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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#241

Post by campers »

andrewfong wrote: post #158
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…

Is it legal to pass the discount onto customers? The only businesses I've seen giving a discount for paying in cash are (some) gas stations.

In Australia its common to have a surchage when paying by credit card.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#242

Post by johnx123-up »

cissou wrote: post #80
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…

Keep in mind that the merchant fee is .5% with Strip/Bitcoin. With regular credit card payment processing, the fee is something like 2.25%. The difference could be shared equally between the merchant and their customers. Life would be 1% cheaper for everyone (kind of).

Stripe's fee is .5%, but https://blockchain.info/ is free. Lately used it through SudoPay. Our merchants looks happy with its speed.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#243

Post by lachyg »

UXDork wrote: post #235

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…

(I work at Stripe)

Correct! You set your price in USD, we present the amount in bitcoins to your customer, and guarantee you the price you set in USD.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#244

Post by iopq »

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

That's why the seller has to give the money to the consumer. The seller avoids the customers who scam which is a non-0% amount of the time, so if the seller is trusted this would be a good thing to do. I'm talking Amazon-level trust.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#245

Post by Siecje »

aioprisan wrote: post #135
derefr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a much more nuanced question if you don't hold USD in the first place. Here I have a choice between holding BTC and holding CAD. Both fluctuate compared to the prices of stuff I want to buy from US retailers.

They both fluctuate, but not that much. If you saw that much fluctuation in CAD to USD conversion, no US based company would sell goods in Canada. Just look at what happened due to the ruble value fluctuations last month.

You would sell it for the same price just the equivalent in CAD.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#246

Post by iopq »

shostack wrote: post #193
vacri wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Bingo. Chargebacks are my way of making sure I have a fallback if the merchant fails to live up to their end of the bargain. I use them as an option of absolute last resort, but the few times I have, I've been very glad that I had the option, and that the credit card companies bent over backwards to shield me from the headaches of the issue.

I also had a lot of headache when a seller charged me twice and tried to send me another product because I had to charge back several transactions while explaining "yes, the FIRST one was legitimate and I got he product, but the later ones are not".

I had to charge back twice because the seller kept on charging me on the same credit card number! At least with Bitcoin you're only in for whatever you pay.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#247

Post by iopq »

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.

You can mine another cryptocurrency with your GPU and use that to convert to BTC. That's actually mildly profitable if you choose the right currency and your electricity costs are not too high.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#248

Post by iopq »

lisa_henderson wrote: post #51

The Bitcoin community might want to take a deep breath and recognize where Bitcoin has the most real-world use. The idea that my mom will someday use Bitcoin to buy books online is about as realistic as the belief that, any minute now, youngsters will realize that the daily newspaper is better read in paper form, because of the texture and experience and the anonymity of paper. For that matter, I am a computer progra…

That's like saying "nobody will give up newspapers to use this Internet thing to get their news". Yet here we are.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#249

Post by iopq »

dragonwriter wrote: post #200
skulquake wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to modern banking abilities vs. the 1 billion or so who do.

There are 7 billion people in the world, so your numbers suggest that about half the people in the world neither have nor do not have access to modern banking facilities. Additionally, those with the least access to modern banking facilities probably don't have the best access to facilities for efficiently making use of bitcoins, either.

Some people have their spouse do the banking. Some of those 7 billion people are 3 years old.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#250

Post by iopq »

undefined0 wrote: post #195
thucydides wrote: post #141

Who wants to use this most? Porn companies. Their chargeback rates are obscenely high. And Bitcoins can't be "clawed back," as grubles put it. ed: "wants to" instead of "will"

"Their chargeback rates are obscenely high". I've always understood that porn companies have difficulty finding a friendly payment processor, but I've never heard that they recieve a high chargeback rate before. Do you know why that is? What do users gain from chargebacking porn websites over chargebacking dropbox, for example?

Because the porn site says "free for 3 days" and of course nobody remembers to actually cancel the subscription after 3 days. When they get the bill a month later they say "I never bought a full subscription!" and they cancel.

It's a cat and mouse game. If customers KNEW they couldn't keep getting charged they'd gladly pay $1 to watch for one day. $1 is STILL going to have $0.05 fee, not $0.35 or whatever the CC processor would charge for such a small transaction.

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