BitPay and PayPal • Hacker News Board

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#91

Post by Rygu » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:41 PM UTC

martindale wrote: post #27

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…

Hey, Eric with BitPay here. If you're still waiting on information about AngelHack, email me: eric@bitpay.com We just this past week launched our new REST API, which should be significantly better than our old API: http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/09/18/announcing-the-new-bitpay-... – we spent a long time thinking very carefully about making the developer experience as smooth as possible, but I'm sure there are things we…

BitAuth is an overly complex system that's seriously standing in the way of mass developer adoption.

http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/07/01/bitauth-for-decentralized-...

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#92

Post by tomatocracy » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:42 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #22

rcraft wrote: post #7

Is paypal just ignoring the IRS' recent guidelines that bitcoin is treated as property? From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property... : Today’s IRS guidance will provide certainty for Bitcoin investors, along with income-tax liability that wasn’t specified before. Purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of gross i…

I'm not totally sure about the US case but in the UK you are technically liable for capital gains tax on foreign currency appreciation so if I buy US$ at 1.60 to the £ and buy a cup of coffee when for $2 when it's 1.40 to the £ I should declare the 20c or so appreciation in my dollars in pound terms. In practice no one bothers for small sums and if you've made a gain of say £10k you can estimate an average rate rathe…

True, except it's not only that people don't bother to report holiday cash transactions - there are formal exemptions from capital gains tax in the UK for (i) cash which is for personal use while travelling outside the UK and (ii) (since 2012) for all foreign currency bank accounts. In terms of what most people do, it's only if you hold or use the currency for investment purposes that you need to worry.

HMRC initially tried to treat Bitcoin in the same way as gift vouchers, not currencies, which meant that different rules applied (particularly in relation to VAT). However they now apparently treat is as a currency which in theory means the above exemptions are open to people to claim.

There are issues with this though. Firstly, in the legislation "bank account" is not explicitly defined so it's unclear exactly which forms of wallet might qualify for that exemption, if any. Secondly, the exemption for physical currency doesn't include personal use of a foreign currency within the UK.

So it's still pretty unclear whether you'll be subject to CGT or not.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#93

Post by aianus » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #84

aianus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm merely responding to your argument that people will be unwilling to carry the equivalent of their checking account balance (~$1000?) with them because they'll fear for their physical safety. People carry laptops and credit cards despite the fact it's not any harder to point a gun at me and take me to an ATM in a shady part of town or steal my laptop.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#94

Post by martindale » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:47 PM UTC

Rygu wrote: post #91

martindale wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, Eric with BitPay here. If you're still waiting on information about AngelHack, email me: eric@bitpay.com We just this past week launched our new REST API, which should be significantly better than our old API: http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/09/18/announcing-the-new-bitpay-... – we spent a long time thinking very carefully about making the developer experience as smooth as possible, but I'm sure there are things we…

BitAuth is an overly complex system that's seriously standing in the way of mass developer adoption. http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/07/01/bitauth-for-decentralized-...

Hey Rygu! We really appreciate the feedback – we're doing everything we can to make working with Bitcoin extremely simple. What can we do to reduce the complexity?

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#95

Post by atmosx » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:48 PM UTC

runeks wrote: post #55

jarek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BitCoin is rocketing on this news it seems: For values of "rocketing" approaching "down 6% on the week, 13% on the month"

and ~250% on the year [1] :) [1] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10z...

How the year standings have anything to do with the news at hand is beyond me.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#96

Post by sillysaurus3 » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:49 PM UTC

joshuaxls wrote: post #89

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I think we disagree because you haven't lost money due to no fault of your own, thanks to Bitcoin. I have, and it sucks.

Most consumers will take risks like these seriously. If Bitcoin is going to go mainstream, it needs to address these concerns.

No one is going to strap a bomb onto you and then force you to wire them money. Remember, if someone were to do that, they would be caught immediately, because it's very easy to trace money transfers from banks. But Bitcoin makes tracing money impossible, thanks to mixers. That's why banks are safer than Bitcoin: A robber can't extract money from a bank without getting caught, but a robber can empty your brainwallet in a way that hides where the money has gone.

As for holding a loved one hostage, kidnapping for money hasn't worked for a long time. The failure rate for kidnappers demanding money is around 100% in the US. But kidnapping will become much more lucrative if Bitcoin catches on in the way you're imagining. It needs consumer protections.

Once bitcoin has consumer protections, it will be very valuable. That's why I'm advocating the protections. It's a necessary step in Bitcoin's development.

EDIT: To put it another way, instances of kidnapping and theft are rare because the current system defends against them, not because they're inherently rare. If bitcoin catches on without protections afforded by banks, then kidnapping and theft will likely become more common, because those tactics will be lucrative again.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#97

Post by danbruc » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #95

runeks wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and ~250% on the year [1] :) [1] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10z...

How the year standings have anything to do with the news at hand is beyond me.

It provides a bigger picture because the current situation is not representative at all. Admittedly everybody who cares about Bitcoin is aware of that but it may still be a valuable information for the random reader without much Bitcoin background.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#98

Post by jbooth » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #90

danbruc wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wha?? How is something that flips up and down by several hundred percent over a given quarter-year going to 'align the exchange amount of currencies with real market value'? What does that even mean? Like the billion-dollar currency trading industry isn't doing that already, we need one more currency to get it just right?

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#99

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

joshuaxls wrote: post #77

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. A 'bitcoin bank' may have exactly the same liquidity issues, if they reinvest deposits like commercial banks do.

Yes, you're right. The point is, with bitcoin, there's really no need for banks. It's easier (and safer) for me to hold a million dollars in bitcoin than a million dollars in cash. If I had a million dollars in cash, I'd be constantly worried that someone will find it and steal it. Hence the need for a bank. I feel much more capable hiding a private key, which is just information, than I do hiding 10,000 pieces of pa…

Its not about need. Its about somebody paying you interest on your money. To the degree bitcoins don't pay interest, they are less valuable than hard currencies.

Re: BitPay and PayPal

#100

Post by fdsary » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

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'm developing an app now, where bitcoin payments are part of it. I decided to try bitpay rather than running bitciond myself (less chance to fuck up) but their API is horribly hard to use, gives inconsistent errors and the docs are awful at best.

I'm using their old version, but the errors I get are from the new version. Their library for the language I use is not yet updated. The new docs seem to be better, but I lost faith in them as a developer.