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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#281

Post by nandemo »

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…

Have you tried to get a credit card? It's easier than getting a bank account (some banks will refuse to open an account for you if you have been here for less than 6 months).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#282

Post by scotty79 »

venaoy wrote: post #177
andrewfong wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it is legal: "Beginning January 27, 2013, merchants in the United States and U.S. Territories will be permitted to impose a surcharge on consumers when they use a credit card." http://usa.visa.com/personal/get-help/checkout-fees.jsp

> Historically Visa has not permitted retailer surcharging, but allowing surcharging was a key provision required by merchants to settle long-standing litigation brought by a class of retailers in 2005.

It's good that governments still have a bigger stick they can use to beat some sense into corporations.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#284

Post by sjcsjc »

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 think you meant 0.5% for the fee.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#285

Post by mike_hearn »

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.

Swiss Air charges $11 for a credit card transaction. The annoying thing is their other supported methods of payments don't work for me, even though I live in Switzerland and have a Swiss bank account.

Last time I booked a flight, I did it with Bitcoin via btctrip.com. It worked out a little bit cheaper.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#286

Post by StavrosK »

diaz wrote: post #207

I'd never thought I'd read so many comments about people questioning whether using Bitcoins to buy anything is useful or not or even if people would use. Specially in a place like this with so many technology aware people. Giving more choices for payment is good. Sellers are including more people that can pay for their services/products. If nobody buys anything with bitcoin they lose nothing and business goes as usua…

>Now the only thing really missing is being able to implement a simple shop using Stripe from this side of the Atlantic :P.

Why can't you? Stripe has supported the UK and other countries for a year or something.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#287

Post by vertex-four »

skizm wrote: post #98
AgentME wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no, the only crutch is why should I buy bitcoins with my dollars when I can just pay with my dollars directly? (By dollars directly, I assume you mean by credit card or paypal.) Credit cards and paypal come with the ability to do chargebacks which are useful if you don't fully trust whoever you're paying, but credit card companies and paypal are middlemen who must be trusted too. If I trust the company I'm giving mo…

I guess that's the rub. As a customer (not a merchant) I will always trust paypal or visa over the person I am paying. If something doesn't get delivered, I get my money back. Also Stripe is now the middleman. I'm not giving BTC to a merchant, I'm giving it to stripe to give to the merchant. That's good also, because I trust stripe more than merchant XYZ.

I'll note that Stripe will likely not refund you if the merchant refuses to. They do do some minor checking that the entity you're paying actually exists, though.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#288

Post by ryanlol »

ikeboy wrote: post #82
wyldfire wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you tell us who hacked BTER or Bitstamp then? Since it's so easy to deanonymize people, you know. Just look at the addresses the stolen bitcoins were sent to.

If that money is ever exchanged, it'd probably be trivial for a powerful entity to figure where it went.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#289

Post by lmm »

josu wrote: post #149
colechristensen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair and somewhat blunt with facts: * Today's bitcoin / USD High/Low trading price shows a swing of a bit more than 3% * Today's Argentine Peso (ARS) / USD High/Low trading price shows a swing of 0.1% (Argentina being a country with high inflation problems)

Bitcoin might not be the current answer for Argentinians, but I believe that it has the potential to be. Just take a look at this chart: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=ARS&view=10Y If I were to work in Argentina I would rather get paid in BTC than ARS, due to liquidity constrains. I would probably convert most of the money to USD, EUR o CHF, but I would keep some bitcoin if I had where to spend them.

Can you compare that with the same chart for bitcoin?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#290

Post by lmm »

aianus wrote: post #170
XorNot wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which only really happens if the customer files a dispute, the dispute is valid, which in turn means the customer is aggrieved. Why would I want to forfeit that ability again?

Here's an example that really happened to me: I legitimately wanted to use my Canadian credit card to buy something in the US and have it shipped to me in Vietnam but the merchant naturally was unwilling to take on the chargeback risk and I was unable to complete the purchase.

If you're willing to just unconditionally trust the merchant like you would with bitcoin, can't you use a wire transfer (western union etc.)?
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