31–38 of 38 posts
Eta innovation on the consumer side?
"your customer pays in bitcoin and you receive dollars in your bank account", will Stripe allow us to receive in bitcoins too? I personally would love to use that option. BitPagos does that already but their service is currently limited to Argentinian Hotels. Payza allows it as well, but Payza requires users to create an account and go through a painful process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Christian from Stripe here.) Thanks for the clear description. In Stripe's case, this arbitrage won't work. When we refund a bitcoin payment, we refund the USD value of the payment (converted to bitcoin at the time of the refund). The customer does not necessarily receive the same bitcoin amount that they sent. For example: (1) At the initial time, each bitcoin is worth 100 USD. A Stripe user accepts a 10 USD paymen…
Regardless of the currency paid in, guaranteed refunds pegged to an exchange rate at the time the refund is issued will be a potential vector for manipulation. Consider these two cases using relevant historical data. Case 1, Bitcoin refunds are pegged to the USD price at the time of sale and refund (your current strategy): It is currently 12/7/2014. The price per Bitcoin is approximately $380. I purchase a Christmas…
I don't follow your description of Case 1. On Dec 18, to use the timing from your example, you have two options: (a) keep the $380 object (b) exchange it (via a refund) for $380 worth of bitcoin. These are the same options that you would have if Stripe was not in the picture: keep your funds outside of bitcoin or buy bitcoin at the market price. I don't see what benefit you derive from the refund API (beyond using it as a fairly priced bitcoin/USD exchange). Sorry if I am misreading the example!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pricing for bitcoin payments is simple: free during the beta and 0.50 percent per payment when the API is out of beta in January 2015.
this is very heigh fee. the whole purpose of bitcoin is to get rid of the middle-man who try to take a cut out of simple transaction. i see the added value of easy-api but the fee is way too much for a free alternative. and yes, i know that bitpay and others take 1% but i'm sure they will adapt once cheaper alternatives will be available. as for me - i develop my own free solution.
It's a matter of convenience and what people are willing to pay for a service rather than wrap something themselves.
I'm assuming this doesn't work for recurring payments?
All the docs seem to say is "we will do our best to convert them to the requested amount of USD, but the effects are not predictable."
Obviously the amount of USD converted won't be predictable, but it's a situation that needs to be handled.
"your customer pays in bitcoin and you receive dollars in your bank account", will Stripe allow us to receive in bitcoins too? I personally would love to use that option. BitPagos does that already but their service is currently limited to Argentinian Hotels. Payza allows it as well, but Payza requires users to create an account and go through a painful process.
BitPay allows it as does Coinbase