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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

#91

Post by atmosx »

jerguismi wrote: post #46
atmosx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If it were that valuable, we'd know by now. BTC is a failed currency, but a successful asset. Escaping corrupt and non-existent bank to go after an uncontrolled currency is equally risky and w…

> If it were that valuable, we'd know by now. BTC is a failed currency, but a successful asset. How long do you usually think infrastructure around protocol such as bitcoin takes time to develop? I personally think we're still early in the game. > Escaping corrupt and non-existent bank to go after an uncontrolled currency is equally risky and way more stupid. What is your proposal then? I think holding ARS at least i…

No we're not early in the game. I believe BTC has already proven itself an asset and has a place in our future. But as a currency it's already failed. I believe it is a failed by design[1].

My proposal is to educate people to make better decisions voting-wise. Other than that, you're switching back and forth between systems of controls and BTC is extremely worst compared to what we have today because it is anonymous and decentralize.

What average Joe developer sees as the big strength of the protocol is the biggest weakness of the currency.

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

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

#92

Post by innguest »

atmosx wrote: post #79
innguest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But "crony capitalism" is a much more accurate way to describe the US right now than "Democracy", so why do you choose this over that? I think it's a very weak argument to say "this is the closest we can currently get to X, therefore it can be said we have X". What we have now, as I said above, can be said to be closer to other things than it is closer to democracy. We should then pick the thing we're closest to, out…

Bitcoin != Democracy. BTC could allow an anonymous party to control a currency, given enough % of that currency in circulation. Compare that to the current system. You may not like it, but currently the central banker (who creates policies for the good of his country) is appointed by the governments (ECB/FED). The later sounds extremely more democratic to me. Now BTC is owned mostly by techies and small, adventurous…

> BTC could allow an anonymous party to control a currency,

How, exactly? They can't control the minting so I'm not sure what you mean by "control". The Fed is already an anonymous (because no one is personally responsible) party controlling the US dollar.

> currently the central banker ... creates policies for the good of his country

This is highly debatable. You can't just say that and pretend it is indisputable. I reject that premise; in my eyes the way the Fed handles money only shows their misunderstanding of what is value, how it is created, and so on. So no.

> The later sounds extremely more democratic to me.

So let me rephrase it. You barely vote for the US president (since it's indirect) and he/she and their team then appoint some other people to manage the only currency they will let you use in their country. This is what you are saying is "extremely more democratic" than some other thing? I'm not even arguing that Bitcoin is democratic, it only needs to be more fair by allowing choice in order to be better than the Fed's USD. If you like democracy so much you should be fostering competing currencies so we can vote by (literally) putting our money where our mouth is. The old saying applies here, if the Fed's USD is so awesome then why do they need to force us to use it?

> Once countries and investment bankers step in, hell will break loose.

How so?

> You don't want to seriously depend on something that you don't have a clue who controls.

Which is why people are desperate to move away from the US dollar.

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

#93

Post by doctorfoo »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #8

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…

- Political reasons, supporting a (electronic) currency that has minimal restrictions. (e.g. I don't need anyone's permission to install a Bitcoin app; whereas I'd need to jump through some hoops to get a bank account).

- Absolute control of my own money. My bitcoin payments will never be frozen, unlike my debit card + paypal have been.

- Ease of use; it is simply easier to pay via bitcoin (once you have the bitcoins) versus credit card. (I can click a link, my bitcoin client pops up preloaded with the amount, I click "pay". Only other thing that comes close is PayPal).

- Anonymity of purchases and donations. I can (and have) donated money to random people on internet forums without them needing to even know my (real name containing) email address (such as would be the case with PayPal). I've gifted online strangers with Pizza!

- Don't have to give vaguely untrusted merchants my card details. The most I'm trusting them with is to deliver the product.

- To support the potential future applications. This is programmable money with an API open to any software developer on the face of the earth.

- It's just freaking cool. It's like science fiction. It's like having a star wars credit chit. Which can be stored on my computer or phone. Paper wallets are cool too. So are brain wallets.

There are of course some downsides to Bitcoin, but I'm sure you can think of those yourself ;)

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

sassypants wrote: post #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 purc…

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by pseudoscops »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #36
dangerlibrary wrote: post #8

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…

> why would anyone want to exchange a reasonable stable national currency for bitcoin? Name me 10 currencies you'd be comfortable holding. It'll probably be very difficult. Fact is, billions use currencies with high inflation rates and with relatively short lifespans. And it's not just places like Zimbabwe that have many problems besides insane inflation the past decade. It's also relatively developed countries like…

Speaking of locking the price of your crypto for $, I followed a very interesting AMA on Reddit that was held earlier today about an innovative crypto based Digital Autonomous Corporation (DAC) called BitShares X. All of the utility of Bitcoin, but it also has a distributed on-blockchain exchange AND has assets pegged to the $ AND also pays interest if you hold those pegged assets. I’ve been following what these guys have been up to for a while (i.e. more than a year). Seriously, if it works, I think this is truly novel stuff that rises well above the usual copycat alt coins:

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/2ftfti/bitsh...

Bitshares X only launched a couple of weeks ago, it’s really only at an alpha stage at the moment and it has already hit the number 4 spot for market cap at http://coinmarketcap.com. It has had days in the last week where volume has surpassed that of Litecoin. The on-chain exchange built in to the wallet client cannot be shut down or manipulated/debased (like Mt Gox), I think this is one of the first things that grabs peoples attention. Especially Chinese investors or those burnt by Mt. Gox.

The most interesting thing is that on this distributed on-blockchain exchange you can trade your Bitshares (BTSX) for BitAssets pegged to real world assets such as the $ or BTC or even gold. I think I understand how it all works and if the market pegs work, which it seems to be at the moment for BitUSD, then it’ll provide great utility. It’ll promote the ability to actually hold you wealth securely in crypto in a less volatile way rather than cashing out in to real fiat for its relative security like many crypto traders do. BitShares X is an experimental DAC, like Bitcoin, but if it works then it avoiding the issue of having to cash out to real fiat gives it a significant plus point over Bitcoin in my opinion.

Citi bank recently pointed out that news often touted as being ‘great news’ for Bitcoin (e.g. Dell accepting Bitcoin) actually puts downward pressure on the price if they immediately cash out to $ using a services such as BitPay. Dell use this service to protect themselves from Bitcoin's price volatility, but this is liquidity that leaves the Bitcoin/crypto ecosystem. This is not good. It’s only if these companies such as Dell hold their crypto or at least part of it (i.e. like Overstock does) that the liquidity in the Bitcoin ecosystem grows and so does Bitcoin with it. Read up on the details about what Citi had to say here:

http://www.coindesk.com/citi-miners-merchants-keeping-bitcoi...

If the BitShares derived BitUSD actually tracks the $, and it seems to be doing so, then you, or Dell, would have no reason to move money out of the crypto ecosystem. This is of huge benefit for the crypto currency/equity ecosystem because it means that wealth stays within the system and does not leak back out to fiat. Holders of BitUSD also get paid a yield/interest for holding BitUSD and some have speculated that the amount may be as much as 10%. Add to this that the guys behind Bitshares are actively talking to the guys at Ethereum an the future look really bright I think,

I recommend reading the AMA above and follow some of the links to the FAQs about BitShares. I think they are on to something significant. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames if I’ve missed something or if you have a different view. Like I say I’ve been following the BitShares story for over a year now and it’s great to finally see the vision of the distributed exchange and BitAsset market peg make it from theory to reality.

Disclaimer : Very recently I moved a significant percentage of my BTC holdings (more than 50%) in to the BitShares X ecosystem with the intention of going long. Naturally I personally would like to see more people share my views. But do your own homework on this one and never invest more than you can afford to lose!

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

#97

Post by beaner »

battani wrote: post #80
beaner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Chargebacks happen when cards are stolen. Cards are stolen because they are fundamentally pull payment methods. Every time you pay, you hand the keys to your money over to someone else. Think about this for a second, because it is absolutely insane. Whenever you pay with a credit card, you have to trust the merchant to (1) charge the right amount, (2) only do it once, and (3) themselves take your privacy seriously…

> So chargebacks due to fraud simply wouldn't be there. That is far from the only reason there is credit card fraud. Actually most credit card fraud is linked to identity fraud (a hacker stealing someone's financial credentials or posing as them on an online/offline store). Most of the credit card information stolen from Target and Home Depot is not used but sold as quickly as possible on underground forums to "the g…

> thieves don't target "how" you pay (push vs pull doesn't matter) but target where you store your wealth.

I wasn't arguing against this. Your credit card is where your wealth is stored, if it can be used to purchase things. And your wealth is stored with Target if they have your CC info. So places like that seem a likely target for attacks.

> Contrast that to bitcoin. Your third-party bitcoin storage service gets hacked, your bitcoin are gone forever.

M-of-N key schemes will prevent this in the future. Also not the only option.

> You choose to store your bitcoin locally and you're exposed to physical theft (like keeping cash under your mattress).

I don't see how. If your stuff is encrypted or your devices locked, then they would not be susceptible to theft from your mattress. They'd have to be stolen from your hand while unencrypted or device unlocked.

Not sure that I buy that most CCs are somehow gotten through a means other than 3rd parties who have them.

Another point is that if you get your info stolen, why should the merchant take the loss? They've already given out the product. It's your money to be responsible for, if the merchant doesn't hold the means to charge it, which they wouldn't with bitcoin. This realization will lead to more secure systems, since consumers would not be able to charge back willy-nilly.

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

#98

Post by bdcravens »

sassypants wrote: post #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 purc…

You're using a time-span that's a full 20% of the item's lifespan. Anyone with a single college level statistics class wouldn't be able to keep a straight face reading this.

over the last five years of its existence The first exchange didn't come online until summer of 2010.

What's the 1 year picture like for everyone who had coins in Mt. Gox?

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

#99

Post by benmills »

cvburgess wrote: post #95

The official Braintree post on the one-touch side of things is super interesting and vague[1] - does anyone know what the UX is like from a developers point of view? [1] https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/one-touch

Hey I work at Braintree on our SDKs. You can find the list of things you need to do to enable one touch here[1]. For Android there is nothing outside a normal Braintree integration you need to do and for iOS you need to register a URL type as well as make two changes in your app delegate to tell us about it.

We generally think about two ways you can integrate with Braintree on the front-end: the drop-in UI and custom. Drop-in [2] means you yield control to us, but you get a dead simple integration which includes one touch paypal and venmo out of the box. If you go the custom[3] route it's obviously more work to integrate, but adding one touch only requires some button that starts the paypal or venmo flow.

Edit: You can also download ParkWhiz (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/parkwhiz-find-book-parking/i...) and install the PayPal app to see the user experience for yourself!

[1] https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios/guides/one-touc... [2] https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios/sdk/client/drop... [3] https://developers.braintreepayments.com/ios/sdk/client/payp...

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

#100

Post by atmosx »

jnbiche wrote: post #90
atmosx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My true colors were there from the beginning, if you cared to look[1].

No, ban bitcoin is a huge mistake IMHO. BTC is a great innovation and has extremely interesting features. I already mentioned transaction speed elsewhere.

I believe that we need to wait and see if volatility stabilizes at some point. Then I'd like to see an easier way of conversion from currency-to-btc and back.

That said I'd never put the faith of a country to BTC, but sure as hell I'd like to have it around and use it as I see fit (either as an asset or an investment). But relying grandma's pension on BTC? That's unethical to me (and stupid).

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

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