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Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

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Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#101

Post by battani »

tomasien wrote: post #97
johncoogan wrote: post #45

Does anyone have an opinion on why the price of Bitcoin doesn't seem to move on news like this? It seems significant in my opinion and I would think that wider acceptance would lead to a higher price, but that hasn't been the case over the past few weeks / announcements.

It's not actually big news, is what I would say. Square is prominent to us because we know how it's growing, but it doesn't represent some insane amount of volume and this is only Square Market. It doesn't really change anything to say "a high profile tech company wants PR related to Bitcoin and to simultaneously test out what accepting it could do to their business". Every tech company is considering this - somebody…

Agree with this. Merchants take on absolutely no risk by proposing bitcoin as a payment option because a) they never touch btc b) they still offer the CC alternative. There is no deterioration in customer experience. It's just an additional option that allows Square in this case to tap into a market of evangelistic early adopters who are ready to spend part of their coins.

It's a smart marketing stunt (Square Market has been struggling to compete with more established marketplaces, so this could drive traffic to their service) but in no way points to the evolution of the bitcoin ecosystem. That will have to be measured on the consumer side of the market.

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#102

Post by DrStalker »

abalone wrote: post #85

This is a strange case for bitcoin, competing with credit cards. Most consumers would be better off paying with a card: same cost (none), more protections (the ability to dispute bad merchants over defective goods). It's not a bad idea for Square to add it, since some people have bitcoins obtained through speculation, mining, cheap money transfers, and so forth. But even so, they would be a little better served payin…

>Where bitcoin makes more sense to me is in replacing cash.

How does that work in a practical sense? "Thank you for ordering, please take a seat a and we'll give you your purchases as soon as your transaction is confirmed."

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#103

Post by sillysaurus3 »

meowface wrote: post #91
abalone wrote: post #85

This is a strange case for bitcoin, competing with credit cards. Most consumers would be better off paying with a card: same cost (none), more protections (the ability to dispute bad merchants over defective goods). It's not a bad idea for Square to add it, since some people have bitcoins obtained through speculation, mining, cheap money transfers, and so forth. But even so, they would be a little better served payin…

> I have yet to hear why bitcoin reflects a better choice than cards for the consumer. I think security would be an obvious answer. Credit cards are like symmetric cryptography: there's only one secret (a number), which you must share with everyone you ever want to send or receive money from. Any malicious actor who gets that number can then use it to extract money from your card. Sure, it's probably FDIC insured, bu…

Any malicious actor who gets that number can then use it to extract money from your card. Sure, it's probably FDIC insured, but they still make out with some of your money.

Actually, you lose none of your money. The credit card company completely refunds you. Someone once stole my card and got some gas with it, and the next day I got the transaction refunded and a new card issued within 10 minutes.

Bitcoin is far less secure than a credit card. The best way to lose thousands of dollars is to invest it into bitcoin and then trust any webservice to hold onto your coins for you. It's what happened to me. If I had experienced credit card fraud instead of bitcoin fraud, I'd still have my money. Now I don't.

What you're describing is security for a merchant. Preventing chargebacks sounds great... for merchants. But security for consumers is obviously more important, because consumer adoption is the single most important factor.

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#104

Post by InXorWeTrust »

aianus wrote: post #99
schrodinger wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the credit card companies require that you charge the same price for cash or credit?

I believe it's ok to offer a discount for cash as long as you don't have to pay more than the posted price when you use credit.

Some gas stations allow you to pay for Diesel with cash at a discount. As a side note, Flash Foods has a card you can get that uses ACH with your debit account (I'm probably not saying that right). You get a flat $0.05 off of gas. They claim it's because of credit card charges (and because ACH doesn't cost them anything).

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#105

Post by dangrossman »

schrodinger wrote: post #96
omegaham wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, a merchant would have to offer a discount in order to make Bitcoin worth pursuing.

Don't the credit card companies require that you charge the same price for cash or credit?

Neither cash discounts nor credit surcharges are prohibited now thanks to new legislation and a court settlement in the past few years.

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#106

Post by DrewAllyn »

DrStalker wrote: post #102
abalone wrote: post #85

This is a strange case for bitcoin, competing with credit cards. Most consumers would be better off paying with a card: same cost (none), more protections (the ability to dispute bad merchants over defective goods). It's not a bad idea for Square to add it, since some people have bitcoins obtained through speculation, mining, cheap money transfers, and so forth. But even so, they would be a little better served payin…

>Where bitcoin makes more sense to me is in replacing cash. How does that work in a practical sense? "Thank you for ordering, please take a seat a and we'll give you your purchases as soon as your transaction is confirmed."

For small transactions, it is safe to give the purchases after 0 confirmations. In order to pull off a double spend with 0 confirmations, you need to ensure that the store (or whoever processes payments for them) receives the "wrong" spend first, which requires a large enough fraction of the hash power of the network that just mining the usual way is more profitable.

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#107

Post by allavia88 »

abalone wrote: post #85

This is a strange case for bitcoin, competing with credit cards. Most consumers would be better off paying with a card: same cost (none), more protections (the ability to dispute bad merchants over defective goods). It's not a bad idea for Square to add it, since some people have bitcoins obtained through speculation, mining, cheap money transfers, and so forth. But even so, they would be a little better served payin…

"Anonymity maybe?"

The Blockchain is definitely NOT anonymous. There was a misconception in the early days that Bitcoin was a anonymous given there is no certificate authority that ties you to particular addresses.

However, this may or may not hold as various entities pop up (e.g. Coinbase, Bitstamp) who may be subpoena'd

Mixing also doesn't work because you can apply taint analysis. Further, do you really want to mix your address with other dirty addresses? Who knows what they've been up to!

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#108

Post by stuhood »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #103
meowface wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have yet to hear why bitcoin reflects a better choice than cards for the consumer. I think security would be an obvious answer. Credit cards are like symmetric cryptography: there's only one secret (a number), which you must share with everyone you ever want to send or receive money from. Any malicious actor who gets that number can then use it to extract money from your card. Sure, it's probably FDIC insured, bu…

Any malicious actor who gets that number can then use it to extract money from your card. Sure, it's probably FDIC insured, but they still make out with some of your money. Actually, you lose none of your money. The credit card company completely refunds you. Someone once stole my card and got some gas with it, and the next day I got the transaction refunded and a new card issued within 10 minutes. Bitcoin is far les…

Considering that every restaurant, store or bar you've ever used your card at potentially stashed away your secret, how closely have you been monitoring your card for siphoning of funds?

It is not in the credit card companies best interest to even acknowledge this type of theft, because they have no way except machine learning to protect you from it.

On the other hand, it IS useful for them to acknowledge huge security breaches at corporations, because they can point to them and say: and look at how we protected you! (after their dumb security system endangered you in the first place)

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#109

Post by psycr »

allavia88 wrote: post #107
abalone wrote: post #85

This is a strange case for bitcoin, competing with credit cards. Most consumers would be better off paying with a card: same cost (none), more protections (the ability to dispute bad merchants over defective goods). It's not a bad idea for Square to add it, since some people have bitcoins obtained through speculation, mining, cheap money transfers, and so forth. But even so, they would be a little better served payin…

"Anonymity maybe?" The Blockchain is definitely NOT anonymous. There was a misconception in the early days that Bitcoin was a anonymous given there is no certificate authority that ties you to particular addresses. However, this may or may not hold as various entities pop up (e.g. Coinbase, Bitstamp) who may be subpoena'd Mixing also doesn't work because you can apply taint analysis. Further, do you really want to mi…

What taint analysis are you referring to? From my understanding, once a part of a Bitcoin has been tumbled, there's no way to verify which "part" that Bitcoin has in further transactions from that wallet.

Re: Square Market Accepts Bitcoin

#110

Post by sillysaurus3 »

stuhood wrote: post #108
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any malicious actor who gets that number can then use it to extract money from your card. Sure, it's probably FDIC insured, but they still make out with some of your money. Actually, you lose none of your money. The credit card company completely refunds you. Someone once stole my card and got some gas with it, and the next day I got the transaction refunded and a new card issued within 10 minutes. Bitcoin is far les…

Considering that every restaurant, store or bar you've ever used your card at potentially stashed away your secret, how closely have you been monitoring your card for siphoning of funds? It is not in the credit card companies best interest to even acknowledge this type of theft, because they have no way except machine learning to protect you from it. On the other hand, it IS useful for them to acknowledge huge securi…

how closely have you been monitoring your card for siphoning of funds?

Closely. In fact, I get an email every time a transaction is made. Any fraud would be detected immediately: an email would arrive saying I've been charged, and I'd call up the credit card company and get it refunded in 10 minutes. So it seems to me that siphoning of funds from my credit card can't happen.

I needed protection from bitcoin fraud, not credit card fraud. The best thing for the bitcoin ecosystem would be to learn from credit card companies rather than villify them.

Also, people go to prison for many years for credit card fraud, whereas the legal system is still adjusting to bitcoin. I haven't heard of any bitcoin-related prosecutions yet. So bitcoin fraud is far less risky.

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