. Your recourse is with the vendor as well, not Stripe.

The solution to this is block chain escrow through a third party.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#147

Post by Tossrock »

aestra wrote: post #131
kalleboo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some consumers can't get a credit card. It's hard for consumers vulnerable to overspending & borrowing to avoid the card's expensive credit component. Aren't debit and credit cards 100% interchangeable these days? I've for sure never had my MasterCard debit card rejected.

Guess what? 10 million American households are unbanked or underbanked. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked

I don't think those 10 million households are going to have their problems solved by bitcoin.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#148

Post by gnaritas »

grey-area wrote: post #121
vertex-four wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only if you wait for a significant amount of time (days?) to verify the transaction. What? Two or three confirmations are generally irreversible. Six - an hour, give or take - has been generally agreed to be absolutely irreversible since the original Bitcoin client (if it's not, there's something really wrong and Bitcoin isn't as valuable as we thought). If you're using a payment processor which takes risk that doe…

Credit cards generally verify in seconds, so this is a significant difference, even if the time is hours (I'd read somewhere it could be days for 7 confirmations, but thanks for the correction if that is never true and it is hours) - that confirmation time varies wildly and is not predictable is also an issue. A lot of merchants ship almost immediately after orders are completed (e.g. digital goods), so introducing a…

> Credit cards generally verify in seconds, so this is a significant difference

Which is equivalent to a 0 confirmation transaction, so no it's not a difference. Cards can be reversed for months, that's what 6 confirmations is competing with.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#149

Post by gioele »

antr wrote: post #69
josephlord wrote: post #53

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 trans…

i'm going to guess that they will exchange at spot and take a small transaction fee. having bitcoin on your balance sheet (volatility-wise) is not the wisest move for a startup.

> not the wisest move for a startup.

Is Stripe a "startup"? Founded in 2009, they "process billions of dollars a year for thousands of companies of all sizes." and they are a "startup"?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#150

Post by eof »

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.…

if bitcoin weren't deflationary, it never would have been bootstrapped from zero. why would i buy a worthless bitcoin in 2010 if it was going to be worh the same or less in 20xx? This applies to all other cryptos as well; without central backing there is only supply/demand. No one wants to be the first to take a risk if there is no upside.
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