TigerDirect.com Now Accepts Bitcoin Payments(tigerdirect.com)
tigerdirect.com
TigerDirect.com Now Accepts Bitcoin Payments
http://www.tigerdirect.com/bitcoin/
14 comments
I find it humorous that Tiger Direct and Newegg are promoting Bitcoin mining with GPUS. The returns from such cards are so small now its not even worth mentioning. Even with a high end GPU you are only making around $0.96 a week. With the card costing $440 it'll take 8 years to make your money back, assuming the difficulty won't increase. Which it will so there is no hope of making a profit.
Nobody GPU mines for bitcoin anymore (ASICs killed that long ago). My 2 year old ATI card makes $4/day mining litecoin or even $8/day mining dogecoin. If you want bitcoin you simply send the alt currency to an exchange and trade for bitcoin.
Mining bitcoins may be non profitable, but I recovered my investment in less than 3 months of alt coin mining.
Yes, mining is tricky, risky business, too much so for my blood. But, I think some find ways to ROI.
But, you know, a merchant wouldn't stop selling pickaxes during a gold rush, just because the customer isn't profiting. I wouldn't expect online retailers too either.
But, you know, a merchant wouldn't stop selling pickaxes during a gold rush, just because the customer isn't profiting. I wouldn't expect online retailers too either.
Did those merchants ever sell miners toothpicks?
In a manner of speaking yes. Would-be miners were sold all sorts of devices, potions, clothing, divining rods, measurements, maps, and sorting machines that all turned out to be completely unusable when applied in the field.
Anyone who is mining with GPUs isnt mining Bitcoin, their mining the various other cryptocurrencies (known as altcoins) that use the scrypt hashing algorithm, Such Litecoin.
See here the profitability of scrypt based coins, hint: It's alot
http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency
See here the profitability of scrypt based coins, hint: It's alot
http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency
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There's a strong market for other cryptocurrencies, such as Dogecoin.
>>The returns from such cards are so small now its not even worth mentioning.
Well, I dunno about mining BTC specifically but I got a co-worker making about 0.45 - 0.6 BTC a month on a 2 GPU rig from Newegg at $1200. He's using the middlecoin.com pool which rotate-mines different altcoins, converts to BTC and pays out. The rig is on track to paying for itself soon and apparently his electric bill didn't shoot to the moon.
Well, I dunno about mining BTC specifically but I got a co-worker making about 0.45 - 0.6 BTC a month on a 2 GPU rig from Newegg at $1200. He's using the middlecoin.com pool which rotate-mines different altcoins, converts to BTC and pays out. The rig is on track to paying for itself soon and apparently his electric bill didn't shoot to the moon.
It's tricky finding a reliable pool so you can "set it and forget it" for sure.
It's an adventure:
I'd definitely recommend Proportional pools like middlecoin. The fees are higher (~+3% over PPLNS typically), but getting paid for 96% of your shares on something reliable is definitely preferable to 99% or even 100% of your shares, minus previous-round penalties (up to 20% or more?) on something unreliable.
Anyways, here's what I've done with the three R290's I bought back in December: http://middlecoin2.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/report...
Thought peeps might be curious seeing it in concrete terms, and middlecoin's charts are the best IMO. Simple, everything you need, and nothing you don't.
Once I switched to middlecoin (with multipool as a backup) I've earned almost 0.5BTC in 2.5 weeks. And (very) surprisingly, I don't seem to be suffering all that much due to rising difficulty (the brunt of that hit a week or two before I had everything going I guess).
This doesn't include the balance I carry at multipool BTW, which I don't bother to do much with (Cryptsy: meh).
Still, I'm planning to sell the system for what I paid for it (~$1800) tonight. It's made me some money, and that's nice, but wondering when the right time to sell (because of rising difficulty) is weighs on you a bit. And I figured if I can get my money back, well, it's been nice, but yeah, best get out while the gettin' is good. Especially with the possibility of ASICs hitting in a few months (even if they aren't faster, if their hashes-per-watt figures lure in even bigger miners, that's going to hurt).
It's crazy to see cards I paid $409/each for (R290) go for up to 30% over what I paid a month or two before. I've never seen that happen in 20 years of messing with computers. I mean hell, I've never even got more than maybe 20 to 30% back of my initial purchase back on a PC before.
Aside: That's one reason I love Macs so much since switching ~7 years ago: I can upgrade to the latest iPad every year for $100 out of pocket, and even a 3 or 4 year old laptop like my two MacBook Air's will easily retain 50 to 60% of their value. Which makes the whole financial/cost arguments against Macs pretty bogus (and believe me, I used it often enough myself as a PC fan in a past life), but I've definitely spent far less in TCO on my Macs than I did on my PCs. You just have to bite the bullet and get over the buy-in hump. Used Macs hold their value even better though. You might easily find a decent deal on a used Mac, use it for a year, then sell it for more than you bought it for. I did with my first (G3 I think) Mac Mini.
It's an adventure:
* First you need parts to build a system (and if you're ordering from Newegg good luck getting your "overnight" order in <5 business days).
* Then you need to setup the software (hint: latest Ubuntu combined with latest Catalyst drivers is a world of frustration).
* Then tune cgminer (which took me a few days between other obligations) which is somehow not a copy-paste job.
* Then you spend a couple weeks fighting unreliable or hacked pools until you find something that works for you.
I'd definitely recommend Proportional pools like middlecoin. The fees are higher (~+3% over PPLNS typically), but getting paid for 96% of your shares on something reliable is definitely preferable to 99% or even 100% of your shares, minus previous-round penalties (up to 20% or more?) on something unreliable.
Anyways, here's what I've done with the three R290's I bought back in December: http://middlecoin2.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/report...
Thought peeps might be curious seeing it in concrete terms, and middlecoin's charts are the best IMO. Simple, everything you need, and nothing you don't.
Once I switched to middlecoin (with multipool as a backup) I've earned almost 0.5BTC in 2.5 weeks. And (very) surprisingly, I don't seem to be suffering all that much due to rising difficulty (the brunt of that hit a week or two before I had everything going I guess).
This doesn't include the balance I carry at multipool BTW, which I don't bother to do much with (Cryptsy: meh).
Still, I'm planning to sell the system for what I paid for it (~$1800) tonight. It's made me some money, and that's nice, but wondering when the right time to sell (because of rising difficulty) is weighs on you a bit. And I figured if I can get my money back, well, it's been nice, but yeah, best get out while the gettin' is good. Especially with the possibility of ASICs hitting in a few months (even if they aren't faster, if their hashes-per-watt figures lure in even bigger miners, that's going to hurt).
It's crazy to see cards I paid $409/each for (R290) go for up to 30% over what I paid a month or two before. I've never seen that happen in 20 years of messing with computers. I mean hell, I've never even got more than maybe 20 to 30% back of my initial purchase back on a PC before.
Aside: That's one reason I love Macs so much since switching ~7 years ago: I can upgrade to the latest iPad every year for $100 out of pocket, and even a 3 or 4 year old laptop like my two MacBook Air's will easily retain 50 to 60% of their value. Which makes the whole financial/cost arguments against Macs pretty bogus (and believe me, I used it often enough myself as a PC fan in a past life), but I've definitely spent far less in TCO on my Macs than I did on my PCs. You just have to bite the bullet and get over the buy-in hump. Used Macs hold their value even better though. You might easily find a decent deal on a used Mac, use it for a year, then sell it for more than you bought it for. I did with my first (G3 I think) Mac Mini.
When I was GPU mining bitcoin in early 2011, I was also had to worry about stuff like:
* modifying the GPU firmware to allow more extreme overclocking (I was able to run my 5850s at 945MHz - factory firmware capped them at 775MHz, default speed was 725MHz)
* figuring out how fast I could run them before the became unstable
* dealing with the heat
* convincing PG&E I wasn't growing weed (their billing system flagged my electricity usage)
* ensuring I could recover remotely even from the CPU locking up
* dealing with pools being DDoSed
* carefully planning which outlets things were plugged into so as not to blow the breakers
* ensuring all the miner software autostarted properly (one miner per gpu - multigpu miners weren't available yet)
and this was only 6 GPUs total.
* modifying the GPU firmware to allow more extreme overclocking (I was able to run my 5850s at 945MHz - factory firmware capped them at 775MHz, default speed was 725MHz)
* figuring out how fast I could run them before the became unstable
* dealing with the heat
* convincing PG&E I wasn't growing weed (their billing system flagged my electricity usage)
* ensuring I could recover remotely even from the CPU locking up
* dealing with pools being DDoSed
* carefully planning which outlets things were plugged into so as not to blow the breakers
* ensuring all the miner software autostarted properly (one miner per gpu - multigpu miners weren't available yet)
and this was only 6 GPUs total.
Yeah, the middlecoin.com boat has sailed, alas. Ask him how it's doing now with that pool.
The multicoin pools like Middlecoin are essentially arbitrageurs of the many crypto coins, and the more people that enter the market (and there are a lot coming in), the less opportunities there are for arbitrage. Now, you're best bet is probably to mine Dogecoin and hope that it reaches the potential that seems likely, since its coin supply will decline dramatically in less than a year.
The multicoin pools like Middlecoin are essentially arbitrageurs of the many crypto coins, and the more people that enter the market (and there are a lot coming in), the less opportunities there are for arbitrage. Now, you're best bet is probably to mine Dogecoin and hope that it reaches the potential that seems likely, since its coin supply will decline dramatically in less than a year.
I'm going to have to check that out, my current pool only does Bitcoin and the payouts have taken a dive recently.
There are other reasons to buy graphics cards than just bitcoin mining. If you get $400 worth of enjoyment from the graphics card and $2 of revenue from mining, that's a profit.
> I find it humorous that Tiger Direct and Newegg are promoting Bitcoin mining with GPUS.
Why wouldn't they? They both sell GPUs and have a large backlog of them. Somebody who isn't knowledgeable enough about the topic and wants to get in on the latest fad is likely to see that ad and jump on it.
If I sold video cards for a living I'd be pushing them just as hard as I could too. "Bitcoin mining, OpenCL, desktop virtualization, they can do it all, come buy your video cards from me and not the other guy!"
Why wouldn't they? They both sell GPUs and have a large backlog of them. Somebody who isn't knowledgeable enough about the topic and wants to get in on the latest fad is likely to see that ad and jump on it.
If I sold video cards for a living I'd be pushing them just as hard as I could too. "Bitcoin mining, OpenCL, desktop virtualization, they can do it all, come buy your video cards from me and not the other guy!"
Another major retailer!
It's funny, all of the "Bitcoin is dead! Bitcoin solves a non-existent problem! Bitcoin.....etc" posters have vanished.
It's funny, all of the "Bitcoin is dead! Bitcoin solves a non-existent problem! Bitcoin.....etc" posters have vanished.
Someone with a less favorable view on Bitcoin could easily point out that these retailers are not embracing Bitcoin. They are embracing payment services like BitPay and Coinbase. To TigerDirect this move isn't that different from deciding to accept payments from Paypal, Google Wallet, etc.
That's like saying that Amazon doesn't actually embrace the US dollar, they just embrace payment services like Visa and Mastercard.
No, it isn't the same. Visa and Mastercard pay Amazon with USD. BitPay and Coinbase do not pay TigerDirect in Bitcoin. Amazon is fine holding reserves of USD. Retailers like TigerDirect and Overstock are not yet willing to hold reserves of Bitcoin.
Merchants have the choice whether or not to hold bitcoin. It's probably fair to say many or most merchants will choose to receive dollars because their costs are in dollars, and the price of bitcoin is still volatile. But the price is volatile only because bitcoin is still nascent and not widely held. As it becomes more widely held and more liquid, the volatility will go down, and the willingness to accept and hold bitcoin will increase (i.e., there will be an increase in reservation demand). Merchants who are willing to accept and hold bitcoins will also benefit from lower transaction costs - those who have the conversion done for them are implicitly paying the transaction cost related to the volatility and bid/ask spread in the market (or perhaps more likely it is the consumer paying this implicit transaction fee).
It's also important to realize we're in the very very early days of bitcoin. This is really like 1994 for the Internet.
It's also important to realize we're in the very very early days of bitcoin. This is really like 1994 for the Internet.
strictly speaking, you don't know this. I believe these services let you choose what percentage you want to be paid in USD, and what percentage you want to keep in bitcoin. So although they may choose to be paid entirely in USD, they could also choose to keep some amount of bitcoin ... that's an internal matter that they may or may not make public
From an accounting perspective, it makes little sense to keep BTC, since it's so volatile. It's easier to account for your sales in USD and have a fixed value than account for them in BTC, which fluctuates wildly.
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That's not the case. Bitcoin payment processors deposit USD directly into the merchant's bank account. The merchant doesn't have to deal with Bitcoin at all if they choose not to. If the payment processor submitted orders on behalf of the customer, then the merchant would in fact not even have to know of Bitcoin's existence, even though Bitcoin is facilitating the transaction at some level.
If Amazon instantaneously converted all USD they received into another currency, and transacted all of their business in that other currency, I think we'd be entirely reasonable to say that they didn't embrace USD.
I think that's reasonable, but ultimately I'm not sure it matters. It doesn't change the fact that a consumer can spend it at a given location. The ability to spend coins directly, from the consumers' perspective does impact acceptance. I'd argue that's the most important thing here, not whether merchants actually hold the Bitcoins.
How would that make a difference to the consumer? Imagine that, for all we know, Amazon currently converts all of its USD revenue into another currency. That makes absolutely no difference to the consumer, who still uses USD.
Coinbase could become a regular US cash service tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference to their client interactions with retailers.
What's going on here is the retailers are forking the "risk" of Bitcoin off to Coinbase - they bill Coinbase in USD, Coinbase bills the customer in BTC and hopefully the BTC market doesn't turn against them in the interim and that Coinbase manage to keep enough USD on hand to keep cashing out Bitcoin.
Which is where the problem lies: for Coinbase to operate, the have to be selling huge quantities of Bitcoin for USD to people who want to buy Bitcoin. And they need to hope the price keeps going up to cover their position.
What's going on here is the retailers are forking the "risk" of Bitcoin off to Coinbase - they bill Coinbase in USD, Coinbase bills the customer in BTC and hopefully the BTC market doesn't turn against them in the interim and that Coinbase manage to keep enough USD on hand to keep cashing out Bitcoin.
Which is where the problem lies: for Coinbase to operate, the have to be selling huge quantities of Bitcoin for USD to people who want to buy Bitcoin. And they need to hope the price keeps going up to cover their position.
It would matter if all of Amazon's pricing was listed in that other currency and you had to do math yourself just to figure out how much something cost. That's the way it works with bitcoin at TigerDirect and OverStock. Nothing is priced in BTC and neither company holds any BTC. They just use Coinbase as a payment provider ala PayPal, Google Wallet, Amazon Payments, Skrill, etc.
It wouldn't, but I don't think we're talking about making a difference to the consumer here.
Then the definition of "embracing Bitcoin" makes little sense to me.
I imagine that's because these conversations tend to be about validating Bitcoin as a "real currency" that's going to change the world and replace fiat currencies and such, not at all about consumers (even though they would tend to matter a lot in that at some point).
1. Amazon instantaneously converts most of its USD into services and products that their suppliers and employees provide.
2. If you want to try dealing with Bitcoin, step zero is to allow people to pay in it. Then, if you happen to have more suppliers whom you can pay in BTC directly, you can keep some part of your cash in BTC. But making the first step is your competitive advantage - you already attract target audience and learn how the thing works.
2. If you want to try dealing with Bitcoin, step zero is to allow people to pay in it. Then, if you happen to have more suppliers whom you can pay in BTC directly, you can keep some part of your cash in BTC. But making the first step is your competitive advantage - you already attract target audience and learn how the thing works.
Bitcoin is a payment network and a currency. Retailers have not embraced Bitcoin the currency, but they have embraced Bitcoin the payment network. I think that still bodes well for Bitcoin the currency, but who cares? At the very least, we're witnessing first big shift in payment systems in fifty years. Rates will go down.
Perhaps, but this is a very necessary stepping stone to direct adoption of BTC. Even if Coinbase and the like are processing a majority of transactions, more users means less instability, which is probably the currency's single worst problem right now.
Or it gets attention plain and simple. No further deep through required from management, that's all it's needed. I guess few here remember when announcing you were going to have a website got attention (see Ktel records http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/23/business/market-place-it-s...)
There's no other way for this to progress though. This is step 1. Until you can supply all of your life needs via BTC and pay employees in it, then businesses are going to convert to USD. Once Intuit lets you convert BTC to USD for your tax returns, then the circle will be complete.
The path to 'Bitcoin as currency' crosses 'Bitcoin as medium exchange'.
Its that simple. Really.
Its that simple. Really.
Flooz had Barnes & Noble, J.Crew, Tower Records, Godiva, Sephora, Martha Stewart and Brookstone signed up as retailers, among others: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Flooz.com+to+the+Rescue+for+th...
I own BTC, but I'm still wondering what's going to want me to spend it instead of my AmEx for my next purchase.
I own BTC, but I'm still wondering what's going to want me to spend it instead of my AmEx for my next purchase.
>>>> I own BTC, but I'm still wondering what's going to want me to spend it instead of my AmEx for my next purchase.
This is one of the appeals of paper money and credit cards over bitcoins at the moment. You have all the tactile experiences with money and credit cards. With BTC, people can't grasp the algorithm or the fact you can print out the promissory note, but its not the same.
This is one of the appeals of paper money and credit cards over bitcoins at the moment. You have all the tactile experiences with money and credit cards. With BTC, people can't grasp the algorithm or the fact you can print out the promissory note, but its not the same.
> With BTC, people can't grasp the algorithm or the fact you can print out the promissory note, but its not the same.
That is called change. You either adapt or die.
There are still people who take printouts of their emails because they prefer paper.
That is called change. You either adapt or die.
There are still people who take printouts of their emails because they prefer paper.
Retailers will have to provide discounts for using btc, but all the major CC companies have it in their contracts with businesses they must sell stuff the same price regardless of using a CC or not. It makes it hard for bitcoin to gain traction on its principle benefit - no / minimal fees.
> all the major CC companies have it in their contracts with businesses they must sell stuff the same price regardless of using a CC or not
Those clauses were recently struck down due to a class-action lawsuit. Retailers are now pretty much free to set different prices for any payment option as they see fit.
http://vizant.com/news-item/vizants-perspective-on-new-rules...
Those clauses were recently struck down due to a class-action lawsuit. Retailers are now pretty much free to set different prices for any payment option as they see fit.
http://vizant.com/news-item/vizants-perspective-on-new-rules...
Most of them won't though. It's a disincentive to your customers to dangle a cheaper, but more difficult option in front of them. When the customer is ready to buy, you don't want them to think "wait, maybe I'll get this tomorrow when I pay in cash..."
Because they may decide in the intervening time not to bother buying it at all.
Because they may decide in the intervening time not to bother buying it at all.
Didn't know that. It does mean, though, that these companies need to pass the savings on to the consumers. And if they are using coinbase and taking out fiat they aren't saving as much as they could going strict btc and only paying a 0.01% or whatever fee to get expedient confirms in the blockchain. Or hell, wait the hour and don't ship until payment is confirmed, and pay absolutely no fees ever.
Flooz failed because it was centralized. But Bitcoin is, as you know, decentralized.
Flooz failed for a number of reasons:
1) Flooz was billed as magic Internet money, but provided no benefits for effecting transactions in Flooz versus transacting them with credit cards, which Internet merchants had begun to accept. Flooz' primary customer acquisition strategy was giving people free money. That was pretty popular, but also costly, and -- unlike Paypal -- Flooz never successfully convinced meaningful numbers of customers to transition from "spending free money" to "spending their own money."
2) Flooz had far insufficient transaction volume to justify the ongoing engineering and operation costs of keeping it around. At the peak, it was generating "thousands" of dollars of transactions a day. You can do the math on that: $200k volume per month times the pick-your-teeth-with-them margins in payment processing means you can't pay even a single engineer to keep the lights on.
3) Flooz, like most early payment processors, got their pockets picked by fraud to the tune of millions of dollars. Their merchant processor responded by requiring a $1 million rolling reserve. This caused a cash-flow crunch which was the proximate cause of their bankruptcy.
4) Flooz could have postponed death if they had access to the capital markets but the dot-com crash happened and, as a consequence, nobody wanted to throw more money at an e-commerce company whose core line of business was selling fake money for real money.
But bitcoin is, as you say, decentralized.
[Edit to add: I'm being a bit unfair there. Bitcoin has several advantages over Flooz. One is that Bitcoin, considered as an entity, awarded free money via seigniorage to early adopters and never had to back that free money with actual cash. Another is that Bitcoin structurally encouraged the creation of a widely distributed self-coordinating Internet boiler room to act as Bitcoin spokesmen and salescritters, via the aforementioned seigniorage and tapping into pre-existing networks among people with complementary political opinions regarding e.g. banking, self-government, privacy, etc. A third is that Bitcoin was, happily for Bitcoin advocates if not expressly hoped for, actually an improvement in the state of the art for small-scale drug smuggling, a business which turns out to be quite lucrative and underserved by other payment processors. This lead to people who had acquired essentially free bitcoins getting paid actual money by folks who wanted to buy very-much-not-free contraband, which helped provide a bit of kindling for the speculative bonfire.]
1) Flooz was billed as magic Internet money, but provided no benefits for effecting transactions in Flooz versus transacting them with credit cards, which Internet merchants had begun to accept. Flooz' primary customer acquisition strategy was giving people free money. That was pretty popular, but also costly, and -- unlike Paypal -- Flooz never successfully convinced meaningful numbers of customers to transition from "spending free money" to "spending their own money."
2) Flooz had far insufficient transaction volume to justify the ongoing engineering and operation costs of keeping it around. At the peak, it was generating "thousands" of dollars of transactions a day. You can do the math on that: $200k volume per month times the pick-your-teeth-with-them margins in payment processing means you can't pay even a single engineer to keep the lights on.
3) Flooz, like most early payment processors, got their pockets picked by fraud to the tune of millions of dollars. Their merchant processor responded by requiring a $1 million rolling reserve. This caused a cash-flow crunch which was the proximate cause of their bankruptcy.
4) Flooz could have postponed death if they had access to the capital markets but the dot-com crash happened and, as a consequence, nobody wanted to throw more money at an e-commerce company whose core line of business was selling fake money for real money.
But bitcoin is, as you say, decentralized.
[Edit to add: I'm being a bit unfair there. Bitcoin has several advantages over Flooz. One is that Bitcoin, considered as an entity, awarded free money via seigniorage to early adopters and never had to back that free money with actual cash. Another is that Bitcoin structurally encouraged the creation of a widely distributed self-coordinating Internet boiler room to act as Bitcoin spokesmen and salescritters, via the aforementioned seigniorage and tapping into pre-existing networks among people with complementary political opinions regarding e.g. banking, self-government, privacy, etc. A third is that Bitcoin was, happily for Bitcoin advocates if not expressly hoped for, actually an improvement in the state of the art for small-scale drug smuggling, a business which turns out to be quite lucrative and underserved by other payment processors. This lead to people who had acquired essentially free bitcoins getting paid actual money by folks who wanted to buy very-much-not-free contraband, which helped provide a bit of kindling for the speculative bonfire.]
So drug smuggling demand for financial services is fueling Bitcoin's growth?
That's an interesting observation.
That's an interesting observation.
Seems to me that most peoples' points is that Bitcoin solves problems that most people do not have. I still haven't had any Bitcoin advocates explain to me why I should care. My credit card is vastly superior in pretty much every respect, and the decentralized nature of the network seems more like an albatross that makes it require vastly more resources than it needs (because I don't think central banking is bad). And yeah, no chargebacks is ok if you're a seller and can reasonably push risk off to the consumer without them shopping elsewhere. But I'm a buyer, so...
Here is a problem that all people have: inflation. 4% in the US. 20% in Argentina. Etc. All this means your current life savings will have lost tremendous value decades from now when you will need them. Bitcoin, by being deflationary, solves this.
Another problem: my landlord and I are both Wells Fargo customers, but I can't even pay my rent electronically because WF arbitrarily limits electronic ("SurePay") payements to $2000/month. Instead we have to use plain old checks. This is an aberration for the 21st century... With Bitcoin, nobody dictates me I can only send $X/month.
How about the underbanked with no ability to receive payments from remote friends/family?
How about Chinese dissidents getting their financial accounts seized by an evil government?
And so on... Bitcoin can solve numerous societal and economic problems. Too often people are blind to them because we have always lived with these problems.
Another problem: my landlord and I are both Wells Fargo customers, but I can't even pay my rent electronically because WF arbitrarily limits electronic ("SurePay") payements to $2000/month. Instead we have to use plain old checks. This is an aberration for the 21st century... With Bitcoin, nobody dictates me I can only send $X/month.
How about the underbanked with no ability to receive payments from remote friends/family?
How about Chinese dissidents getting their financial accounts seized by an evil government?
And so on... Bitcoin can solve numerous societal and economic problems. Too often people are blind to them because we have always lived with these problems.
Inflation is not a problem. It encourages spending and investment.
Deflation encourages hoarding and rewards people who sit on piles of cash. It also values work yesterday more highly then work today.
Bitcoin, as a currency model, creates lots of problems.
Deflation encourages hoarding and rewards people who sit on piles of cash. It also values work yesterday more highly then work today.
Bitcoin, as a currency model, creates lots of problems.
People who sit on piles of cash are always better rewarded than poorer people. Ever heard of "the rich gets richer"? This is a characteristic of capitalism, not inflation or deflation. Also:
A) Inflation promotes careless, immediate spending.
B) Deflation promotes saving, which is good. Why derogatorily call it hoarding?
C) The average lower and middle class person is a bad saver and bad investor unable to find and trust investment vehicles beating inflation.
Then add A+B+C and realize why deflation would promote healthier financial habits (having savings) and might just particularly help the lower and middle class...
A) Inflation promotes careless, immediate spending.
B) Deflation promotes saving, which is good. Why derogatorily call it hoarding?
C) The average lower and middle class person is a bad saver and bad investor unable to find and trust investment vehicles beating inflation.
Then add A+B+C and realize why deflation would promote healthier financial habits (having savings) and might just particularly help the lower and middle class...
a) inflation promotes careful investment rather than just sitting on heaps of cash
b) Saving is really only good when the money is put to work for other people, rather than just sat on
c) The average lower and middle class person is in debt
Deflation would not promote healthier habits, it would limit cash supply and create incentives for people to limit it further. Money is a medium of exchange, find something else if you want a store of value.
b) Saving is really only good when the money is put to work for other people, rather than just sat on
c) The average lower and middle class person is in debt
Deflation would not promote healthier habits, it would limit cash supply and create incentives for people to limit it further. Money is a medium of exchange, find something else if you want a store of value.
Instead of continuing to argue on specific points, I will say I think you are grossly misunderstanding the level of deflation we are talking about.
There is no sharp boundary between a +0.1% inflation rate and a -0.1% deflation rate where suddenly all hell breaks loose. The importance of changes (bad or good) vary gradually along the line. And if the Bitcoin economy stabilizes to representing a fixed fraction of the worldwide economy (be it 1 or 10 or 100%) then the rate of deflation Bitcoin will endure would be equal to the rate of growth of the economy. So we are talking about 1-4% only (average OECD world GDP growth for last few years).
There is no sharp boundary between a +0.1% inflation rate and a -0.1% deflation rate where suddenly all hell breaks loose. The importance of changes (bad or good) vary gradually along the line. And if the Bitcoin economy stabilizes to representing a fixed fraction of the worldwide economy (be it 1 or 10 or 100%) then the rate of deflation Bitcoin will endure would be equal to the rate of growth of the economy. So we are talking about 1-4% only (average OECD world GDP growth for last few years).
Work that I did yesterday should be worth the same, not less! Inflation is a silent tax on the poor.
More like a silent tax on the rich and hoarders. For people who are in net cash debt inflation is a bonus.
It certainly shouldn't be worth more.
Why should it be worth the same? If you farm vegetables they don't stay the same forever, nor do they appreciate in value.
Inflation is a tax on the cash-rich. This does not describe the poor, who are typically in debt.
Why should it be worth the same? If you farm vegetables they don't stay the same forever, nor do they appreciate in value.
Inflation is a tax on the cash-rich. This does not describe the poor, who are typically in debt.
The Target hack a month back effected my wife. Paying with bitcoin would have removed the possibility of her account being compromised shifting the burden to the retailer. All kinds of possibilities are there to mitigate that risk: cold storage wallets, third party services. Some other accounting implication off the top of my head: create a new payment address for each day, month, or year and automatically reconcile an accounts based on wallet address.
I imagine banks and other bitcoin service venders will solve the charge back issue or 3rd party arbitrators will be common with this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_2:_Escrow_and_d...
I imagine banks and other bitcoin service venders will solve the charge back issue or 3rd party arbitrators will be common with this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_2:_Escrow_and_d...
How about the fact that the banking system charges huge fees for the use of their networks and technology? Do you mind paying 4% more for all your purchases because the retailer has to take credit card fees into account? Do you mind paying $15 to send money to relatives overseas? Every time you want to transfer money from one place to another, it costs you way way way more than it actually costs because of marketing and profits.
This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
Credit card companies do not charge 4%. I worked in credit cards about a decade ago, so unless the marketplace is less competitive now than before, I assume this still holds true. Furthermore, the fees that do exist are not necessarily passed on the consumer, but taken out of profit. Prices can only be arbitrarily changed if demand is inelastic. None of the companies taking Bitcoin are taking it directly -- they are all paying fees -- and none of them are passing savings onto the consumer. Finally, no I don't mind paying a small percentage (1-2%) for paying with a convenient method that gives me 1% cash back and consumer protections like chargebacks. Its a service.
> Do you mind paying $15 to send money to relatives overseas?
I very rarely have to do this, and when I do $15 is a fraction of a percent. And certainly, its worth it in comparison to dealing with the Bitcoin ecosystem to get my money INTO Bitcoin and then out on the other side. So no, I don't mind.
Now you may be saying "Well when everyone uses bitcoins in the future these problems won't exist, and furthermore..." Yeah but if bitcoins get market penetration then banks and other services can adjust prices to compete.
> This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
Everyone throws around the word "disruptive" on this site, but seldom is it really true. I keep an eye on the Bitcoin ecosystem because it is interesting, but I've seen literally nothing offered that appeals to me over existing services. When Bitcoin provides me with real, significant value, then I'll think about buying in.
Also, its amusing how its advocates claim that traditional finance companies are "terrified." I've seen absolutely ZERO evidence of this. Its more of the Bitcoin community's lack of reality.
> Do you mind paying $15 to send money to relatives overseas?
I very rarely have to do this, and when I do $15 is a fraction of a percent. And certainly, its worth it in comparison to dealing with the Bitcoin ecosystem to get my money INTO Bitcoin and then out on the other side. So no, I don't mind.
Now you may be saying "Well when everyone uses bitcoins in the future these problems won't exist, and furthermore..." Yeah but if bitcoins get market penetration then banks and other services can adjust prices to compete.
> This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
Everyone throws around the word "disruptive" on this site, but seldom is it really true. I keep an eye on the Bitcoin ecosystem because it is interesting, but I've seen literally nothing offered that appeals to me over existing services. When Bitcoin provides me with real, significant value, then I'll think about buying in.
Also, its amusing how its advocates claim that traditional finance companies are "terrified." I've seen absolutely ZERO evidence of this. Its more of the Bitcoin community's lack of reality.
> "Well when everyone uses bitcoins in the future these problems won't exist, and furthermore..."
Question: What would happen if literally everyone started using bitcoin? Could the system handle that much of a load?
Question: What would happen if literally everyone started using bitcoin? Could the system handle that much of a load?
As currently implemented, no, because network traffic and disk size scales at O(n) with the number of transactions. There is currently a 7 transaction/sec limit in order to avoid the blockchain ballooning in place. The fact that Bitcoin is really a decentralized, shared ledge means that scaling horizontally is difficult (and is not possible with the current implementation).
There was a video linked on Hacker News about the scalability issues by a well-respected researcher a while back, but I can't seem to find it. I'm not intelligent enough or well-versed enough to say whether the issues are insurmountable or not. I do know that some very smart people are working on Bitcoin, so they very well may be. I'm only speaking to the current system.
There was a video linked on Hacker News about the scalability issues by a well-respected researcher a while back, but I can't seem to find it. I'm not intelligent enough or well-versed enough to say whether the issues are insurmountable or not. I do know that some very smart people are working on Bitcoin, so they very well may be. I'm only speaking to the current system.
> Credit card companies do not charge 4%. I worked in credit cards about a decade ago, so unless the marketplace is less competitive now than before, I assume this still holds true. Furthermore, the fees that do exist are not necessarily passed on the consumer, but taken out of profit.
This isn't entirely accurate. Most credit card companies now tack on a 30c + 2.9% surcharge for processors that do fewer transactions than some arbitrarily defined limit, well known to most small companies as the "PayPal tax" because they started doing it first and the credit card companies realized they could get away with it too.
And it's usually passed completely on to consumers, because eating it as a business owner with a low-margin business is pretty damned hard, and because the little guys are doing it, the big guys get away with doing it too.
Or haven't you heard about the recent record profits being made by Mastercard et al?
This isn't entirely accurate. Most credit card companies now tack on a 30c + 2.9% surcharge for processors that do fewer transactions than some arbitrarily defined limit, well known to most small companies as the "PayPal tax" because they started doing it first and the credit card companies realized they could get away with it too.
And it's usually passed completely on to consumers, because eating it as a business owner with a low-margin business is pretty damned hard, and because the little guys are doing it, the big guys get away with doing it too.
Or haven't you heard about the recent record profits being made by Mastercard et al?
> This isn't entirely accurate. Most credit card companies now tack on a 30c + 2.9% surcharge for processors that do fewer transactions than some arbitrarily defined limit, well known to most small companies as the "PayPal tax" because they started doing it first and the credit card companies realized they could get away with it too.
Wasn't aware of that. We charged flat percentage rate, and added to the processor I think it was 1.5% or so. But like I said, a decade ago, so maybe I'm just wrong on that point and forgot.
> And it's usually passed completely on to consumers, because eating it as a business owner with a low-margin business is pretty damned hard, and because the little guys are doing it, the big guys get away with doing it too.
Is it actually proven that the costs are passed on (i.e. that the price would be lower in absence of credit cards)? Because, again, in theory that only works if the demand has enough inelasticity.
Wasn't aware of that. We charged flat percentage rate, and added to the processor I think it was 1.5% or so. But like I said, a decade ago, so maybe I'm just wrong on that point and forgot.
> And it's usually passed completely on to consumers, because eating it as a business owner with a low-margin business is pretty damned hard, and because the little guys are doing it, the big guys get away with doing it too.
Is it actually proven that the costs are passed on (i.e. that the price would be lower in absence of credit cards)? Because, again, in theory that only works if the demand has enough inelasticity.
> Is it actually proven that the costs are passed on (i.e. that the price would be lower in absence of credit cards)? Because, again, in theory that only works if the demand has enough inelasticity.
Go buy something at your local No Name Shoppe and compare it to what you were paying 3 years ago. Adjust for inflation. Be shocked by the random ~3-4% cost increase.
My best personal example is the place where I play Magic the Gathering increasing the price of packs to adjust for the processing fees (and struggling to do that for fear of sending the regulars back to buying packs online, which would shutter their business permanently).
Go buy something at your local No Name Shoppe and compare it to what you were paying 3 years ago. Adjust for inflation. Be shocked by the random ~3-4% cost increase.
My best personal example is the place where I play Magic the Gathering increasing the price of packs to adjust for the processing fees (and struggling to do that for fear of sending the regulars back to buying packs online, which would shutter their business permanently).
>Go buy something at your local No Name Shoppe and compare it to what you were paying 3 years ago. Adjust for inflation. Be shocked by the random ~3-4% cost increase.
That wouldn't give actual data though, just anecdote. I'm interested if theres anything out there with a bit more rigor.
Furthermore, the claim is that prices were passed on across the board, not just at small businesses. Was there a 4-5% increase universally, or just at Ye Ole No Name Shoppe?
> My best personal example is the place where I play Magic the Gathering increasing the price of packs to adjust for the processing fees (and struggling to do that for fear of sending the regulars back to buying packs online, which would shutter their business permanently).
Doesn't that support what I said? They had difficulty raising the price, because people could just buy the cards elsewhere.
Anyway, I'm interested to further have this conversation, but getting back to the original argument, I think the only way Bitcoin could actually solve this problem is if the merchants dropped credit cards en-masse. Most credit card agreements stipulate that you cannot give discounts if they do not use a credit card. Then the question becomes if enough customers would be willing to forgo their cards for Bitcoins to make it a good value. Even at a theoretical 4%, I'm not sure I'd be willing, unless the Bitcoin ecosystem DRAMATICALLY improves.
That wouldn't give actual data though, just anecdote. I'm interested if theres anything out there with a bit more rigor.
Furthermore, the claim is that prices were passed on across the board, not just at small businesses. Was there a 4-5% increase universally, or just at Ye Ole No Name Shoppe?
> My best personal example is the place where I play Magic the Gathering increasing the price of packs to adjust for the processing fees (and struggling to do that for fear of sending the regulars back to buying packs online, which would shutter their business permanently).
Doesn't that support what I said? They had difficulty raising the price, because people could just buy the cards elsewhere.
Anyway, I'm interested to further have this conversation, but getting back to the original argument, I think the only way Bitcoin could actually solve this problem is if the merchants dropped credit cards en-masse. Most credit card agreements stipulate that you cannot give discounts if they do not use a credit card. Then the question becomes if enough customers would be willing to forgo their cards for Bitcoins to make it a good value. Even at a theoretical 4%, I'm not sure I'd be willing, unless the Bitcoin ecosystem DRAMATICALLY improves.
>unless the marketplace is less competitive now than before
I would say it probably is since Walmart, etc, al just won a class action lawsuit saying Mastercard and Visa were violating federal anti trust laws
http://www.nacsonline.com/Research/FactSheets/IndustryIssues...
Retailers said these actions caused merchants to pay excessive fees for credit and debit transactions. As a result, card companies settled the case and agreed to pay back damages, temporarily reduce fees and establish clear and distinct visual as well as electronic markers for identifying a credit from a debit card carrying a Visa or MasterCard logo.
>the fees that do exist are not necessarily passed on the consumer, but taken out of profit.
buhahaahaaaaha. That is so laughable.
Have you been to a gas station in the last couple years? There isn't a single one in a 2 mile radius of me (out of at least 5) that doesn't charge more for paying by credit card.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/05/09/gas-station-o...
The card fees gasoline retailers pay are staggering. They are on average the second-highest operating cost for gas retailers (higher than rent on their stores). The fees were more than $11 billion last year – 87% higher than the entire industry’s profits. That makes six years in a row that the industry paid more in card fees than it made in profits. Those fees add an average of 7 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline sold in the United States and the fees have been exploding. Between 2004 and 2011 while the price of gasoline went up 80%, card fees increased 180%
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/business/an-easing-of-rule...
Currently, many businesses do pass on to consumers so-called “swipe fees” — which are said to generally range from 1 to 3 percent of the transaction — by building them into the price of the goods and services they sell. That means all customers pay, a system that some contend amounts to poorer consumers subsidizing affluent holders of premium rewards cards.
“To maintain the fiction that Amex and other issuers offer free rewards, retailers had no choice but to inflate the prices they charge to all customers,” said Gary B. Friedman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiff companies in the American Express case.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/56143496-82/fees-card-c...
Ask any business owner who accepts credit cards about swipe fees and you'll get an earful. Every time a customer pays with a card, up to 4 percent of the sale goes back to the banks and credit card companies. Considering that the average profit margin for most retailers is 1-2 percent, these fees drive up prices and make it harder for small businesses to expand, hire more workers or even stay in business.
Merchants can't comparison-shop or negotiate swipe fees the way they do for other expenses. It's a take-it-or-leave-it deal and every bank agrees to charge the same thing. If merchants accept cards, they have to accept the fees, which can be raised at any time.
In fact, credit card swipe fees have more than tripled in the last 10 years even with new technology that should be driving costs down. And, swipe fees in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else in the world, even though we have the highest volume of card transactions.
In 2011, merchants paid more than $50 billion in swipe fees. For many retailers, these fees are their fastest-growing expense and their second-highest operating cost after labor. Business owners have no choice but to build some of these fees into their pricing, making everything consumers buy more expensive no matter how they pay.
To make matters even worse, merchants have no idea what the fee will be on any transaction until their bank statement comes at the end of the month. Visa has more than 60 different fee categories, and Mastercard has more than 240, but the fee isn't printed on the card.
http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2013/03/opinion_hi...
Opinion: Hidden credit cards swipe fees are costing consumers, businesses billions
I would say it probably is since Walmart, etc, al just won a class action lawsuit saying Mastercard and Visa were violating federal anti trust laws
http://www.nacsonline.com/Research/FactSheets/IndustryIssues...
Retailers said these actions caused merchants to pay excessive fees for credit and debit transactions. As a result, card companies settled the case and agreed to pay back damages, temporarily reduce fees and establish clear and distinct visual as well as electronic markers for identifying a credit from a debit card carrying a Visa or MasterCard logo.
>the fees that do exist are not necessarily passed on the consumer, but taken out of profit.
buhahaahaaaaha. That is so laughable.
Have you been to a gas station in the last couple years? There isn't a single one in a 2 mile radius of me (out of at least 5) that doesn't charge more for paying by credit card.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/05/09/gas-station-o...
The card fees gasoline retailers pay are staggering. They are on average the second-highest operating cost for gas retailers (higher than rent on their stores). The fees were more than $11 billion last year – 87% higher than the entire industry’s profits. That makes six years in a row that the industry paid more in card fees than it made in profits. Those fees add an average of 7 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline sold in the United States and the fees have been exploding. Between 2004 and 2011 while the price of gasoline went up 80%, card fees increased 180%
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/business/an-easing-of-rule...
Currently, many businesses do pass on to consumers so-called “swipe fees” — which are said to generally range from 1 to 3 percent of the transaction — by building them into the price of the goods and services they sell. That means all customers pay, a system that some contend amounts to poorer consumers subsidizing affluent holders of premium rewards cards.
“To maintain the fiction that Amex and other issuers offer free rewards, retailers had no choice but to inflate the prices they charge to all customers,” said Gary B. Friedman, the lead lawyer for the plaintiff companies in the American Express case.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/56143496-82/fees-card-c...
Ask any business owner who accepts credit cards about swipe fees and you'll get an earful. Every time a customer pays with a card, up to 4 percent of the sale goes back to the banks and credit card companies. Considering that the average profit margin for most retailers is 1-2 percent, these fees drive up prices and make it harder for small businesses to expand, hire more workers or even stay in business.
Merchants can't comparison-shop or negotiate swipe fees the way they do for other expenses. It's a take-it-or-leave-it deal and every bank agrees to charge the same thing. If merchants accept cards, they have to accept the fees, which can be raised at any time.
In fact, credit card swipe fees have more than tripled in the last 10 years even with new technology that should be driving costs down. And, swipe fees in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else in the world, even though we have the highest volume of card transactions.
In 2011, merchants paid more than $50 billion in swipe fees. For many retailers, these fees are their fastest-growing expense and their second-highest operating cost after labor. Business owners have no choice but to build some of these fees into their pricing, making everything consumers buy more expensive no matter how they pay.
To make matters even worse, merchants have no idea what the fee will be on any transaction until their bank statement comes at the end of the month. Visa has more than 60 different fee categories, and Mastercard has more than 240, but the fee isn't printed on the card.
http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2013/03/opinion_hi...
Opinion: Hidden credit cards swipe fees are costing consumers, businesses billions
> How about the fact that the banking system charges huge fees for the use of their networks and technology?
Yeah that sucks. But the only thing that's going to change this is regulation, not non-existent competition.
> Do you mind paying $15 to send money to relatives overseas?
Most of us don't have relatives overseas. And for the most part, if we did and we were sending money over seas, it'd probably be in denominations that make $15 a pittance.
> This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
This is hilarious and bullshit. Nobody's panicking. I doubt if most bankers even know what Bitcoin is. If they were scared, they'd go to their favorite lawmaker with a quarter billion dollars and tell them to make Bitcoin go away, and guess what? It would - "Silkroad"-style shutdowns would happen to all the Bitcoin companies, the value of bitcoin would plummet and this shanty economy would disappear overnight.
Yeah that sucks. But the only thing that's going to change this is regulation, not non-existent competition.
> Do you mind paying $15 to send money to relatives overseas?
Most of us don't have relatives overseas. And for the most part, if we did and we were sending money over seas, it'd probably be in denominations that make $15 a pittance.
> This is disruptive technology. Credit card companies and international money transfer companies are panicking right now.
This is hilarious and bullshit. Nobody's panicking. I doubt if most bankers even know what Bitcoin is. If they were scared, they'd go to their favorite lawmaker with a quarter billion dollars and tell them to make Bitcoin go away, and guess what? It would - "Silkroad"-style shutdowns would happen to all the Bitcoin companies, the value of bitcoin would plummet and this shanty economy would disappear overnight.
Total Market Cap: $ 12,947,277,234 http://coinmarketcap.com/ I think they're going to need more than a quarter of a billion...
What does the market cap of bitcoin have to do with the cost of getting government to legislate so that it isn't viable?
nothing at all, cost doesn't matter security of the software is all that matters
Good luck finding a congressman to buy who will accept bitcoin as payment.
Bitcoin hash difficulty rises to ensure the block rate remains relatively stable at 1 block every ~10 minutes. Meanwhile the block reward falls exponentially. By definition then, it requires that other variables change such that mining remains profitable for someone to survive, otherwise all incentive of maintaining the blockchain collapses. Sure, you could argue that mining will reach a state of neutral ROI just to serve the public good... but guess what, there's a fee system in the protocol that will ensure that probably won't happen.
The 'but banks charge fees' argument just doesn't hold water long term. Blockchain resources are finite, and all indications are solving Bitcoins long term scalability problems (in terms of number of transactions per second) is still quite hard.
Unless the value of Bitcoin grows with hash difficulty and the inverse of block reward sizes, fees will rise in the Bitcoin network. It's naive to think it'll be a free ride payment network forever.
The 'but banks charge fees' argument just doesn't hold water long term. Blockchain resources are finite, and all indications are solving Bitcoins long term scalability problems (in terms of number of transactions per second) is still quite hard.
Unless the value of Bitcoin grows with hash difficulty and the inverse of block reward sizes, fees will rise in the Bitcoin network. It's naive to think it'll be a free ride payment network forever.
As far as I can tell the payment industry is about hiding the fees. To consumers, credit cards seem not to have any fees because the merchants pay them. (This is why they can give you cash back.)
Accepting Bitcoin is a different way of hiding fees. It's somewhat difficult to compare prices to USD because you have to do the exchange rate calculation yourself. Merchants could easily charge a small premium for Bitcoin transactions and consumers can't easily tell if the deal is slightly better or slightly worse. As a result, there's little incentive to give a discount for Bitcoin since it's unlikely to get more sales.
The fees are still there; they're hidden in the bid/ask spread for exchanging bitcoin for dollars.
So yeah, this is "innovative" and possibly disruptive but only in the same way as other financial innovations that seem to give you a good deal while actually charging more.
Accepting Bitcoin is a different way of hiding fees. It's somewhat difficult to compare prices to USD because you have to do the exchange rate calculation yourself. Merchants could easily charge a small premium for Bitcoin transactions and consumers can't easily tell if the deal is slightly better or slightly worse. As a result, there's little incentive to give a discount for Bitcoin since it's unlikely to get more sales.
The fees are still there; they're hidden in the bid/ask spread for exchanging bitcoin for dollars.
So yeah, this is "innovative" and possibly disruptive but only in the same way as other financial innovations that seem to give you a good deal while actually charging more.
Seems to me that most peoples' points is that Bitcoin solves problems that most people do not have.
Everyone who has ever dealt with a bank has a problem that Bitcoin can solve, even if they don't realize it yet.
Everyone who has ever dealt with a bank has a problem that Bitcoin can solve, even if they don't realize it yet.
Can you list one? I don't want to "be my own bank," as the advocates so cheerfully put it. I stopped working at a bank for a reason.
How about this one, which affected my own business?
http://www.peaktopeak.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/9... (1 MB .PDF)
The reality is that this was a very poorly implemented and marketed attempt on Chase's part to herd its business customers into accounts with higher fees. But who has time to deconstruct their bank's motivations when they decide to jerk their customers around, with or without a government mandate to do so?
http://www.peaktopeak.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/9... (1 MB .PDF)
The reality is that this was a very poorly implemented and marketed attempt on Chase's part to herd its business customers into accounts with higher fees. But who has time to deconstruct their bank's motivations when they decide to jerk their customers around, with or without a government mandate to do so?
That's unfortunate but I have not run into that problem. Your claim was that everyone who has dealt with bank has had a problem Bitcoin has solved. You provided a problem that is specific to people with business accounts at a certain bank. I cannot recall having any problem with my many bank accounts that would be solved by Bitcoin.
Here's another good 'un:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25861717
But yeah, you're probably right, I'm sure it's always going to be somebody else's problem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25861717
But yeah, you're probably right, I'm sure it's always going to be somebody else's problem.
Now it's "Who cares, it's all for publicity".
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
I think we're roundly into stage 2 now.
I think we're roundly into stage 2 now.
Wait, we're comparing Satoshi-san to Gandhi now?
If we restrict ourselves to making comparisons only when the two things are similar in every regard, then there is literally no point in making a comparison.
Agreed completely. I'm more saying that I don't see any similarity between BTC and the Indian independence movement. It would be like me quoting Elie Wiesel when my boss is being a dick.
You seem to be hung up on comparisons between things that have vastly different magnitudes or severities. The effort to get bitcoin widely accepted as a currency is "a struggle". The Indian independence movement was a struggle.
Are these two struggles similar in severity, importance, or necessity? No, of course not. Do they need to be, in order to reference that quote? No, of course not.
Why is it not necessary that these two situations be equivalent, or even similar, in that respect? Because he was not saying that the effort to get bitcoin widely accepted is as important as Indian independence.
Are these two struggles similar in severity, importance, or necessity? No, of course not. Do they need to be, in order to reference that quote? No, of course not.
Why is it not necessary that these two situations be equivalent, or even similar, in that respect? Because he was not saying that the effort to get bitcoin widely accepted is as important as Indian independence.
The effort to get bitcoin widely accepted as a currency is "a struggle".
I don't agree; instead, I'd call it "an effort".
It would be "a struggle" if people were risking going to jail, or being executed, or otherwise suffering non-voluntary consequences (like losing money for having speculated in BTC) for their participation, or were somehow barred from enjoying the same benefits as everyone else because of some imposed inability to participate.
As it stands, absent other, already specifically illegal activity (like the proscribed forms of tax evasion I suspect a great many Bitcoinophiles engage in, or using their cryptolucre to buy controlled substances), the greatest risk BTC owners face is selling at a lower exchange rate than they bought at — or maybe having their wallet stolen.
IMO, to call that "a struggle" devalues the word for the other things we call struggles, like independence movements, overthrowing tyrannies, civil rights, or marriage equality.
I don't agree; instead, I'd call it "an effort".
It would be "a struggle" if people were risking going to jail, or being executed, or otherwise suffering non-voluntary consequences (like losing money for having speculated in BTC) for their participation, or were somehow barred from enjoying the same benefits as everyone else because of some imposed inability to participate.
As it stands, absent other, already specifically illegal activity (like the proscribed forms of tax evasion I suspect a great many Bitcoinophiles engage in, or using their cryptolucre to buy controlled substances), the greatest risk BTC owners face is selling at a lower exchange rate than they bought at — or maybe having their wallet stolen.
IMO, to call that "a struggle" devalues the word for the other things we call struggles, like independence movements, overthrowing tyrannies, civil rights, or marriage equality.
> I'm more saying that I don't see any similarity between BTC and the Indian independence movement.
There doesn't have to be; that quote applies to a lot more things than just the Indian independence movement.
There doesn't have to be; that quote applies to a lot more things than just the Indian independence movement.
> There doesn't have to be; that quote applies to a lot more things than just the Indian independence movement.
There's also a lot of things it doesn't apply to, and its pretty much impossible to tell which things it does and does not apply to a priori. Its pretty much why the quote is stupid when uttered by anyone other than Ghandi.
There's also a lot of things it doesn't apply to, and its pretty much impossible to tell which things it does and does not apply to a priori. Its pretty much why the quote is stupid when uttered by anyone other than Ghandi.
It applies to whatever the speaker wants it to apply to; your arguing against someone using a quote is quite simply absurd.
No such comparison was made. The fact that Gandhi is the source of that quote is irrelevant to the discussion.
Technotopianism at it's finest.
You mean Satoshi-sama
Vastly over-used quote. I've heard that more from people who have eventually gone on to lose than winners. Sometimes the people being laughed at are just clowns.
Also, bitcoiners are not even in the same ballpark as Ghandi.
Also, bitcoiners are not even in the same ballpark as Ghandi.
A company that sells mining hardware (AMD GPUs) accepting payments in bitcoin is a no-brainer. You save your customers the trouble of converting to USD to purchase, which makes the mine->purchase->mine cycle even more frictionless.
Even if I thought bitcoin was doomed to fail, I would do this in the short term to get more business from coin miners.
Even if I thought bitcoin was doomed to fail, I would do this in the short term to get more business from coin miners.
Who says that? Most of the criticism is "Bitcoin is poorly designed, it fails at basic principles of Economics, it wastes tons of power, it continues to cause income inequality…"
Cryptocurrency is awesome. There just isn't a well-designed one yet that uses actual, sound economic principles instead of Austrian School ramblings.
Cryptocurrency is awesome. There just isn't a well-designed one yet that uses actual, sound economic principles instead of Austrian School ramblings.
>Bitcoin solves a non-existent problem!
Did those posters ever exist? I certainly haven't seen them on Hacker News.
Did those posters ever exist? I certainly haven't seen them on Hacker News.
That's because all their posts get downvoted.
I still don't think bitcoin is a good currency and will probably fail in the long term, but it has enough momentum at this point that there's no productive discussion to be had.
I still don't think bitcoin is a good currency and will probably fail in the long term, but it has enough momentum at this point that there's no productive discussion to be had.
We haven't vanished. We just don't care anymore--at least, not enough to rehash the same old tired arguments.
I still monitor Bitcoin news. Nothing surprising. Bitcoin is still a greedy rotten fruit, and only time will prove anyone wrong.
I still monitor Bitcoin news. Nothing surprising. Bitcoin is still a greedy rotten fruit, and only time will prove anyone wrong.
Accepting Bitcoin means having a Bitcoin wallet. Period! The more merchants like TigerDirect and Overstock "embrace" Bitcoin, the more bitcoins will be sold at the exchanges and the price will be dragged down further and further. It's funny that just about now hoarders start to realize how negative is this for their empty hope to wake up millionaires one day due to Bitcoin suddenly becoming $10K a piece.
"The more merchants like TigerDirect and Overstock "embrace" Bitcoin, the more bitcoins will be sold at the exchanges"
False.
Case in point: the number of merchants accepting bitcoins has dramatically increased over the last year. Yet the exchange rate has increased. This is the case because interest/demand in bitcoin seems roughly proportional to the size of the Bitcoin economy (what you can do, where you can spend them). So the more merchants -> the more interest -> the higher the exchange rate.
False.
Case in point: the number of merchants accepting bitcoins has dramatically increased over the last year. Yet the exchange rate has increased. This is the case because interest/demand in bitcoin seems roughly proportional to the size of the Bitcoin economy (what you can do, where you can spend them). So the more merchants -> the more interest -> the higher the exchange rate.
That's a pretty limited view of the price dynamics of bitcoin.
Maybe you haven't been following the discussions over at Reddit and Bitcoin Forums. Some idiots buy what they spent at Coinbase, which basically is costing them 1% + $0.15 + margin difference in hopes to keep bids and asks in balance. You're dealing with people with serious psychological disorders here!
>You're dealing with people with serious psychological disorders here!
Says the guy patrolling Reddit, HN and even a few other websites constantly bashing bitcoin and calling its users idiots. People engaging in this kind of behavior usually do it because they feel like they've missed the boat and are trying to resolve their cognitive dissonance by convincing themselves it doesn't matter because it's not going to work anyway.
If you have no vested interest in bitcoin going either way, why are you spending such an inordinate amount of time participating in the bitcoin community constantly trying to drag it down? What's in it for you? Don't you have anything better to do with your life?
For instance, I own no gold so I really couldn't care less where it goes and reeducating misguided gold owners would be the lowest thing on my list of priorities.
Serious psychological disorders. Hah.
Says the guy patrolling Reddit, HN and even a few other websites constantly bashing bitcoin and calling its users idiots. People engaging in this kind of behavior usually do it because they feel like they've missed the boat and are trying to resolve their cognitive dissonance by convincing themselves it doesn't matter because it's not going to work anyway.
If you have no vested interest in bitcoin going either way, why are you spending such an inordinate amount of time participating in the bitcoin community constantly trying to drag it down? What's in it for you? Don't you have anything better to do with your life?
For instance, I own no gold so I really couldn't care less where it goes and reeducating misguided gold owners would be the lowest thing on my list of priorities.
Serious psychological disorders. Hah.
I don't get your logic. Liquidity doesn't change supply. It just makes exchange simpler. A set market price has to be found between the people who want to trade Bitcoins, which will very much be influenced by the supply.
Liquidity will help to lessen volatility (fluctuation), but the price point has to be decided by the people who want to own some Bitcoin (traders, spenders and savers). Savers will drive the price upward as long as they save, but that's ok, as long as not too many people decide to liquidate their Bitcoins at the same time. It's the same for lost Bitcoins, the value for the rest of them adjusts to the demand level based on supply.
Liquidity will help to lessen volatility (fluctuation), but the price point has to be decided by the people who want to own some Bitcoin (traders, spenders and savers). Savers will drive the price upward as long as they save, but that's ok, as long as not too many people decide to liquidate their Bitcoins at the same time. It's the same for lost Bitcoins, the value for the rest of them adjusts to the demand level based on supply.
I only said this drags the price down. In order for somebody to sell, there needs to be a buyer. My comment was that hoarders are in an internal conflict - they both want to spend it to drive adoption up and, yet, continue to hoard it as supply drives the price down decreasing the value of their stash.
Someone has to buy the Bitcoin and spend it before it can be sold on an exchange. Nothing has changed in that regard; the part of the Bitcoin economy you are referring to is zero-sum.
Not necessarily. Most coins are hoarded (i.e. this is a way to make hoarders finally start to sell, i.e. increase supply) and miners get a lot of coins daily, which they need to sell to cover their high energy costs. Why in their right mind would people buy bitcoins (paying 1% + $0.15 with Coinbase and giving up on credit card cash back and miles) just to spend them?!
Is it me or are all the "has-beens", or unrelevant companies accepting bitcoin nowadays?
We had Overstock, who has fallen from its high. We had App.net, who is struggling to be relevant. now TigerDirect.
When is Starbucks or Apple going to accept Bitcoin?
We had Overstock, who has fallen from its high. We had App.net, who is struggling to be relevant. now TigerDirect.
When is Starbucks or Apple going to accept Bitcoin?
Mm. The companies might have fallen from their high, but they're hardly irrelevant or dead. Overstock is advertised like crazy and has some pretty good deals to boot, Tiger competes directly with Newegg. App is a bit of an outlier there..
Starbucks or Apple? I'd assume the megacorps will take it up once the instability gets smoothed out a bit. Which is a problem of adoption, which means the faster the smaller fish like these adopt it, the faster the bigger ones will.
I predict Amazon will take BTC within the next 2-3 years.
Starbucks or Apple? I'd assume the megacorps will take it up once the instability gets smoothed out a bit. Which is a problem of adoption, which means the faster the smaller fish like these adopt it, the faster the bigger ones will.
I predict Amazon will take BTC within the next 2-3 years.
> I predict Amazon will take BTC within the next 2-3 years.
I'm willing to bet a hundred doge this doesn't happen.
I'm willing to bet a hundred doge this doesn't happen.
For (future) reference, that's $0.17 at current rates [1].
[1] http://coinmill.com/USD_XDG.html#XDG=100
[1] http://coinmill.com/USD_XDG.html#XDG=100
> I'd assume the megacorps will take it up once the instability gets smoothed out a bit.
Why would they care if they get paid through bitpay or coinbase in USD anyway? It doesn't actually matter the current exchange rate for btc because they get the same USD anyway.
Why would they care if they get paid through bitpay or coinbase in USD anyway? It doesn't actually matter the current exchange rate for btc because they get the same USD anyway.
Someone has to handle that transaction - like Coinbase.
Part of their risk is that Coinbase, still an early stage company, isn't reliable enough to process their volume. They could have issues with how they process transactions, all kinds of things could come up.
Part of it is being risk-averse to BTC itself, part is being risk-averse to early stage payment gateways.
Part of their risk is that Coinbase, still an early stage company, isn't reliable enough to process their volume. They could have issues with how they process transactions, all kinds of things could come up.
Part of it is being risk-averse to BTC itself, part is being risk-averse to early stage payment gateways.
If it were me, it would be because the visual prices fluctuate on the site. If you put some stuff in your cart, wait a day, and find out the price went up by the equivalent of $100, it doesn't make the retailer look good.
>Tiger competes directly with Newegg
Interesting. The site designs always had me thinking they were two sides of the same coin.
Interesting. The site designs always had me thinking they were two sides of the same coin.
I've typically bought computer stuff from Tiger Direct. About half of my computer parts have came from there for about the last 10 years or so. They aren't the absolute cheapest site online, but I've never had any problem with returns or customer service with them, so I keep with them.
TigerDirect is a "has-been" company? Do you live under a rock?
Well, Google is working on integrating Bitcoin into Google Wallet. Do you consider them a "has-been" too?
Google does a lot of things which it then happily drops. Google doing a thing is not really a reliable indicator of what Google thinks of it - the company as a whole is very freeform in its ideas process.
Google also worked on a novel way to collaborate with one another. Everyone can see how Google Wave has taken over the world!
It's a start. You don't go from a tiny handful of sites started by Bitcoin enthusiasts to being accepted on Apple.com and in Starbucks retail locations in a day. A year or so ago, we were pretty much at the tiny handful of sites stage. We're starting to get some fairly second-rate internet retailers now, who have no reason to be interested in Bitcoin aside from pure business potential. It's a good step. Widespread adoption of something so unprecedented, poorly-understood, and potentially disruptive isn't going to happen overnight.
Is that the next talking point for the Bitcoin opponents/skeptics? I guess once "no retailers accept Bitcoin" dried up, it's no surprise they found a new one.
Don't worry, we've still got the "Bitcoin is inherently deflationary and incentivises hoarding" talking point.
That talking point also becomes less convincing the more retailers start accepting Bitcoin.
That it's inherently deflationary is a fact (this stems directly from the fact that there is a limited supply). That it's popular doesn't change this.
> That it's inherently deflationary is a fact
That's true, but it's hardly a mistake. It was deliberate designed to be deflationary, and proponents of Bitcoin like that idea.
That's true, but it's hardly a mistake. It was deliberate designed to be deflationary, and proponents of Bitcoin like that idea.
I'm aware the choice was deliberate. That still doesn't make it any better of a system.
And of course proponents like the idea; they're already invested in Bitcoin. The more new people who use it, the greater value proponents' existing stockpiles will have.
And of course proponents like the idea; they're already invested in Bitcoin. The more new people who use it, the greater value proponents' existing stockpiles will have.
> And of course proponents like the idea; they're already invested in Bitcoin.
That's a circular argument. Why would they have invested in Bitcoin in the first place?
That's a circular argument. Why would they have invested in Bitcoin in the first place?
Not really. "Ooh look, Bitcoin is deflationary, let's invest" → invest → "Hey everyone, come use this great Bitcoin thing!" is a logical chain of action.
Problem is that we've had deflationary currencies, and they were terrible. People will soon find out how easy it is to manipulate a currency with limited supply.
> People will soon find out how easy it is to manipulate a currency with limited supply.
As opposed to inflationary government currencies, the entire point of which is to be endlessly manipulated by a central authority? I don't think the track record of those is anything to be proud of.
As opposed to inflationary government currencies, the entire point of which is to be endlessly manipulated by a central authority? I don't think the track record of those is anything to be proud of.
Then you don't remember the gold panics. The stability of inflation of inflationary government currencies over the last few decades is nothing short of astonishing.
Ebay or amazon would be more useful. I bet it won't be long , after all, since they won't use it as reserve, it's just extra convenience.
I suspect it will be a while for ebay, given that they own PayPal. Bitcoin directly competes with PayPal's business model.
or Bitcoin could be one of paypal's payment methods
You're going to continue to see major eCommerce players offer bitcoin as a payment option. In the checkout flow it is best practice to offer as many payment options available because it increases the likelihood of a successful conversion.
Regardless of whether Andreesse's essay is correct regarding bitcoin two IR100 sites is a pretty big deal for bitcoin.
Regardless of whether Andreesse's essay is correct regarding bitcoin two IR100 sites is a pretty big deal for bitcoin.
>> In the checkout flow it is best practice to offer as many payment options available because it increases the likelihood of a successful conversion.
Are you sure about that? Too many choices sometimes leads to no choice at all. [0]
[0] http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...
Are you sure about that? Too many choices sometimes leads to no choice at all. [0]
[0] http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...
Exactly. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_Ass
Lost in the news that they accept bitcoin is the "Coming Soon" under Butterfly Labs hardware mentioned on that landing page. First I've heard of a mainstream electronics store selling ASIC mining hardware.
...to prevent charge backs. Ever by anything from them? Ugh...
I've always had wonderful service from TD. Haven't needed anything in the past year or so, but they always had competitive pricing and handled the my only RMA pretty painlessly...
Only time I bought anything from TigerDirect recently was a desktop. It arrived DoA (well videocard was), TigerDirect shipped a new one, and paid return shipping on dead one, at no cost to us.
> Ever by anything from them?
Yeah, a tower with an AMD K6-2 266MHz processor, 32MB of PC100 SDRAM, 6.4GB hard drive and a 56K modem. It was a great deal out of the print catalog they mailed to my parents' house every month. I guess that was a while back now.
Yeah, a tower with an AMD K6-2 266MHz processor, 32MB of PC100 SDRAM, 6.4GB hard drive and a 56K modem. It was a great deal out of the print catalog they mailed to my parents' house every month. I guess that was a while back now.
I've had a few returns with them over the years and they all went well.
Relevant post made in the last hour by Tony Hsieh in his Reddit IAmA:
Q: Mr. Hsieh, Are there any plans for Zappos.com to accept bitcoin?
A: we've been looking into the possibility but probably not anytime soon!
The world has imploded and all I have are these bitcoins and bullets; I'll buy some shoes!
As far as I can see, they aren't indicating what they are doing with their Bitcoin. Accepting Bitcoin is one thing, since as far as I know, all places accepting Bitcoin so far just convert it into their country's currency (e.g. $). Accepting Bitcoin and keeping Bitcoin for further trading is a-whole-nother story, and as far as I know, no one is doing that.
Still, great news for cryptocurrencies as there's now a bit more anonymity when buying online! :)
Still, great news for cryptocurrencies as there's now a bit more anonymity when buying online! :)
Aren't these the guys that tried to sue Apple for a quick buck around the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger?
Sorry TigerDirect, I swore off you then.
Sorry TigerDirect, I swore off you then.
If I understand trademark law correctly, a company must defend its trademarks or risk losing them. It wasn't about "a quick buck," it was about fulfilling the responsibilities of owning a trademark.
It's hardly fair to fault TigerDirect for doing what the law requires of them.
In this particular case, a judge had to make a judgement call about whether Apple's new "Tiger" OS trademark was an infringement on TigerDirect's trademark. It could have gone either way. That's why a judge was needed.
It's hardly fair to fault TigerDirect for doing what the law requires of them.
In this particular case, a judge had to make a judgement call about whether Apple's new "Tiger" OS trademark was an infringement on TigerDirect's trademark. It could have gone either way. That's why a judge was needed.
Interestingly, TigerDirect appears to be unreachable for me (from Europe):
Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.tigerdirect.com/" on this server.
Reference #18.56bd7a5c.1390506110.4cf7baee
Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.tigerdirect.com/" on this server.
Reference #18.56bd7a5c.1390506110.4cf7baee
In case it's not clear, the quote was a part of the hyperlink and so this link is broken.
My long term plan to buy a bitcoin last year for $300 and buy a VR system with it in 5 years is going along smoothly.
When the top comment to a positive bitcoin related news reads like textbook flame war material[1], I feel sad about the current state of HN.
We're supposed to discuss, not to pick sides and borderline troll people who are skeptical about some technology. This attitude is downright childish, and will only spawn very predictable and heated debates.
You bought or mined bitcoins and believe in them? That's good for you, I have some too, yay. Yet, I'm not starting flame wars and making fun of non-believers. This brings absolutely nothing. Moreover, it might show a negative image of the bitcoin community.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109970