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Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

promotions.newegg.com

11–20 of 212 posts

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#11
post #9
post #2

Pay 1% more(or 3%-8% more if you have a cash back card and depending on where you bought your coins) to save them 2% and lose all consumer protections in the deal. It's no wonder there is almost no consumer growth in the bitcoin world while new merchants are announced every other day.

You are wrong, there is tremendous consumer growth happening. The two biggest US processors (BitPay and Coinbase) release numbers every once in a while. One example: "Since [...] October, along with the integration with Shopify in November, [...] the transaction volume has tripled." Source: http://blog.bitpay.com/2013/12/11/bitpay-exceeds-100-000-000...

Where are you seeing it? Overstock the most regularly promoted name as a retailer has only seen dropping numbers since they started.

Notice bitpay stopped reporting 7 months ago?

Coinbase has also been called out on posting contradictory numbers on their blog posts in the past which lead to them deleting most of their posts related to numbers.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#12
post #2

Pay 1% more(or 3%-8% more if you have a cash back card and depending on where you bought your coins) to save them 2% and lose all consumer protections in the deal. It's no wonder there is almost no consumer growth in the bitcoin world while new merchants are announced every other day.

True there's no advantage to paying with bitcoin currently and most people are just using it for the novelty value. But enough growth and merchants will just have to offer discounts with bitcoin purchases to stay competitive.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, there is tremendous consumer growth happening. The two biggest US processors (BitPay and Coinbase) release numbers every once in a while. One example: "Since [...] October, along with the integration with Shopify in November, [...] the transaction volume has tripled." Source: http://blog.bitpay.com/2013/12/11/bitpay-exceeds-100-000-000...

Where are you seeing it? Overstock the most regularly promoted name as a retailer has only seen dropping numbers since they started. Notice bitpay stopped reporting 7 months ago? Coinbase has also been called out on posting contradictory numbers on their blog posts in the past which lead to them deleting most of their posts related to numbers.

[deleted]

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#14
post #2

Pay 1% more(or 3%-8% more if you have a cash back card and depending on where you bought your coins) to save them 2% and lose all consumer protections in the deal. It's no wonder there is almost no consumer growth in the bitcoin world while new merchants are announced every other day.

> lose all consumer protections

Nonsense. Consumer protection laws apply no matter the payment method.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#15
post #2

Pay 1% more(or 3%-8% more if you have a cash back card and depending on where you bought your coins) to save them 2% and lose all consumer protections in the deal. It's no wonder there is almost no consumer growth in the bitcoin world while new merchants are announced every other day.

True there's no advantage to paying with bitcoin currently and most people are just using it for the novelty value. But enough growth and merchants will just have to offer discounts with bitcoin purchases to stay competitive.

Isn't that illegal?

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, there is tremendous consumer growth happening. The two biggest US processors (BitPay and Coinbase) release numbers every once in a while. One example: "Since [...] October, along with the integration with Shopify in November, [...] the transaction volume has tripled." Source: http://blog.bitpay.com/2013/12/11/bitpay-exceeds-100-000-000...

Where are you seeing it? Overstock the most regularly promoted name as a retailer has only seen dropping numbers since they started. Notice bitpay stopped reporting 7 months ago? Coinbase has also been called out on posting contradictory numbers on their blog posts in the past which lead to them deleting most of their posts related to numbers.

I'd like to see a source for your claim that "Overstock ... has only seen dropping numbers since they started." I think you're probably getting it from the FOX Business interview in May, but that's not really as cut-and-dried as you're making out.

[1] http://www.coindesk.com/overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-1-6m-bit...

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#17
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's because bitcoin transactions are not instant. To fully 'verify' that a transaction has taken place, they need 6 confirmations. The transaction may within a few seconds show up on the bitcoin blockchain, but it can't be fully trusted until it has at least 6 confirmations. Waiting for that can take some time.

I'm pretty sure Bitcoin payment processors like Bitpay aren't waiting for 6 full confirmations.

yeah. Looks like it's configurable.

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/12033/how-many-c...

https://bitpay.com/downloads/bitpayApi.pdf “transactionSpeed” - "medium" An invoice is considered to be "confirmed" after 1 block confirmation (~10 minutes).

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#18
post #2

Pay 1% more(or 3%-8% more if you have a cash back card and depending on where you bought your coins) to save them 2% and lose all consumer protections in the deal. It's no wonder there is almost no consumer growth in the bitcoin world while new merchants are announced every other day.

> lose all consumer protections Nonsense. Consumer protection laws apply no matter the payment method.

Not true in all places.

In the UK part of your protection is the fact that there is a third party involved (your credit card issuer) who has a variety of responsibilities to the consumer over and above the responsibilities of the retailer. In practice this means you get better protection as the money can be taken back from the retailer by a third party with a big stick.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True there's no advantage to paying with bitcoin currently and most people are just using it for the novelty value. But enough growth and merchants will just have to offer discounts with bitcoin purchases to stay competitive.

Isn't that illegal?

Credit card companies use to dictate that you couldn't charge different prices for them but they were sued and lost so now you can.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#20
post #6
post #3

Could somebody explain the reasoning behind "customers have 15 minutes to complete their bitcoin payment before their invoice expires"

Bitcoin is decentralised, so, from Neweggs perspective, the transaction is never completed 'online'. Their payment processor (I'm guessing it's going to be Bitpay) has to wait until they see your transaction on the Bitcoin network before they tell Newegg that it's paid. Think of it as waiting for a cheque to arrive. A timeout is just sensible so you're not reserving stock.

That's not what the timer is referring to. The 15 minute timer is in place due to the exchange rate. Newegg prices their items in dollars, BitPay converts it to a BTC price and presents that price to the user. They can't show that same BTC price forever, becasue if the price of bitcoin drops by 50% over 24 hours, and you decide to leave your window open and order then instead of now, you will get whatever you are buying for half the price. Bitpay guaranteed the USD price that was set on the item to the merchant. Now they owe it, but have only collected half. Thus Bitpay would be out hundreds of dollars (or whatever half your order is). Similarly, if the price rose by 100% over 24 hours you could accidentally pay double. So they put a timer on it.
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