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BitPay and PayPal

blog.bitpay.com

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Re: BitPay and PayPal

#11

Post by DMac87 »

rcraft wrote: post #7

Is paypal just ignoring the IRS' recent guidelines that bitcoin is treated as property? From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property... : Today’s IRS guidance will provide certainty for Bitcoin investors, along with income-tax liability that wasn’t specified before. Purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of gross i…

My guess is that PayPal et al don't particularly care - the onus is on the bitcoin user (i.e. the consumer) to calculate capital gains, report to the IRS etc. Those consumers probably don't care - they'll wait to see how/if the IRS actually has a willingness/ability to enforce their own guidelines...

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#12

Post by kolev »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #5
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: * https://btc-e.com/ * https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/2 * https://www.bitstamp.net/

My instinct says it will be a spike that trends back down fairly soon, but my instinct about btc rates has frequently been wrong.

Weak spike. If this news doesn't break $450, we're gonna see $350 soon.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#13

Post by scottcanoni »

kolev wrote: post #12
waterlesscloud wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My instinct says it will be a spike that trends back down fairly soon, but my instinct about btc rates has frequently been wrong.

Weak spike. If this news doesn't break $450, we're gonna see $350 soon.

Agreed, I would expect news like this to cause a much much bigger spike.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#14

Post by trevordev »

BitPay sponsored angel-hack Seattle that I participated in this summer. Their developer api was horrible and poorly documented wasting everyone time. I was in one of the few groups that got it to work. When asking when we would find out who won the 5 bitcoin prize for best use of it we were told to contact bitpay. I contacted them multiple times and support told me to to contact their CEO who ended up not responding to my emails. I will not use bitpay in the future.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#15

Post by scarmig »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: * https://btc-e.com/ * https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/2 * https://www.bitstamp.net/

Correction: Bitcoin traders were looking for an excuse to buy a lot of Bitcoin. Your eyes are deceiving you. The way it works is, they buy in order to jump the price. Then other people buy and continue the momentum upwards. Then, in a few days, they sell, and thus capitalize on everyone else's belief. This is how it's been for almost a year now. Ask yourself: Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consume…

What's the value proposition of money?

Sending money to people.

Bitcoin is silly in lots of ways, but what something like it could potentially do is revolutionary. PayPal is worth billions; retail banking is a 12-figure yearly revenue industry. That's a whole lot of money on the table.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#16

Post by joshuaxls »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: * https://btc-e.com/ * https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/2 * https://www.bitstamp.net/

Correction: Bitcoin traders were looking for an excuse to buy a lot of Bitcoin. Your eyes are deceiving you. The way it works is, they buy in order to jump the price. Then other people buy and continue the momentum upwards. Then, in a few days, they sell, and thus capitalize on everyone else's belief. This is how it's been for almost a year now. Ask yourself: Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consume…

This has been a bear market for bitcoin for months—many of the bears have been rooted out. It's not a conspiracy that bulls are coming in and pushing the price up. It's expected. Not every bull will close their position immediately. That's too simple of a view of how markets work.

There is massive value in bitcoin. Payments, asset tracking, international remittances, etc. Take just one of those markets, and just one company—say Western Union and international remittances. That's $8.7B worth of market cap that bitcoin obsoletes.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#17

Post by bdcravens »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: * https://btc-e.com/ * https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/2 * https://www.bitstamp.net/

Correction: Bitcoin traders were looking for an excuse to buy a lot of Bitcoin. Your eyes are deceiving you. The way it works is, they buy in order to jump the price. Then other people buy and continue the momentum upwards. Then, in a few days, they sell, and thus capitalize on everyone else's belief. This is how it's been for almost a year now. Ask yourself: Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consume…

What is the value proposition for consumers apart from sending money to friends?

For the buyer, security. (akin to a one-time use CC number)

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#18

Post by rcraft »

embolalia wrote: post #10
rcraft wrote: post #7

Is paypal just ignoring the IRS' recent guidelines that bitcoin is treated as property? From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property... : Today’s IRS guidance will provide certainty for Bitcoin investors, along with income-tax liability that wasn’t specified before. Purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of gross i…

Not sure where you get that they're ignoring it. TFA says nothing of taxes, and that burden falls on the buyer anyway. Unless you're saying that the IRS's guidelines mean it can't be used to buy things for some reason, which is just not true at all.

Ignoring in the sense that Paypal thinks its worth their time to facilitate consumer transactions based on bitcoin.

As the bloomberg article states, if I have to factor in my my capital gains tax liability with each purchase of an ebook or mp3, then that is a royal pain and would lessen my desire to use bitcoin for everyday purchases.

It seems to me that perhaps Paypal just see's the IRS guidelines as a non-factor for consumers who will largely just ignore the guidance similar to how consumers are technically supposed to pay state sales tax on online purchases.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#19

Post by tonyhb »

trevordev wrote: post #14

BitPay sponsored angel-hack Seattle that I participated in this summer. Their developer api was horrible and poorly documented wasting everyone time. I was in one of the few groups that got it to work. When asking when we would find out who won the 5 bitcoin prize for best use of it we were told to contact bitpay. I contacted them multiple times and support told me to to contact their CEO who ended up not responding…

I've worked with Bitpay while making https://www.incoin.io/ and their developer docs are average to good. It wasn't horrible, the documentation was good enough and Bitpay offered to help (and were super helpful when we asked any questions). In fact, other than having to implement BitAuth ourselves it was pretty painless.

Regarding your AngelHack prize... the same thing happened to me. I'd be more skeptical of AngelHack than Bitpay, a well-funded global company, though: http://www.businessinsider.com/greg-gopman-angelhack-lawsuit...

It's not the first time I've heard of AngelHack not following through.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#20

Post by MarkPNeyer »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #8
andrewljohnson wrote: post #2

BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: * https://btc-e.com/ * https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/2 * https://www.bitstamp.net/

Correction: Bitcoin traders were looking for an excuse to buy a lot of Bitcoin. Your eyes are deceiving you. The way it works is, they buy in order to jump the price. Then other people buy and continue the momentum upwards. Then, in a few days, they sell, and thus capitalize on everyone else's belief. This is how it's been for almost a year now. Ask yourself: Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consume…

> This is how it's been for almost a year now.

you have chosen a very convenient timespan over which to survey recent events.

i've been holding BTC since 2011. 2014 looks just like 2012 did.

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