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Stripe: Bitcoin

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#191

Post by etchalon »

smokeyj wrote: post #99
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…

> 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 Your mom probably didn't push for the adoption of email yet here it is (sorry usps). The advantages of faster cheaper easier don't require much convincing, especially in the case of money/contracts/assets. The idea t…

Bitcoin is none of these things: faster cheaper easier.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#192

Post by a3_nm »

malgorithms wrote: post #86
cissou wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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…

> the buyer gets rewards back, typically 1% or so

This might be a US-centric perspective. In France, to my knowledge, there are no such rewards, and no chargebacks. Still, there are transaction fees, so merchants would have everything to gain by proposing Bitcoin payment and sharing the savings with the customer.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#193

Post by shostack »

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

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.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#194

Post by derefr »

sah88 wrote: post #138
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.

If you are in Canada that isn't really true. It is extremely easy to open a USD denominated bank account and credit card. Couple banks have Euro accounts as well.

Yeah, but if you get paid in CAD, it's still a question of when you want to deal with the volatility—point of sale, or point of forex-exchange-during-account-transfer. You still have to deal with timing it right (possibly waiting months) if you want to avoid losing tens of cents on the dollar.

And if you're already thinking like that, Bitcoin isn't nearly as scary.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#195

Post by undefined0 »

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?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#196

Post by skulquake »

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…

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.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#197

Post by undefined0 »

krithix wrote: post #40
borski wrote: post #32

I'm assuming this doesn't work for recurring payments?

(I work for Stripe.) That's correct. Stripe does not currently support recurring or repeated payments with Bitcoin. The receivers can only be used for a single payment.

Since you could now be considered 'big leaders' in the bitcoin world. You really should lobby for a BIP70 specification which allows for wallets to subscribe people to payments. However, then would be the question of how can both the wallet provider and Stripe agree on the exchange rate.

In short, I'd like to see BIP70 become like PayPal's IPN, so it can notify websites of subscriptions, refunds, payment requests, instant payment confirmation from a trusted third party (Coinbase would be considered trusted to tell us a payments been instantly recieved without having to wait for confirmation), etc.

I've have these ideas for a while but I'm not known in the bitcoin space so my comments don't make any impact. Stripe could considering thinking about such specifications, I hope?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#199

Post by StavrosK »

etchalon wrote: post #191
smokeyj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Your mom probably didn't push for the adoption of email yet here it is (sorry usps). The advantages of faster cheaper easier don't require much convincing, especially in the case of money/contracts/assets. The idea t…

Bitcoin is none of these things: faster cheaper easier.

How is it not faster and cheaper?

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin

#200

Post by dragonwriter »

skulquake wrote: post #196
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…

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.

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