Topic: BitPay is not Bitcoin....persistent foreign exchange risk costlier than CC. - page 3. (Read 5922 times)

I don't understand the significance of bitpay and the whole "not accepting bitcoin" argument. I don't care if the merchant accepts bitcoin, usd, or live chickens; I only care that I am able to send bitcoins to that merchant and receive a product or service in return - what the merchant does with those bitcoins (keep them, exchange them to fiat, purchase chickens, etc.) is entirely irrelevant to me. Is there an obvious flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing?

How do they use it as a currency? Do they buy things online? Ok, well 99.9% of merchants will only accept BitPay and not Bitcoins due to extreme foreign exchange risk. So most anything these Bitcoin believers will be purchasing will likely go through BitPay where it will be converted immediately into USD.

The other point is that 'people who believe in bitcoin' are really investors and are not incentivized to use bitcoins as currency very much (hence the hoarding). One has to be an investor to make transactions with Bitcoin.

There is no reason to purchase BTC to make intra-border transactions. So the utility here is mainly for investors, niche privacy related transactions, and international transactions (still with great risk of currency fluctuation). Otherwise, for someone in the US, for instance, to go USD-BTC-USD simply to make a transaction.....it's like being required to purchase shares of Paypal to use as a currency for online transactions. You must take on exchange risk and be a true-believer/investor to use the protocol.

How is adding an extreme level of foreign exchange risk (requiring an investment, basically) making anything easier for the vast majority of people transacting within the borders of the US (or any country), where nearly all of these new BitPay merchants are accepting orders? Hopefully this is boosting their international sales because I don't see much of a boost in domestic sales....even with international sales, the currency exchange risk is still possibly higher than any potential savings on wire or CC fees. Really, foreign exchange risk negates intra and inter-border utility.

This ends the thread. 

Manticore, please stop posting. You're really really bad at it.

That's right!  Exchanges are now a necessary evil.

the term  "currency wars" has nothing to do with bitcoin, all it means is countries around the world are racing to find excuses to print & borrow  as much money as they can b4 its over... its almost over  

I am a merchant in Germany and I do accept BTC and I use BitPay for Settlement.

From customers all over the globe.

They accept:

• Lower fees
• No chargebacks
• More potential clients
• Exposure to a huge community

BitPay is using Bitcoins. It may be USD -> BTC -> USD, but there is still a BTC link in there.

I think of the currency war like netscape thought about the browser war. They needed navigator on the machine first even though they were offering it for free so they could then extend netscape's influence on the machine slowly. Its a lot easier to get somebody to not exchange a currency they already use rather than telling them to switch to a currency they have never heard about.

Who cares?  If merchants accept Bitcoin via BitPay it means that people can buy goods and services with Bitcoin. And that's what matters.

So "Speculation" certainly seems like the most suitable place to post this, Aha?

Then, who cares about BitPay? Huh.


People who believe in bitcoins (ah ah ah ah ), are buying bitcoins and use them as a currency.
People who don't believe in bitcoins are trading and trying to make some profits.

Merchants that accept only credit card payments are technically not accepting USD...

Most of the new merchants that are now accepting Bitpay are US-based.

Huh. Who cares about US?