Topic: eBay to allow settlements in crypto (Read 2789 times)

It wouldnt make much sense to say that in any case as the customers themselves will be more likely to buy and then hold coins in anticipation of spending them.   Again it can be argued they only hold them for the period of the transaction but in effect its increasing the probability of holders of btc increasing.

Thats Peter Schiffs line that retailers are a negative for btc but cant say I see the logic.  At worst its neutral, the coins might go full cycle from an exchange to the shop and back again but in some cases theres a percent held now


Take any currency, how many people buy some holiday money before they go.  how many accidentally hold onto foreign coins or notes after they finish their travels.  Im not arguing for large amounts but its some positive use not negative

This is not 100% true. Merchants will sell their bitcoin to cover their costs and some profits but they will hold on to some of it.

There was an article that said that overstock is keeping 10% of their bitcoin revenues.

Paypal allows Bitcoin has lagged behind OKPAY.

Easy way to use crypto on ebay:

List and item>use nice description mentioning crypto as payment>put price lower due to lack of use for paypal>Profit.


Most people who bought stuff from me are happy to pay in BTC or bank trnasfer because my price is way better than others.
Ofcourse sometimes there will be an asshole who trying to tell me where is my place but most of the time i have no issues what so ever.

This may be actually bad news. Merchants dump all the coins to fiat and the bigger are they, the harder is for BTC price to grow.

It may cause lower rates but Im not sure paypal can avoid this anyway.   I can already send cash instantly free to anyone nationally.    Its possible paypal benefits even if they also have to lower rates to customers, they are not mutually exclusive events. 

Thing is with bitcoin is that stupid long hash code doesnt sell too well.  I mean we could browse websites by IP addresses but on the whole we arent doing this.   At some point bitcoin needs to take down the scaffolding and put on a presentable front to the world that is easily remembered and referenced. 

If Paypal becomes part of the general phenomena they may survive yet, they could be all about enabling easy facilitation of the network and also adding feedback and simple association to bitcoin addresses .  If they can add convenience they could do well, brand names are often not the best value but people prefer them anyway.  Everything apple does was already done elsewhere pretty much but they do it best and charge a 70% margin on it and people go with what works best

Both ebay and paypal will not be able to operate if bitcoin becomes successful enough.

IMO if bitcoin were to become mainstream enough then it would likely put paypal out of business.

Problem is, Paypal can't really charge huge fee if bitcoin is used.

It may be interested after PayPal have going into surveys and questionnaires about bitcoins.

I believe that paypal charges additional fees when a buyer uses their debit/credit card for a transaction.

The reason they might allow btc is if it enabled greater business for them.      The other point is paypal has to pay costs, they arent the biggest fish; they must pay visa, mastercard and various bank fees
If btc can be cheaper for a massive enterprise then I will be very much impressed.  Maybe the maths is already there and someone can say is it visa or bitpay which charges more for the same invoice

My own take is that BTC strength is the global aspect and speed, I think it is cheaper there.  Domestically, I think btc is slower then my normal (personal) bank payment and I dont pay fees so Im not sure there

Paypal would likely never get involved into bitcoin.

It would hurt their long term profits too much.

If people were to discover Bitcoin via paypal then they would see how much cheaper it is then paypal depriving them of long term revenue.

When you take into consideration how much eBay charges for listing an auction and how much they charge for an action successfully closing plus the paypal fees they are almost getting away with highway robbery.

With services that convert to fiat upon payment, the gap is very small.

I don't know why they waited so long, they could be a bit too late.

BitPay is the PayPal of Bitcoin but with a monthly fee.

If PayPal gets into it, they will likely charge their regular 2.5% fee, along with the miner's fee.

Surprised nobody shared these articles in here:
http://www.coindesk.com/ebay-ceo-actively-considering-bitcoin-integration/
and this:
http://www.coindesk.com/ebay-ceo-paypal-will-integrate-digital-currencies/

Same reason Ebay do not allow google checkout or other payment processor.

They own Paypal and want to protect their own business interest.

Ebay will never associate with Crypto's especially Bitcoin. Ebay owns PayPal and PayPal is completely against crypto's.

BTC etc works outside the legal system in a gray area.  So you have to clean out your bank account for your scenario to work and you would have to continue to have that account in the negative.  If your bank covered the overdraft, then you'll owe your bank.  This will follow you around until you clear it up.

I agree about the rest though. The chances of this stuff happening are near 0.  Paypal has a monopoly of fees.  Giving BTC credibility does little but undermine their business longterm.  Ebay doesn't sell things, they are middlemen who collect fees.  What little business they gain from BTC they pay for in a whole slew of other areas. 

It is unlikely ebay will allow bitcoin and let paypal takes a big hit financially.

This is simply not true. For example, you pay me $20 for a stick of RAM. The funds are immediately "available". I walk down to the atm with my PayPal debit card, and pull the $20 out in cash. My account is now at $0. You decide the RAM is not what I promised, and complain. Paypal reverses that charge, leaving my account $-20. Only problem is I still have a $20 bill in my pocket. This is no different than if I took the $20 out in BTC. PayPal would still make my account $-20.

What paypal has to figure is how to let people use bitcoin, without people deciding to go around their system. There is a lot to consider here. Paypal could limit their integration with bitcoin simply to withdrawals, and not let you actually denominate your account in BTC. They could also become a full wallet. They would control the private key, and still act as an escrow and take their cut. They could even allow direct btc to btc payments, similar to how "friends and family" no charge payments are already done. No escrow, no fee. Bitcoin is a risk to paypals empire, and they know it. They know bitcoin is likely unstoppable. They can only hope to be the first major bitcoin payment provider to market. They still have time, but they have to beat out google and amazon. They know this as well. That's why it will be done, and it will be soon. This year. Paypal doesn't have to be early, just before another major player. It would not surprise me if they have fully functional bitcoin support in alpha. Exciting times guys.

Some people won't believe it until it actually goes live. There is a natural skepticism in this community.

I suspect it's only a matter of time before we'll be able to pay for virtually anything listed on ebay with bitcoin.  Eventually, litecoin, namecoin and perhaps a few others too.

Paylpal CEO stated last week that 'cryptocurrency adoption, such as BTC, is inevitable'.

Does the crypto community need any stronger an indication and aside from implementation is there any other stronger statement that could be made?

they could simply use a multi sig transaction and provide the same level of arbitrage, I think that this will be PayPal future if they adopt bitcoin, they could reduce the fees to less than 1%, allow more countries into their system and still retain huge control over refunds. Whether they'll be smart enough to adopt this new technology before their competition will leave them behind is only a matter of the minds working at eBay, but their CEO already showed he understands the future, I think its only a matter of when. Circle.com will soon become the new PayPal so its great that we have competition because its speeds things up a notch.

yeah i agree with this. no more withholding funds from your account.

if they did offer a service though, i'm thinking that many of us wouldn't use it (because we hate them so much), but there are still quite a few people here who would use their services.

I doubt it. Part of Ebay's business model is being very consumer-friendly. That involves enforcing returns/refunds. And that's a big problem when it come to BTC.

The problem with this is that eBay wishes to provide consumer protections. eBay provides these protections by allowing the seller access to their funds almost immediately, the seller will ship the product, and the buyer will leave positive feedback when they see the product is as advertised. When there is a dispute that is ruled in favor of the buyer then eBay can simply charge back the seller's bank account and reimburse the buyer.

If eBay were to provide the same level of protection it would not be able to release the funds to the seller until a longer time then it can now.

One alternative could be to allow buyers to pay in BTC but eBay would convert the BTC to fiat and pay sellers in fiat. This would mean that eBay would act in a way that is little different then an exchange.   

+1

Exactly this is what I was trying to say. People use Bitcoin, because they are simply tired of the exploitative practices and steep service charge from Paypal. If we side with Paypal, then what is the difference between Paypal and Bitcoin?

There used to be a btc auction site but it closed.  Great business opportunity.

EBay doesn't even matter to us.  Paypal is the one that has to make the change.  But the only way they'd do that is to become an escrow with a high fee for use.  It might start low.  Paypal is basically 1/3 of EBay's revenue right now and only growing.  EBay might be getting left behind.  That's why the company is split on breaking up the two entities.  EBay doesn't want to, because it's their most profitable part of the company.  And Paypal does want to, because they could be bigger than EBay's little money transaction company.

I predict Paypal to hop up and then come crashing down once Cryptocurrency gets bigger and more accepted.  We all know it's coming.  I don't know if Paypal will adapt, and I'm not sure it matters.  They're an old fashioned system, taking 10% of fees.  Fuck that.

Go with Amazon and screw EBay/Paypal.

don't think that's going to happen in any time near..

they have their precious PayPal with their $,€ and other FIATs

Last I heard Paypal will still not allow crypto sales (and will definitely not protect the seller from fraud), even though the parent company eBay had auctions up.
How does the seller safely accept payment?

F**k evilBay and its sister paypal. Bitcoin does NOT need ebay or paypal to thrive. In fact, ebay and paypal involvement will damage bitcoin more than they help.

True but there will be negative press on that if they made the change I can assure you and they may not want to deal with it.  I don't think it would really mater in the long run however just thought it was worth a mention.

Ebay only needs to provide a way of account funding in btc. Just as they do with any other currency.

A good idea sure but there may just be alot of "red tape" with starting a company like this.  You'd have to compete with Ebay for one and then there is the laws that are currently in place would be used to most likely shut down the operation before it really got a chance.  Something tells me that is part of the reason Ebay doesn't do this very same thing.  Just my 2 cents not saying it is fact.

well maybe this is an opportunity for next ebay ? or ebay replacement ?

hey google ! wake up ! do something !

Ebay won't be allowing purchases with Cryptocurrencies anytime soon. They are fully into the protect the customer and the the buyer from each other in a "nanny state" paradigm. Eventually PayPal will figure out that crypto is here to stay and accept it, but it won't be this year in my opinion. And there will still be high fees to cover the refunds to cheated customers and sellers.

this is not my point. it would be owsome to have a possibility to set a price for something in crypto while selling it on ebay. you know: insted of price in usd or eur the price would be in btc or ltc.

eBay do support cryptos a bit already.

You can trade cryptos via eBay if you like with no problems.

What do you think ? In my opinion eBay should be interested in cryptocurriencies: it will support international trade. crypto transfers are cheap and quick. delivery will stay as major side cost.

eBay earns money charging us on our transactions. if transaction is in crypto so eBay's margin should be in cypto. but it can be also in fiat for a limited time ;-). public announcement of such feature would be huge for both eBay and whole cryptoland :-)