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BitPay and PayPal

blog.bitpay.com

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Re: BitPay and PayPal

#81

Post by lytedev »

jarek wrote: post #75
javert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the phrase "on this news." Perhaps you do understand, but it makes you feel good to say something nasty about bitcoin. And that feeling is more important to you than honest discussion.

Is context undesirable in honest discussions about Bitcoin then?

The given context was "on this news," explicitly referring to the single period of time since this information was made public. In that time and that time alone, bitcoin has come up a few dollars.

Nobody is denying the fact that bitcoin is still down from last week - or even last month, but the context in question is the past 4ish hours.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#82

Post by awt »

danbruc wrote: post #69
awt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't yet understand how infungible the USD is becoming. Argentenians and Venezuelans understand the infungibility of their national currencies much better than Americans do theirs. Wealthy Americans and the wealthy of other nationalities who travel understand it better than those with little savings who are largely bound to their own states. Only big players and those on the fringes of society notice the…

Isn't a currency fungible by definition - a dollar is a dollar is a dollar? And we are getting away from the question I asked - what are the advantages of using Bitcoins, advantages that average people actually care about today and that are not offset by disadvantages of using Bitcoins.

Iran Sanctions: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/p...

Russia Sanctions: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/politics/ukraine-russia-sancti...

Also, USD cash is more fungible than electronic USD.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#83

Post by aianus »

jarek wrote: post #79
aianus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consumers apart from sending money to friends? - Buying things that people would be unwilling to sell to you with existing payment methods due to fraud risks. One legal example: iPhone purchases shipped to Nigeria. - Buying things electronically where the existing payment methods are too slow or expensive. For example, funding a stock trading account in seconds to…

That's a nice list of things most consumers won't be doing. That's not to say there's no value for people who do need it, but it does not suggest Bitcoin will become hugely valuable like Visa. > - Buying things that people would be unwilling to sell to you with existing payment methods due to fraud risks. One legal example: iPhone purchases shipped to Nigeria. Small global market share for legal uses. > - Buying thin…

> Small global market share for legal uses.

How do you know? It's currently small because it's currently impossible.

> Most non-US residents can do bank transfers as fast as Bitcoin or will be able to Real Soon Now.

I disagree, most non-US residents in the world don't even have bank accounts. Not to mention, the US and Canada are a huge market with a terrible banking system that refuses to modernize.

> So like 5%?

5% is the entire federal VAT in Canada. Would you really say no to saving $100 when buying a new MacBook? Would you just not bother claiming VAT-exempt status for your business because it's a measly 5%?

A fringe here and a fringe there and pretty soon you have a whole robe.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#84

Post by sillysaurus3 »

aianus wrote: post #68
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because someone can point a gun at your head to defeat ECC. They can't do that with banks. That's why people keep their life savings in a bank, and why you'll need a bank even with Bitcoin.

> Because someone can point a gun at your head to defeat ECC. You can store an encrypted paper wallet in a safety deposit box at the bank if you're worried about that threat. You don't , however, need to hand it over to the bank to lend it out to bad debtors if you don't want to, which is the threat FDIC protects against.

There are at least two problems with this approach. First, this just makes you a target when you go and retrieve your paper wallet. Secondly, even if you never actually leave the bank with your paper wallet, this means you need to physically go to the bank every time you want to transfer money. But people need to transfer money on a daily basis in order to pay bills, meaning any access to a bitcoin wallet needs to be highly available. A paper wallet stored in a vault isn't.

The counterargument to this is to store a portion of your savings in a paper wallet. That's fine, but it's not what's going to make Bitcoin mainstream, which is what the conversation is about. It needs to become consumer-friendly.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#85

Post by notahacker »

awt wrote: post #63
danbruc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you meant set B with set C - what makes you believe set B will match set W one day? Especially right now set B is incredible tiny compared to set A and there is not much incentive to switch to B which in turn makes it unlikely that set B will quickly converge to set W.

Most people don't yet understand how infungible the USD is becoming. Argentenians and Venezuelans understand the infungibility of their national currencies much better than Americans do theirs. Wealthy Americans and the wealthy of other nationalities who travel understand it better than those with little savings who are largely bound to their own states. Only big players and those on the fringes of society notice the…

Funnily enough the Venezuelans and Argentinians solve the infungibility of their national currencies with US dollar-denominated offshore accounts. The US dollar is also the national currency of two other Latin American countries. Call me an extremist if you like, but I think the US is more likely to regulate Bitcoin into near irrelevance (guess what, AML laws can be applied to exchanges and Silicon Valley companies accepting BTC too!) than they are to make it difficult for Banco Central del Ecuador to replenish its dollar reserves. And Russian oligarchs facing sanctions are more likely to keep their money in Russian banks than in the crypocurrency their own government intends to ban http://rt.com/business/187440-bitcoin-ban-russia-cryptocurre...

How many people have left the informal economy to transact exclusively in Bitcoins?

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#86

Post by jarek »

aianus wrote: post #83
jarek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice list of things most consumers won't be doing. That's not to say there's no value for people who do need it, but it does not suggest Bitcoin will become hugely valuable like Visa. > - Buying things that people would be unwilling to sell to you with existing payment methods due to fraud risks. One legal example: iPhone purchases shipped to Nigeria. Small global market share for legal uses. > - Buying thin…

> Small global market share for legal uses. How do you know? It's currently small because it's currently impossible. > Most non-US residents can do bank transfers as fast as Bitcoin or will be able to Real Soon Now. I disagree, most non-US residents in the world don't even have bank accounts . Not to mention, the US and Canada are a huge market with a terrible banking system that refuses to modernize. > So like 5%? 5…

> How do you know? It's currently small because it's currently impossible.

I think the reason for my belief about iPhones-in-Nigeria being a small market is self-evident. As for other examples: people tend to buy things locally because local businesses are generally good at recognizing local demand, organizing import if necessary, and reaping the benefits of scale (shipping a container of phones). That this arrangement allows for localization of the product which further increases local demand is just icing on the cake.

> I disagree, most non-US residents in the world don't even have bank accounts.

Yes, but they are getting bank or quasibank accounts faster than they are getting Bitcoin wallets.

> Would you really say no to saving $100 when buying a new MacBook?

No - but as a price-sensitive customer I would buy a couple-months-old, gently-used Macbook and save $200 or more. As a price-sensitive business I would buy a Dell.

> A fringe here and a fringe there and pretty soon you have a whole robe.

Sure. But a robe still much smaller than a mainstream provider like Visa.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#88

Post by porqupine »

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 insight and bitcore, which are both Bitpay developed. Very positive experience with both of them.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#89

Post by joshuaxls »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #78
joshuaxls wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t understand what the FDIC is for. It’s not there to protect your deposits from being stolen by robbers. It exists to ensure consumers that banks are guaranteed to be solvent while they practice fractional reserve banking. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Deposit_Insurance_Corpo... If someone holds a gun to my head, I would give them my passphrase. I’d also go into my bank and wire my money into thei…

The point of FDIC isn't to defend against robbers. It's to enable you to safely store money. You cannot do this with bitcoin. You can do this with USD. Most people don't walk around with their life savings on them. That is exactly what you're doing by storing your life savings in your brainwallet. Hence, the need for banks. Bitcoin mixers also make it an attractive avenue for robbers. No one can demand you wire them…

If someone is willing to murder me for my money, a bank (or the FDIC) won’t keep that from happening. All the bank needs for me to wire all of my money into someone’s account is my ID, signature and the other account’s details. This would-be robber could strap a bomb to me while I execute the transaction, or hold a loved one hostage. The FDIC can do nothing in this scenario.

I’d suggest reading up on multisignature transactions and bitcoin, which is an even safer way to store bitcoin than I’ve mentioned: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/11108/multisig-future-bitcoin/

We simply disagree on the value of bitcoin.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#90

Post by mbesto »

danbruc wrote: post #71
u124556 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transportation was a solved problem when horse carriages were invented. Every solved problem can be solved even better. Isn't that what most startups are about?

Of course and that is why I ask how Bitcoin improves over the current situation in a way relevant to average people.

It will cost less to transport money and align the exchange amount of currencies with real market value.
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