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PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

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Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#81

Serious question: If one is engaged in entirely legal activities - no money laundering, no drugs, no illegal weapons, no tax evasion, no slipping around international monetary controls - why would one want to use Bitcoin? With the volatility of Bitcoin's price, transfer costs of traditional payment methods (1-3%) are totally dwarfed by the risk of holding Bitcoins for even a short period of time. Maybe there is some…

Before anything else, Bitcoin is a way of transferring value anywhere cheaply, quickly, and without chargebacks, counterfeiting, or relying on a line of credit. If the exchange price stabilizes to the point where things can be priced only in Bitcoin, that's just a bonus.

People get too hung up on the idea of using Bitcoin in exactly the same manner as they do dollars. It may happen at some point, but for now it is used as a means of transferring value. If we consider only this use case, the advantages are abundantly clear. Then, we can start debating and speculating on Bitcoin's merit as a full currency.

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#82
post #30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding bitcoins isn't required to spend money using the Bitcoin network. Services can let you purchase bitcoins when you're making a payment and send them instantly. (They need your credit card as a backup payment method in case the ACH fails.) Sellers quote a Bitcoin price that is stable for 15 minutes. There is no price fluctuation during a purchase. It's effectively paying with your bank account over the Bitcoin…

So it's an API for ACH? That could be a bonus for merchants, giving them a standardized way of processing low-fee payments, but what's the appeal for consumers? Merchants pay the credit card fees because offering the credit card option ultimately results in more revenue than not offering the credit card option. The adoption needs to happen more so on the consumer-side than the merchant-side. Merchants can offer the s…

> I get 1.5% back on all my credit card purchases

But that money has to come from somewhere, and that's the 2% credit card fee (can be a bit less, can be a lot more) paid by the merchant. And the merchant needs to make a profit, so he pays these fees by raising his prices 2%. If the cost of the transaction would appear on your bill, it would become obvious that you are not getting any "cash back". The perverse part is that the people not using credit cards are punished because they usually pay the same price.

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#83
post #72
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's a not a real-world scenario. Especially the part where you don't spend USD becuase more merchants begin to accept BTC , like if you're going to buy bread with BTC. You're not and if you do, you're 1 in 100.000.000.000. 2. Yes, that might work but it's extremely risky and complicated. When if you need to cash out quickly? What if BTC prices goes back to 150 USD because a large BTC holder (an investment bank) d…

> 1. It's a not a real-world scenario. Kidding? Many many many immigrants who come to the US come in order to find a job so that they can send money back home and help support their relatives who live in the developing world. It is incredibly common, and Western Union (and only a few other players) have had a monopoly/oligopoly in this space for far too long, making bank.

Now I think you're trolling me, so I'll stop the conversation here.

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#84
post #20

Serious question: If one is engaged in entirely legal activities - no money laundering, no drugs, no illegal weapons, no tax evasion, no slipping around international monetary controls - why would one want to use Bitcoin? With the volatility of Bitcoin's price, transfer costs of traditional payment methods (1-3%) are totally dwarfed by the risk of holding Bitcoins for even a short period of time. Maybe there is some…

If we don't take a US-centric view of it where everything not within their financial system is illegal, what about countries such as Argentina? Bitcoin is global. As a digital ecommerce infrastructure there is a lot of value. For example, even in Canada and it was very difficult accepting foreign credit cards until Stripe came around. The merchant/CC industry moved so slowly it took decades longer than it should have…

This is really not a very practical picture of bitcoin's capabilities outside the developed world. In the developing world, bitcoin is very difficult to spend or cash into local currency, even assuming access to a capable smartphone/pc with internet and the technical skills necessary to manage and securely store bitcoin

>Vendors in the middle of Africa do not need a bank account and credit card merchant account to sell products online. Plus they can distribute the earnings to their family members working across the country with their mobile phone, without their family needing accounts.

The "middle of Africa" is pretty much the quintessential example of a region where bitcoin is completely impractical. Poor internet infrastructure, high rates of computer illiteracy, limited access to capable computers... bitcoin simply isn't the answer (yet).

Consider this guy who went over to Kenya in the name of a bitcoin charity effort, only to be sobered by the reality of the situation on the ground.

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-133-t...

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#85
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's a not a real-world scenario. Especially the part where you don't spend USD becuase more merchants begin to accept BTC , like if you're going to buy bread with BTC. You're not and if you do, you're 1 in 100.000.000.000. 2. Yes, that might work but it's extremely risky and complicated. When if you need to cash out quickly? What if BTC prices goes back to 150 USD because a large BTC holder (an investment bank) d…

4. Gold backed? We're past the 70's, man, there are no gold backed currencies in heavy use now. l3rn 2 fiat. Joking aside, more technically, the value of all currencies are in the faith of its' users that it holds value. (Yes, the circular reasoning is the point.) "no country who will support it" is a feature. Many users of Bitcoin are deeply mistrustful of the government's ability to manage money, and making it dist…

No, I'm not joking. Gold remains the only asset people will trust their money on at a time of war and the only asset which could create a new currency[1] successfully, if needed. Comparing gold which has a 3000+ year history at currency backing to a 5 year old experiment is a little bit hard for me.

> Many users of Bitcoin are deeply mistrustful of the government's ability to manage money, and making it distributed literally puts all the power into the hands of the people.

Here: http://www.convalesco.org/blog/2014/02/11/on-the-matter-of-b...

[1] http://moneymorning.com/2013/01/29/why-germany-wants-its-gol...

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#86
post #70
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's a not a real-world scenario. Especially the part where you don't spend USD becuase more merchants begin to accept BTC , like if you're going to buy bread with BTC. You're not and if you do, you're 1 in 100.000.000.000. 2. Yes, that might work but it's extremely risky and complicated. When if you need to cash out quickly? What if BTC prices goes back to 150 USD because a large BTC holder (an investment bank) d…

1: Yes it is :) The whole experience was eye-opening: coins transferred internationally within tens of minutes, then used for a Newegg purchase. This is a great example of real, concrete utility that I wish more people could experience on their own, before they criticize Bitcoin... 3 & 4: None of your complaints matter to most merchants who accept Bitcoin, because they do so through processors like BitPay/Coinbase. A…

I don't have any complaints, I'm stating the obvious: It's not practical. Buying computer parts? Who cares about computer parts?!?!?! Can I buy clothes and bread from my local store?!

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#87
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Looking to the future doesn't make me want to transact in BTC right now. And that's fine. Contrary to popular belief, most core Bitcoiners are not particularly interested in "converting" non-Bitcoin users. There was a big group that bought Bitcoin as a (risky) investment in fall of last year who try to pump it up, but they don't even share many of the core values of the Bitcoin community. I do want people to be educ…

With that sentence, I meant that bankless people suffer hardship because they can't get access to basic banking services like savings accounts, currency exchanges, and money lending. Simply because a financial institution that provides those services transacts in bitcoin doesn't make it any more ethical/moral than a traditional bank. While it's true that bitcoin doesn't have a central monetary authority, you still ne…

>With that sentence, I meant that bankless people suffer hardship because they can't get access to basic banking services like savings accounts, currency exchanges, and money lending.

That's exactly who I'm talking about. And I think this will be the group who adopts Bitcoin, because there's a lot of friction in that market. Bitcoin is being seeing major adoption by markets with significant friction (silk road -> gambling sites -> ?).

>While it's true that bitcoin doesn't have a central monetary authority, you still need a gateway to exchange currency for BTC (currency exchange), some way to safely store your private keys (savings accounts), and lenders.

I agree that there will be a transition period.

No comment on my call for mutual respect?

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#88
Bitcoin remains the best and most liquid savings vehicle over the last five years of its existence. Assuming savings = holding currency for over 1 year.

On 98% of the days that you could have purchased Bitcoin you would have realized an increase in purchasing power in a year's time. In those 2% of cases where you could have purchased Bitcoin and seen a loss over one year, you would have still seen an increase in purchasing power in another 300 days. (This is mostly dealing with the June 2011 bubble)

There has never been a time where you could hold Bitcoin for 2 years and lose purchasing power. On the contrary, holding Bitcoin brings on average a 5x per year return in purchasing power.

Past performance, future gains, blah blah. Judgement is about taking into consideration the facts we have now and comparing them against past performance. There are very good reasons why Bitcoin is valued around $6billion now and very good reasons to think it will be valued higher in the future.

You should be placing your life savings in Bitcoin, and only purchasing the USD that you require and holding it for as short of a period as possible. This would have been the best strategy for 98% of 1 year periods over the last five years, and 100% of 2 year periods over the last 5 years.

Debit cards that draw on Bitcoin balances and allow you to use the VISA and Mastercard networks should be the most interesting products -- because they allow you to expose yourself to the dollar's periodic collapse against Bitcoin for the shortest period of time.

I'm sure I'll be downvoted and that people will tell you that Bitcoin is super risky and that you should only invest what you can afford to lose -- but shouldn't that be the case for the dollar and not Bitcoin?

The dollar loses 90% of its purchasing power against Bitcoin on semi-regular schedules, and people keep purchasing more after each collapse. This routine should get old after a while, but that's what happens when you don't use Bitcoin as your unit of account!

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#89

Bitcoin remains the best and most liquid savings vehicle over the last five years of its existence. Assuming savings = holding currency for over 1 year. On 98% of the days that you could have purchased Bitcoin you would have realized an increase in purchasing power in a year's time. In those 2% of cases where you could have purchased Bitcoin and seen a loss over one year, you would have still seen an increase in purc…

Facepalm. I can pick 20 small cap stocks that have outperformed the dollar over the past year. That only makes them a good savings vehicle in hindsight.

Confusing short-term speculation with sustainable added value here.

Re: PayPal’s Braintree Embraces Bitcoin, One-Touch Payments

#90
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most democratic country will vote in favour of bitcoin, eg. letting people speculate with it freely and use it somewhat freely (you still have to pay tax).

I think that you're fond of bitcoin (the protocol) but you clearly don't understand the social ramifications of what you're talking about: Democracy and anonymous, decentralized currencies do not play well together :-)

> Democracy and anonymous, decentralized currencies do not play well together

So now the true colors come out, cute little emoticons notwithstanding.

Do you want to ban Bitcoin?

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