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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#61

Post by obulpathi »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #29
j42 wrote: post #14

Honestly, this may be what it takes to see more mainstream consumer adoption. A lot of the apps with high levels of penetration in this generalized demographic seem to use Stripe--if it's truly a frictionless integration, it will be really interesting to see the market's response. Coinbase & exchange API's were the first step. Single-script hosted payment processing with a UI focus (accessible to tech and grassroots…

The bigger problem with mainstream consumer adoption is the fact that mainstream consumers don't have any bitcoins to spend. Then there's the fact that you have to use an exchange to buy the coins in the first place and... let's just say bitcoin exchanges aren't exactly known as secure financial institutions. It seems a large bitcoin exchange is hacked and shuts down just about weekly: Just hours ago: Cavritex, Canad…

Look at http://www.reversecoin.org/ Reversecoin allows transactions to be reversible within a specified period of time. Over time, I expect mechanisms like these to be build into Bitcoin itself. Disclaimer: I am the lead dev for Reversecoin.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#62

Post by Shank »

cca wrote: post #49
lbotos wrote: post #25

Any idea how stripe is handling confirmations? (I'm a bitcoin newbie, but I know that consensus took a minute or so the last time I had done anything with BTC.) Has that changed?

(Christian from Stripe here.) We credit USD to our user's account when we see a transaction that we believe will become confirmed. The time-delay between when the customer pushes the transaction and when we notify our users is typically less than 15 seconds and almost always less than 60 seconds.

Has the technology changed/evolved enough that that's credible? I was under the impression that it wasn't "fully confirmed" by the network until a new block was mined, or you could have double spend attacks?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#63

Post by sergiotapia »

benjamindc wrote: post #9
manuelflara wrote: post #7

I absolutely love the little animated step by step process shown of how it works. Is this done with an open source library?

I'm just using a tiny lib that makes things easier: https://github.com/bendc/animate Other than that, it's just vanilla js/css.

I just want to say that you're one of my favorite designers out there and I enjoy your various posts out there on the web. Thanks so much for sharing your talent for us developers to peek inside!

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#64

Post by jliptzin »

chuckup wrote: post #43
patrickaljord wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the crutch now is not that it's hard to acquire bitcoins (thanks to coinbase and friends) or pay with bitcoin (thanks to stripe and friends), no, the only crutch is why should I buy bitcoins with my dollars when I can just pay with my dollars directly? It can be useful for people who either don't have access to credit cards but have access to bitcoins, people who already have a lot of bitcoins and curious tec…

I don't think you need to buy them (unless you want to gamble on their value going up) - just be willing to accept them as payment in the future. As more people see they can easily spend bitcoin, they become more willing to accept it as payment, and the userbase grows (bringing more price stability, hopefully)

I don't think userbase has much of a correlation to price stability. Even commodities like gold or oil have exhibited periods of high volatility even with a large "userbase"

Also, while we're talking about price, people sometimes conflate bitcoin transaction volume with bitcoin price, forgetting that for every buyer there is a seller. As a means of transacting, bitcoin is great, especially for small amount or across borders. It makes no difference what the price of bitcoin is as long as the buyer and seller are immediately converting out of bitcoin and into their local currencies - and that has no long term impact on price.

Unless of course many people notice rising transaction volume, confuse the trend, and then invest in bitcoin, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#65

Post by ssharp »

adriancooney wrote: post #17

What a fantastic product page. After less that 30 seconds, I knew exactly what Stripe was doing with Bitcoin, how to use the new feature and integrate it. This is great news for Bitcoin. If all it takes is one extra line of code for online retailers to start accepting the currency, widespread adoption could sky rocket. That's always been Bitcoin's crutch, simple integration. Others like Coinbase and Bitpay have made…

While this may be helpful, I can't see it being a game-changer at all. Have retailers like NewEgg or Overstock seen any sort of drastic revenue increases or activity from accepting Bitcoin?

The problems with Bitcoin are almost entirely on the acquiring -side and not spending side. Getting a Bitcoin is a PITA and I don't think the demand from most consumers is there to overcome the pain.

The game-changer for Bitcoin will be when someone answers the question: "Why should I switch from paying with my credit card to Bitcoin?" with something compelling.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#66

Post by pastProlog »

josu wrote: post #60
patrickaljord wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the crutch now is not that it's hard to acquire bitcoins (thanks to coinbase and friends) or pay with bitcoin (thanks to stripe and friends), no, the only crutch is why should I buy bitcoins with my dollars when I can just pay with my dollars directly? It can be useful for people who either don't have access to credit cards but have access to bitcoins, people who already have a lot of bitcoins and curious tec…

It may not be that appealing for a dollar/euro economies, but for emerging markets where their currency is not that stable and average inflation is around 3-5% it could have great potential.

> currency is not that stable

Do you mean like a currency that was worth $650 against the US dollar a year ago, and today is worth $250 against the US dollar? That kind of stability?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#67

Post by chris_va »

Question for Stripe folks.

At creation, Stripe guarantees an exchange rate that is usable for 10 minutes. If the customer sends bitcoin to the receiver after the 10 minutes have expired, we’ll still process the transaction but the conversion amount will no longer be guaranteed.

Say I am a merchant, and I want to make $10 on my transaction.

With a 0.5% fee:

- Without BTC, I charge $10.05 to the user, you take 5 cents, and I am left with $10.

- With BTC, I charge $10.05 to stripe, which gets converted to BTC at some exchange rate, and gets charged to the user. Does Stripe guarantee me $10? Or am I subject to the fluctuations of Stripe's exchange rate (say the user takes 20 minutes to finish the transaction)? Is there any way to guarantee that I get paid $10 or the transaction fails?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#68

Post by thesimon »

ihodes wrote: post #48
Someone1234 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has been worth between $232 and $238, so that could be called a 3% fee on top of the 0.5% fee, and that 3% is just from the last 24 hours. If you look at the last week, the fee could be considered even higher (more than double or quad that). The problem with Bitcoin is that it is extreme volatile. So you may gain or lose money. So while a 2.9% free on dollars is fairly predictable, you r…

From the linked page: > Fluctuation-resistant > Avoid exchange rate hassles—specify amounts in USD and we’ll send you dollars.

He's probably more referring to the customers side.

Why should I buy bitcoins for let's say $300 and risk them being worth $200 in a few weeks (which would cost me 33%) instead of keeping my money and paying directly (maybe 3% fees for the seller)?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#69

Post by pakled_engineer »

Someone1234 wrote: post #39
deweller wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should I buy bitcoins with my dollars when I can just pay with my dollars directly? Cheaper fees (0.5% vs 2.9%) can be potentially passed on to consumers. And anonymity.

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has been worth between $232 and $238, so that could be called a 3% fee on top of the 0.5% fee, and that 3% is just from the last 24 hours. If you look at the last week, the fee could be considered even higher (more than double or quad that). The problem with Bitcoin is that it is extreme volatile. So you may gain or lose money. So while a 2.9% free on dollars is fairly predictable, you r…

It works like Bitpay where you are guaranteed that amount in USD after user pays with Bitcoin. They assume all price fluctuation risk.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#70

Post by choffman »

wyldfire wrote: post #59
deweller wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should I buy bitcoins with my dollars when I can just pay with my dollars directly? Cheaper fees (0.5% vs 2.9%) can be potentially passed on to consumers. And anonymity.

bitcoin's not really that anonymous. Sure, the ledger doesn't contain identities, but it's not extremely difficult for the mapping between addresses and identities to "leak" and once they do, it's anything but anonymous.

Agreed. Which is why some of the newer cryptocurrencies like Monero are gaining some attention.
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