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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#231

Post by cplease »

josu wrote: post #150
pastProlog wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

In many developing countries the bar is pretty low, and while bitcoin is not that stable yet, it may well become a suitable option in a few years. Look at the Argentinian Peso, it has lost almost 90% of its value against the USD since 2001. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=USDARS%3DX+Interactive#%7...

Right, the Argentina straw man. Worst inflation example you can find is the Argentina peso, and it's lost 10% in a year where the bitcoin dropped 63%, and bitcoin's volatility over the same time period has been much, much higher.

Even the most mismanaged government manages its currency. No one is managing bitcoin, it's price reflects the volatile market whims of a cryptocurrency backed by nothing but computation and beset by fraud. The volatility is not going away.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#232

Post by knwang »

Congrats team Stripe! Fantastic feature as always.

In our case, we promise full refund if our users are not happy with our service. Is there a way to refund customers bitcoins as easy as how it is currently with credit cards?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#233

Post by indymike »

Igglyboo wrote: post #205
malgorithms wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that, from the buyer's perspective, the price is almost always the same when using a credit card or alternative. And with a credit card, the buyer gets rewards back, typically 1% or so. So, sadly, using a credit card continues to have more protections, costs less, and has deferred payment. I don't think this is a good thing, just saying. I hold some bitcoins, but I never buy anything with the…

This is correct. The only businesses I've ever seen pass the CC fees onto the user are very small mom and pop shops ($5 min) and gas stations.

Government, education and law firms also pass fees on to the consumer.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#234

Post by StavrosK »

mikekchar wrote: post #219
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…

This is potentially amazing for me. I just started a consulting business in Japan. Credit cards are hard to come by, especially for foreigners. I need to pay for various services: domain name registration, etc, etc. At the moment I'm constrained to using Japanese companies who will accept bank transfer payments. If this becomes popular, I could buy services anywhere. There service fees are very reasonable. This is wh…

Yep, my friends will definitely accept Bitcoin for everyday transactions (splitting bills, etc) if they know they can spend it on the sites they use often.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#235

Post by UXDork »

Okay, Stripe. Can I accept bitcoins and automatically convert them to USD? I need an instant conversion back to USD after the transaction so I don't lose money due to volatility. Does stripe let merchants auto-convert their Bitcoin payments to USD? This would solve the problem entirely and I'd be happy to pass the extra savings on to customers.

I could probably give about a 6% discount because I wouldn't take profit from the transaction savings.

In fact, given the fee is .05% of the transaction, this could be the first service to ever enable micropayments. Perfect for a lot of internet/new technology services. The key is to convert the customer's USD to bitcoin instantly, pay with bitcoin, and convert the received bitcoin back to USD instantly again.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#236

Post by woowowp »

TACIXAT wrote: post #225

Hey Stripe, are you reading this? I'm deciding between payment processors right now. I plan to have excessively low prices, in the range of 1 dollar per year. PayPal and Amazon offer micro transaction pricing at 5 cents + 5% of each transaction. Care to compete?

0.5% is less than 5 cents + 5%.

For a $1 transaction, Paypal/Amazon would charge 10 cents and Stripe would charge 0.5 cents for a bitcoin transaction. Unless you're talking about credit card transactions.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#237

Post by ikeboy »

Retra wrote: post #228
ikeboy wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what about when someone wants to donate to wikileaks, which supports free speech (say), but they don't want governments to know that? People need money to speak freely (especially when they are persecuted for it), and those donations should be anonymous.

People need free speech to speak freely. Your Wikileaks example is cherry-picking: it is not illegal to donate to Wikileaks. It might be illegal to donate to a drug cartel, or somebody like ISIS. Or to that police officer who wanted to give you a ticket. Or that government agent deciding who to give a big contract to. I think think of far more cases where anonymous transactions are harmful than I can where they are b…

It's not illegal per se to donate to wikileaks, but you may be put on a list somewhere.

Do you think all free speech should be only with identified speakers? How would you feel if your entire spending history was in the public domain?

In most of your examples, you can easily pay with cash, which is anonymous.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#238

Post by grubles »

flatline wrote: post #167
grubles wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read about people buying bitcoins by sending cash through the mail. That is perhaps the most anonymous one can get.

The seller has your mailing address. Mining is probably the most anonymous way to do it, and by far the least cost-effective. There are, however, ways to launder your bitcoins if you really want them to be anonymous, regardless of how you acquired them.

If you are buying bitcoin, all you need is the seller's (seller of bitcoin) address to send the cash to.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#240

Post by grubles »

vacri wrote: post #173
joncalhoun wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said is 100% correct, which is why companies accepting bitcoin need to give the entire ~2-3% discount to customers. Very few credit cards will match 2-3% rewards, and from the sellers perspective bitcoin is better than credit cards payments. To name a few benefits: - There are no chargebacks - Funds are available immediately (though transferring from BTC to USD may take a day) - You can accept payment from a…

- There are no chargebacks This is a huge negative for the customer, though

Which is why multi-signature transactions eliminate this negative.
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