Topic: Please no more merchant adoption!! (Read 2766 times)

I have seen some companies using bitcoin to send funds directly to Chinese bitcoin exchanges and get RMB out to their chinese partners in china. Or some mother sending bitcoins to his children in Australia. There are many usages that have not been fully discovered

Well selling and converting to fiat does hurt the price.
I agree that finding ways for companies to use BTC directly such as adding a button for people to buy from other Bitcoin suppliers and distributors on coinbase to keep the welath inside the coin would be good.

They are a credit card processor. They charge 2.9% + $0.30 per credit card transaction, but 0.5% per Bitcoin transaction.

The big deal is that they are already an established online credit card processor. ("We process billions of dollars a year for thousands of companies of all sizes.") According to their documentation, an existing customer using their "Checkout" interface only needs to add a couple of lines to enable Bitcoin acceptance. This makes it extremely easy for the merchant.

If you run across a merchant who uses Stripe, you might want to contact them and tell them you want to pay with Bitcoin, and that this will cost them less in merchant fees. It would help get the word out because all customers who check out would see a Bitcoin option.

It would be great if supply chain adoption happens also, but merchant adoption is the measure of success. If it's accepted broadly then we have money, literally.

Regardless of merchant adoption, spenders will always spend. Even if there is zero merchant adoption, they will always sell the coins in exchange for fiat money and spend

However, with merchant adoption, many bitcoiners and even whales can buy bitcoins and spend (before, they can only spend fiat money), this will create a upward pressure on bitcoin's exchange rate

It obviously needs merchant adoption because that is what bitcoin is all about. The higher the adoption rate the more exposure bitcoin gets and that is how we will grow the demand. You can't expect everyone to hoard and do nothing with their coin because eventually that will lead to nothing.

Then in that case, the merchant understood the real concept of bitcoin. If him keep the bitcoin he will can spend them on another online merchant or maybe (why not?) a physical store. It's called "a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" the merchant is a normal thing.

Well if it's a merchant who doesn't dump their bitcoins every time the price drops a fraction of a percent, i say why not?

I think you're making some big assumptions there. I don't think we did get much merchant adoption in 2014, especially not enough for a significant price rise, but adoption goes both ways. It's good merchants getting on board but if people aren't actually spending their coins there then it's not going to do much in the short term.

It's a complex subject but there is truth to the idea of merchant adoption causing a downward price trend. (Evidence: 2014. If adoption was strongly correlated with price increases, how would you explain 2014?)

The problem with merchant acceptance is that it tends to move bitcoin from being a store of value (like a gold ingot sitting in a vault somewhere) to a transactional currency that rapidly changes hands. This increases the velocity of bitcoin, which anyone with an Econ 101 class should be able to recognize as a downward force on the price.

So is merchant adoption good or bad for the price? For the price to rise bitcoin has to be valued by more and more people, and that kinda requires more and more people knowing about bitcoin and holding it. So I think the short-medium term impact is negative, but in the long run it forms a positive base for growth.

Here's one simple test I'd propose - do measurements of the velocity of bitcoin shown a significant increase in 2014 compared to prior years? Someone probably has that data. If they did, and if it could be established that it was due to increased merchant use at a significant level, it would provide an explanation for the price downtrend.

Yeah I'm getting tired of reading this ignorant crap. If you seriously believe this then bitcoin is doomed because the more people that use it to buy things the more the price is going to drop so you may as well get out why you can. Bitcoin absolutely needs more adoption for it to grow not the other way around.

You are joking, right? You think that more merchant using bitcoin = bitcoin price decrease? Well think again. It is the other way around. We need to build
bitcoin infrastructure, invest in bitcoin projects, shops look new opportunities. That is why accepting bitcoin by more and more merchants is - yes, it is called development. And it is good for everyone.

i havnt even bothered to check my post history to see that topic. i left it there for people to think and discuss..

but why care at all about the bitcoin price. i have a large hoard of coins, yet i dont check the bitcoin price and i dont get scared if it drops or rises. so lets put a different spin on it.


you live in the fiat world, im presuming american dollars.
lets imagine you never intend to go to europe so the dollar->euro exchange rate is meaningless in your practical life.
now, would you keep checking the dollar-euro price daily, in worry that the dollar will collapse some day. or do you worry more that not enough shops will take bank notes and prefer other payment methods.

i presume that some time in your life you may get rejected for a credit card and soon find out that you can no longer buy things online without one, limiting your spending habits.

now do you care more about the euro exchange rate or the lack of possibilities you will have to use your dollars.
truly imagine it, you cant pay your bills or TV/internet services due to lack of a card, and every transaction involves cash in hand.

so whats important to you, ease of use and mass ability to spend. or a conversion rate to a currency that you wont touch.

it really doesnt matter if bitcoin is $2 or $20,000. whats more important is the ease of use and availability of use.

Hmm, they charge 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction? Sounds like a credit card.

I thought it was a bit odd a ranked member rubbishing bitcoin

Online payment processor Stripe.com has recently started accepting Bitcoin. You may want to include stripe.com/bitcoin in your list of processors.

No we need more merchant adoption. It can only be a good thing that more people can use it and have access to it, not bad. People spending btc is good, it changes hands and that is what it was made for.

yup, you're 100% right. merchant adoption kills the price because they dump it on the open market ..

Again "Money is a means of payment, not speculation". If you are thinking bitcoin only as "speculation" then I think you are wrong, because we need a lot of more merchants (online and physic) that should accept bitcoin (also) as method of payment (due the lowest fee, respect a bank account or credit card).

Uhhh, you guys do know that Coinbase is waiving all fees right now to buy and transfer bitcoin, right? It's not hard to sign up either.

If you are paying more than 1-2% in fees, max, for your bitcoin you are doing it wrong.