According to this
article the service cuts across 15,000 restaurants in France, not 1,500.
Overall, It's a good step forward for publicity and adoption as people would struggle less to find ways to spend bitcoins. They firm also plans to make inroads into other countries like the U.S, leading to more adoption.
But, this part of the article caught my eye;
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Payments using Bitcoin will be calculated based on the current price charged by Bitpay. However, if a Bitcoin payment is cancelled, the customer will be refunded in Euros, with payment being sent to a customer’s traditional bank account.
“When you make your initial payment, Bitcoin is already converted into Euros. The rate applicable at the time of your payment will therefore be the rate applied for reimbursement,” the website says.If I use Bitcoin there is a likelihood that I wish to remain private, compelling users to divulge their bank details for a refund when an order is cancelled doesn't quite sit right with me. Understandably, they are using a payment processor, so all transactions made in bitcoins are immediately converted to fiat, they could however still hold some bitcoins in reserve precisely for this sort of situations.
15 thousand restaurants is impressive! As for the privacy concern, I'm sure that food delivery like this requires an address, full name, email and mobile phone, so I don't think that a euro refund to the bank account is a big issue in this case.
I read in the article that they don't charge any additional fees for processing the BTC payment, and it sounds great, and Bitpay 1% fee is really low, but I fees like this cannot be it and hidden fees must apply. Okay, obviously there's Bitcoin transaction fee and it can be significant sometimes. But what about Bitpay's conversion rate? I've never used Bitpay, but it sounds like a suspiciously good deal. Plus, their reputation isn't great, and there must be good reasons for that.