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Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

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Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#61

Post by wyager »

rebelidealist wrote: post #48

I wish all these resources spent & millions of investment dollars would go to a better version of Bitcoin. BT is a major breakthru but it is still in an alpha stage. The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary. This is because for hundreds of millions of people to use BT, the supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.…

>The main problem is that it is deflationary

This is not a critical problem (or even a problem at all, depending on whom you ask). This has been argued again and again, and what is always comes down to is that, according to the Keynesians, an inflationary currency is preferable for encouraging economic growth, but the reality is that A) economics is not hard science and B) as long as the inflation/deflation rate isn't extreme, both inflationary and deflationary goods make fine exchange mechanisms.

>supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.

Why? If adoption increases, the value goes up, and people spend fewer bitcoins for the same thing. Bitcoin is especially good at this because it has a lot of base units.

>They will sell their BT for currency rather buy depreciating goods with them.

This is incorrect. You're arguing the extreme of the effects of deflation. People will buy goods with deflationary assets, because sometimes the expected value of owning a good is higher than the expected value of keeping an equivalent value of the deflationary asset.

The equivalent (and equally incorrect) ad extremum argument against inflation is "With inflationary currencies, no one will bother working, because they know the payoff of their labor will be worth less by the time they get it."

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#62

Post by [deleted] »

netcan wrote: post #39
hnnewguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which are awful, but necessary for now As a consumer or business? Because as a consumer, I've never had a complaint about my CC, ever. With the NFC chips built into all new CCs (at least here in Canada) I tap my card and leave. You can't get more convenient than that. As such, I don't think credit cards are going anywhere.

The 1st order effects are on business. It's mostly the 2nd order effects that consumers feel. Marginally higher costs that inevitably pass to consumers . Merchant refusal to ship to "high risk" locations. More difficult international transactions generally. Fewer online vendors (=less choice & higher prices) of high risk (easily resellable) items. Then there are the effects of having such a thick intermediary, a duop…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#63

Post by pbreit »

tomasien wrote: post #41
piokoch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"which are awful, but necessary for now". I am not sure what is exactly that awful in having free credit for X days, rewards for making purchases (which effectively cancels fees) and, the most important thing, chargebacks. I can understand Credit Card issues from seller point of view, but for clients (that is most of us), they are not that bad. Bitcoin will have to provide the same level of consumer comfort and safet…

That's a good point, BTC doesn't have that figured out yet but I bet Stripe will be able to help figure that out! We handle that for ACH if you're interested.

Bitcoin does have the capability of "2 of 3" authorizations which can mitigate some of the upfront risk. The idea being that a payment only completes after 2 parties approve it, the 3rd being an independent 3rd party in this case (who could be configured to auto-approve if a complaint isn't filed in x days).

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#64

Post by evv »

srdev wrote: post #44
tomasien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Card payments in person can be great - swipe and go, why not? Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Even at it's best in the Stripe Checkout model, it's less than ideal and extremely unsafe - it's so unsafe that American Express is RUNNING COMMERCIALS ADVERTISING HOW UNSAFE THEIR PROCESS IS! For your conveni…

> Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address. So there's no real win here. And if you're using a regular online…

> Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address.

Maybe I'm confused. Why is the address, name and email necessary for BTC payments? Is it a stripe requirement?

And, as you probably know, a bitcoin address is WAY more secure than a CC#. They are nowhere near "equivalent"

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#65

Post by tlrobinson »

rebelidealist wrote: post #48

I wish all these resources spent & millions of investment dollars would go to a better version of Bitcoin. BT is a major breakthru but it is still in an alpha stage. The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary. This is because for hundreds of millions of people to use BT, the supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.…

"The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary."

Bitcoin doesn't need to "support a global economy" for it to be useful/successful.

"Right now more half of Bitcoin supply is already own by someone"

Are you saying one entity owns half of all Bitcoins? I've heard the figure of a few percent thrown around, but never half.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#66

Post by tlrobinson »

a-priori wrote: post #60
rebelidealist wrote: post #48

I wish all these resources spent & millions of investment dollars would go to a better version of Bitcoin. BT is a major breakthru but it is still in an alpha stage. The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary. This is because for hundreds of millions of people to use BT, the supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.…

I disagree, because Bitcoin's monetary policy can be changed at any time. In fact, Dogecoin, which uses a fork of the Bitcoin code, just changed theirs a short time ago, without much fuss, to a continuous inflation policy like you mentioned. I agree that for either of them to be used as a currency (rather than just for speculation), a low and stable level of inflation is necessary. But that's all about inflation in t…

Dogecoin is much smaller than Bitcoin. It would be vastly harder for Bitcoin to change it's monetary policy without forking the network.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#67

Post by shawabawa3 »

srdev wrote: post #44
tomasien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Card payments in person can be great - swipe and go, why not? Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Even at it's best in the Stripe Checkout model, it's less than ideal and extremely unsafe - it's so unsafe that American Express is RUNNING COMMERCIALS ADVERTISING HOW UNSAFE THEIR PROCESS IS! For your conveni…

> Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address. So there's no real win here. And if you're using a regular online…

> Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin

Not for digital goods (maybe email)

> That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address

Most bitcoin payments are done either through mobile phone scanning a QR-code, or through uri's opening bitcoin software. I've never manually typed in a bitcoin address (worst case is copy pasting the payee address)

> I haven't seen any bitcoin experience that matches that. Reading up on "experiences" people have with Overstock and Tiger Direct, it all seems very roundabout and inconvenient.

Not sure what you've been reading, but my bitcoin purchasing experiences have all been extremely straightforward. Scan QR-code, press send, done.

> And then you're hit with shit like no refunds to top it off.

Uh...no you aren't. There's no chargebacks, not no refunds. That is, to get a refund the merchant has to agree. Basically, risk moves from merchant to customer (banks usually require the merchant to prove they delivered the goods in chargeback cases)

edit:

> With bitcoin, you're going to get hit with transaction fees, exchange fees, and exchange spread. For small shops, its likely that will come out less than the CC fees, but for bigger stores its questionable.

bitpay already offer 0% fees for a flat $30/month, and things can only get cheaper (as there get more/better exchanges and less volatility)

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#68

Post by srdev »

evv wrote: post #64
srdev wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address. So there's no real win here. And if you're using a regular online…

> Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address. Maybe I'm confused. Why is the address, name and email necessary for BTC payments? Is it a stripe requirement? And, as you probably know, a bitcoin address is WAY more secure than a CC#. They are nowhere nea…

> Maybe I'm confused. Why is the address, name and email necessary for BTC payments? Is it a stripe requirement?

Its necessary in that they need a place to send your stuff. Email is often used for accounts and confirmation. This would also be stored by whatever system you are using if you are a repeat customer: Amazon, Stripe, etc. My point is that its a wash and that they are not comparing like for like in an attempt to make credit cards more complicated than they are.

> And, as you probably know, a bitcoin address is WAY more secure than a CC#. They are nowhere near "equivalent"

If you read my post beyond the first few sentences, then yes, I know that and specifically discuss it. The context of the first paragraph is discussing whether credit cards are more difficult to use in terms of inputting information. The equivalence here is that there is some number that you have to input somewhere to make the payment. Thats it. There's no other inferences beyond that.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#69

Post by antr »

josephlord wrote: post #53

The interesting part of this from my point of view is how Stripe will manage the conversion of received bitcoin back into dollars. Will they directly sell bitcoin to consumers themselves or trade on one (or more) of the exchanges. Stripe are obviously taking the risk of the volatility so will probably want to keep the bitcoin float that they hold fairly small. They also need to keep a reasonable margin on these trans…

i'm going to guess that they will exchange at spot and take a small transaction fee. having bitcoin on your balance sheet (volatility-wise) is not the wisest move for a startup.

Re: Stripe: Bitcoin Sign-up

#70

Post by genwin »

srdev wrote: post #44
tomasien wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit Card payments in person can be great - swipe and go, why not? Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Even at it's best in the Stripe Checkout model, it's less than ideal and extremely unsafe - it's so unsafe that American Express is RUNNING COMMERCIALS ADVERTISING HOW UNSAFE THEIR PROCESS IS! For your conveni…

> Online, it's 23 digits that you don't know, and then 3-23 more fields (shipping address, billing address, name, email, etc. etc.) That sucks. Shipping address, name, and email are necessary even if you use bitcoin. Billing address is usually the same as shipping address. That leaves the CC number, in which case the equivalent is your bitcoin address. So there's no real win here. And if you're using a regular online…

For CC I get "charged" ~1.5% (pay extra, because prices are higher due to high CC usage), because I get ~1.5% back as a reward I'll definitely use. The exchange spread cost for Bitcoin could easily be > 1.5% and it would be extra work for me with every transaction to determine that cost.
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