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Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

bitspend.com

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Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#31

Post by mmaunder »

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc)

When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i.e. ability to reliably: earn, spend, exchange, borrow, lend and save. 99% of this activity will be off the IRS radar and thus will be off their books.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#33

Post by regularfry »

jes5199 wrote: post #32

It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins. And until that changes, what good does it do to be able to spend them?

I can't say I'd noticed. Admittedly it's not trivial, in that I don't know of anywhere you can just show up with a credit card and buy a bitcoin, but it's hardly rocket surgery to fund a MtGox account.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#34

Post by veb »

mmaunder wrote: post #31

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc) When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i…

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed.

I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting.

P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#35

Post by ahi »

regularfry wrote: post #33
jes5199 wrote: post #32

It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins. And until that changes, what good does it do to be able to spend them?

I can't say I'd noticed. Admittedly it's not trivial, in that I don't know of anywhere you can just show up with a credit card and buy a bitcoin, but it's hardly rocket surgery to fund a MtGox account.

It's taken me the better part of a week to fund a MtGox account. 10 minutes to send bitcoin around the world. 5 days to complete a damn USD money transfer.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#36

Post by prodigal_erik »

veb wrote: post #34
mmaunder wrote: post #31

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc) When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i…

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed. I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting. P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

No matter how you get paid, the IRS wants the same share of fair market value: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html. I can't think of a reason they'd treat bitcoin differently than foreign money.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#37

Post by nazgulnarsil »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #17
sdkmvx wrote: post #10

It's interesting to see that this guy wants to transfer BTC -> USD in the form of Newegg shipments, but I have yet to see anyone major accept Bitcoins directly. Newegg has something of useful value (like a hard drive). Both BTC and USD have no useful value in this sense. The actual item 1 USD is simply a piece of cotton-paper with ink on it. A BTC is a mathematical hash. Nobody major with useful objects accepts BTCs.…

same goes for gold. proof of work systems are unintuitive. the value is determined by average investor time window and whether or not the network is growing slower or faster than a certain rate determined by that time window. people buy gold with the intention of later selling it to someone who also wants to buy it so they can sell it later. why does anyone bother? because there is demand for transporting value over…

found related link from last bitcoin discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#38

Post by quanticle »

veb wrote: post #34
mmaunder wrote: post #31

Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc) When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a full service economy in the currency i…

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed. I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting. P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

* My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed.*

That's true, but all those Bitcoins are getting converted into dollars/euro/yen/etc. at some point, so that's when the IRS (or tax agency) collects its due.

Its like stocks. You pay capital gains taxes on stock when you cash them out dollars. I'd expect you would have to pay some sort of tax when you cash your Bitcoin out for dollars too.

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#39

Post by veb »

quanticle wrote: post #38
veb wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed. I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting very interesting. P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax law, I was simply asking a question. :)

* My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states that only the official currency is taxed.* That's true, but all those Bitcoins are getting converted into dollars/euro/yen/etc. at some point, so that's when the IRS (or tax agency) collects its due. Its like stocks. You pay capital gains taxes on stock when you cash them out dollars. I'd expect you would have to pay some sort of tax when you…

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Didn't think about that side of it. :)

Re: Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin

#40

Post by quanticle »

bitspend wrote: post #20
drhodes wrote: post #16

How are you guys mitigating the volitility. Arbitrage? Seems to me with +- 10 USD in one day, if an order comes in during a top when the quote from newegg is for $20K and suddenly the exchange tanks you'll be stuck with a heavy loss. Of course, it works the other way too...

Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into USD. If a customer sends bitcoin and wants to cancel before the order is placed, then there is no problem. We will just refund them. Customer always comes first.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The Bitcoin market is even less liquid than emerging market currencies. If there's a rush for the exit, there might not be enough buyers to allow a quick bitcoin->hard currency conversion.
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