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Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

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Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#51
post #37

I hope one day Coinbase adds Litecoin support.

Are there any figures on how many people actually care about Litecoin, as opposed to Bitcoin?

Look at the subscribers of http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin compared to http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin.

Also this: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=bitcoin%2C+litecoin#q...

Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#52
post #37

I hope one day Coinbase adds Litecoin support.

Are there any figures on how many people actually care about Litecoin, as opposed to Bitcoin?

One metric to track usage is the number of transactions per day:

- Bitcoin: ~50k transactions/day (http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions)

- Litecoin: ~5k transactions/day (http://ltc.block-explorer.com/charts)

Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#53
post #50

This is negative marketing. Anyone that does $1M+ a year in online sales doesn't want their payment vendor losing money. What I want are honest FAQs and simple integration options. "Free" is irrelevant. If I can get incremental customers and I hope that means $20,000 more bucks. I don't give a shit about $400 vs. $200 vs. $0. Hell, I pay Apple $6000, and I am only kinda mad.

Agreed: I found this offer a bit strange. It alerted my Ponzi-senses. I'm open-minded, but how can they afford to offer this for free? Will this offer be attractive paying customers, and why do they want to attract non-paying customers?

It attracts startup businesses, most of which will fail, but some of which might turn into profitable and paying customers later on. A big winner there can easily pay for all the lost ones - esp. since most startups will probably fail very early, not using anywhere close to the 1 million.

Yes, it's a loss leader. However, if they have the cash to support it for a time they might tie some very profitable businesses to their infrastructure.

Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#54

I wonder how long until the first merchant to take the money and run? Alice buys something from Bob, Bob sends a tracking number for a rock in a box and chuckles his way to the bank. Or vice versa, of course, Alice buys something, Bob ships it, Alice never pays.

How would the second scenario occur with BTC? The start of the process is Alice paying.

I'm not clear whether customers will be comfortable paying in advance. There's zero way to recover your money, unlike credit cards or bank transactions.

Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the second scenario occur with BTC? The start of the process is Alice paying.

I'm not clear whether customers will be comfortable paying in advance. There's zero way to recover your money, unlike credit cards or bank transactions.

BTC in and of itself has no answer for the situation of not trusting the merchant. However, merchants typically do business with many customers, don't need anonymity, and have an interest in maintaining good reputations. None of these conditions obtain for the customer in the general case, and this asymmetry explains why all merchants that take BTC are paid before delivery.

Those who need to use a credit card, will.

Re: Process your first $1,000,000 of Bitcoin payments for free with Coinbase

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the second scenario occur with BTC? The start of the process is Alice paying.

I'm not clear whether customers will be comfortable paying in advance. There's zero way to recover your money, unlike credit cards or bank transactions.

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