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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#351

Post by davidgerard »

RussianCow wrote: post #153
loceng wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Bitcoin though is it isn't a currency. If it was a currency, if $1 USD was paid for a Bitcoin, that USD would be destroyed, not pocketed. The only people promoting Bitcoin are those who have something massive to gain, e.g. they own a lot of Bitcoin or they have vested interest in the ecosystem. Stripe facilitating this would allow them to start gathering Bitcoin, at a rate of .5% per transaction, and…

> The problem with Bitcoin though is it isn't a currency. You mean it isn't a fiat currency. All that means is that Bitcoin's value isn't backed by a government, but is instead derived purely from the ability for someone to spend it. > If it was a currency, if $1 USD was paid for a Bitcoin, that USD would be destroyed, not pocketed. What? Since when? If you spend USD to buy EUR, the person on the other side of the tr…

In real economics, the word "fiat" simply means "not backed". So Bitcoin is "fiat", and to a considerably greater degree than governments (who can declare a currency legal tender in a given geographical area).

The special Bitcoin usage of "fiat" stems from goldbug pamphlets from a century ago. But it is a misuse of the word.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#352

Post by davidgerard »

loceng wrote: post #157
enneff wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your comment. When you buy or sell currency, the original currency is not destroyed. Or am I wrong?

If the USD government prints more money then the overall value of the currency goes down.

This is not quite how it works, despite the claims of Austrian economics (which doesn't actually work).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#353

Post by aianus »

lmm wrote: post #329
aianus wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which pizza place? Was this in-person or online? The animation on Stripe's launch page is pretty much what buying things with Bitcoins is like for me: https://stripe.com/bitcoin.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#354

Post by TACIXAT »

woowowp wrote: post #236
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.

I am talking about credit card transactions. I plan on accepting bitcoin, but I want to accept normal payments as well. Right now it seems like Amazon + Coinbase will be my choice.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#355

Post by cplease »

vidarh wrote: post #273
cplease wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. And this is not a matter of opinion or speculation. There is data and history. Take a look: http://imgur.com/FmpI0HY That's the past year. The flat blue line around 0% is CAD vs USD. The crazy red line that's all over the place, swinging by as much as 100% in a matter of weeks, is CAD/BTC.

Unless you're planning on holding the currency, those graphs are irrelevant - what would matter would be short term changes (1-2 days, perhaps). And while USD might still come out better, your graph grossly distorts how this would affect someone wanting to use USD or BTC primarily purchases while holding their assets in CAD.

Did you bother to read what I was replying to? The point in question was the risks of holding BTC versus national currencies.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#356

Post by josu »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #339
josu wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what a Central Bank is and how they are supposed to work. Check this out: Who owns the Federal Reserve? [1] >As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the Congress of the United States. It is considered an independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of govern…

If you include the very next paragraph, it is clear that the US federal government manages the Federal Reserve. > However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by the Congress, which often reviews the Federal Reserve's activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government" rather than "independent of gover…

Well, then we both know what we are talking about. Do governments manage currency? Yes and no. On paper they don't, in reality they have a lot to say about a country's monetary policy. However, if you look at the world's second strongest currency, the Euro, it's apparent that the European government doesn't have that much control.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#357

Post by err4nt »

mFixman wrote: post #316
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...

I'm Argentinian. Why would I buy Bitcoin instead of American Dollars for saving?

I wouldn't be saving in US Dollars, they conder all US dollars their proterty so if they ever had the chance to intercept your money and did take it, they would feel justified keeping it because it was theirs to begin with.

There was a case where a money transfer was seized between two european countries over Cuban cigars because at the time, the US had a trade embargo against Cuba.

Why shouldn't you invest in Bitcoin for savings? Look at a one month chart. Or look at a three month chart. Or look at a one year chart. Or look at a chart from the beginning of bitcoin and ask yourself: "is this what I want the value of every dollar in my savings to be worth?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#358

Post by mirimir »

bhayden wrote: post #344
amalcon wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do the same thing with USD. It's called money laundering, and was not invented by the Bitcoin community. Granted, for the time being it's a lot easier to do with Bitcoin, but any kind of mass market adoption would surely change this.

Money laundering doesn't really solve the problem of being able to buy good digitally without revealing your identity.

Postal delivery of physical goods is problematic, and anonymous payment is pointless. But that's not an issue for software licenses, ebooks, server and VPS rental, VPN subscriptions, consulting services, and so on.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#359

Post by mirimir »

amalcon wrote: post #343
mirimir wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can have as many pseudonyms as we need, and can transfer Bitcoins among them via mixing services. No pseudonym need make more than one purchase. It's the difficulty of anonymous postal delivery that's limiting.

You can do the same thing with USD. It's called money laundering, and was not invented by the Bitcoin community. Granted, for the time being it's a lot easier to do with Bitcoin, but any kind of mass market adoption would surely change this.

Yes, but "money laundering" is a loaded term. There is nothing dishonorable about foiling meddlers and thieves.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#360

Post by vertex-four »

gcr wrote: post #350
vertex-four wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can integrate bitcoin support into Stripe Checkout with just a few lines of code - one attribute on the client, and 2-3 lines of extra code to create your Charge object in a different way on the server, at which point you process it in almost exactly the same way as a card payment (potentially minus some UI details in confirmation messages, etc). Integrating Coinbase involves writing your own "payment" abstractio…

Why is the choice to accept bitcoins client-side? If I want to force a payment in bitcoins, I can add the attribute myself. Some businesses have legal ramifications for accepting bitcoin or not, even if it's through Stripe. Is there a flag in your Stripe merchant account on Stripe's server to refuse bitcoins?

> Why is the choice to accept bitcoins client-side? If I want to force a payment in bitcoins, I can add the attribute myself.

No, that's not the case. The choice to display the UI for accepting bitcoins is client-side. Handling the results of that UI still has to be done specially on the server, through the creation of a Charge in a different way.

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