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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#321

Post by cyanbane »

muyuu wrote: post #292
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 want to give my CC details and/or my personal information to every merchant. This usually means I either buy from fewer merchants, or pay with bitcoin if allowed. Obviously, if the merchant is going to require my info anyway then it's pointless, so it depends. That's one of the main points about bitcoin for me. As a tool for privacy. On the surface it may seem trivial, and corporations living off mining your…

> "I don't want to give my CC details and/or my personal information to every merchant. This usually means I either buy from fewer merchants, or pay with bitcoin if allowed. Obviously, if the merchant is going to require my info anyway then it's pointless, so it depends."

This is the entire value of bitcoin in my opinion for the average CC holder in the US. I simply don't trust people with my details. It seems like I get a new CC every few months because of some data breach, which entails me having to change any subscription services etc. Anon transactions may be a big point for some, but you are entirely correct when I will more than likely be providing my address to people who I pay with bitcoin. However, they won't have my CC details. I think it will be a better "payment buffer" than paypal. Hopefully cheaper also.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#322

Post by jfroma »

cplease wrote: post #231
josu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't ser bitcoin right now as a tool for savings, maybe for transactions.

Lets say you work from Argentina for a company abroad. You have three options to get paid:

1. Wire transfer, the compay send you dollars or euro and you get pesos at the oficial rate.

2. There is always people trying to pay things outside, you can give him your dollars outside in exchange of dollars inside arg por pesos at the blue rate.

3. Buy bitcoins outside sell inside.

1. You lost 30% exchange rate, you will not be able, to buy dollars back at the oficial rate.

2. Is 3%

3. Is 10%

Since 2 and 3, are not 100% legal, you will have problems buying things since you cant justify your income.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#324

Post by brighton36 »

patrickaljord wrote: post #27
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…

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'll soon be as seamless as a magstripe. See "The Solution" here: http://cointelegraph.com/news/113255/keeping-score-at-the-20...

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#325

Post by ikeboy »

ryanlol wrote: post #288
ikeboy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if it gets sent through a mixer, then sent to an exchange, traded for an alt-coin, that's sent through its own mixer, then sent to a different exchange and traded back, then sent to another mixer? All you need is one link on the chain to not keep logs (which many mixers claim not to anyway), and you've hit a dead end.

Look at Tor. It's never been broken by tracing back each relay, even though there are usually only 3. All the hacks were vulnerabilities in other things, like browsers or websites.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#326

Post by aianus »

lmm wrote: post #290
aianus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)?

A SWIFT wire transfer costs $40 a pop and requires me to visit a branch (which is especially hard to do when I'm 10,000 km away from home). It's also much more annoying for the merchant to accept vs. changing one line of code in their Stripe checkout.

Western Union is also expensive and inconvenient (although somewhat less so than the bank).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#327

Post by aianus »

lmm wrote: post #299
WillNotDownvote wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed- The difference is after that 10 minutes, the transaction is settled. The money has moved. What you have with a credit card in 10 minutes is a promise that the money will move, possibly days or even weeks later. The bitcoin can be moved again (spent by the receiver) after 10 minutes. Try that with money you received by a credit card payment. This really is the fundamental difference of bitcoin- once the money h…

> The difference is after that 10 minutes, the transaction is settled. The money has moved. What you have with a credit card in 10 minutes is a promise that the money will move, possibly days or even weeks later. In a spherical-cow sense bitcoin is better. In practice, if I'm paying with amex I tap my card on the reader and the waitress hands me the cup of coffee in seconds; if I'm paying with bitcoin I'm standing th…

> In a spherical-cow sense bitcoin is better. In practice, if I'm paying with amex I tap my card on the reader and the waitress hands me the cup of coffee in seconds; if I'm paying with bitcoin I'm standing there for half an hour.

This is a myth. Once the transaction has propagated through the network, it's pretty difficult to double-spend, even with zero confirmations. So difficult, in fact, that payment processors like Stripe/Coinbase/BitPay will completely absorb that risk for you and consider the order complete within a second or two of seeing the transaction on the network.

Try buying something online with Bitcoin sometime, it really is faster and easier than using a credit card (if you already own some).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#328

Post by Toadsoup »

This is great and I intend on giving it a shot to accept bitcoin in the near future.

I would like to see it as an option to keep bitcoin rather than having it automatically exchanged to USD on my behalf.

It would allow people to assess their own risk tolerance if they wanted to hold bitcoin or if they had other services that work well with bitcoin.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#329

Post by lmm »

aianus wrote: post #327
lmm wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference is after that 10 minutes, the transaction is settled. The money has moved. What you have with a credit card in 10 minutes is a promise that the money will move, possibly days or even weeks later. In a spherical-cow sense bitcoin is better. In practice, if I'm paying with amex I tap my card on the reader and the waitress hands me the cup of coffee in seconds; if I'm paying with bitcoin I'm standing th…

> In a spherical-cow sense bitcoin is better. In practice, if I'm paying with amex I tap my card on the reader and the waitress hands me the cup of coffee in seconds; if I'm paying with bitcoin I'm standing there for half an hour. This is a myth. Once the transaction has propagated through the network, it's pretty difficult to double-spend, even with zero confirmations. So difficult, in fact, that payment processors…

I've watched a friend try and buy a pizza with Bitcoin. It was funny for the first five minutes or so.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#330

Post by venaoy_ »

bduerst wrote: post #280
venaoy_ wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase's bitcoins are insured. And Coinbase's dollars are FDIC-insured. There is nothing inherent to Bitcoin that prevents an exchange from being operated responsibly and covered/insured just as well as traditional financial institutions. > Block size can't be increased because bitcoin is decentralized. It is not trivial, but it can be increased. What you don't understand is that all the merchants all the instituti…

Coinbase is insured by Aon for only if their entire site is hacked, and is not insured for individual accounts as the FDIC does, because it's too expensive (there's you're explanation on why). Because it's decentralized, Bitcoin suffers from Tragedy of the Commons . The miners, merchants, etc. are all rational actors looking to profit for themselves, even at each other's expense, which is why bitcoin can't get a cens…

No, Coinbase is insured even if only a "fraction" of their site is hacked. I am not sure why you would claim the insurance only covers a hack of the "entire site", but not a "fraction". See, my point is that there is nothing inherent to Bitcoin that prevents it from being insured. Insurance companies do insure dangerous businesses all the time. It's their job. I am certainly not going to claim that the level of insurance is equal to the average financial company. It will take years. But it's getting there. It's improving over time.

> why bitcoin can't get a census to upgrade

You say it can't be done but it has been done. Multiple times. You should read and learn from Bitcoin history. Bugs and limitations have caused the block chain to fork multiple times. Yet every single time the Bitcoin users have been able to reach a consensus about which software upgrade / software fix to follow: March 2013 fork due to BDB vs LevelDB, August 2010 due to an integer overflow, etc. It is very clear that when everybody will see their transactions never confirming because all blocks top out at the 1MB limit that everybody will want to upgrade the limit. People won't be stupid, sit there and do nothing, and watch Bitcoin die.

> Considering you haven't even made a single bitcoin transaction, and didn't even know about the limits until today, you're not really qualified to comment on it.

Huh? I never sold coins but I have made a few dozens transactions, since 2010. And I know very well the 1MB block limit.

Anyway when you start using personal attacks (accusing my competence) instead of using technical arguments, it is clear you are running out of logical arguments in this debate...

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