Topic: What is the reason behind the surge of merchants accepting Bitcoin in 2014? (Read 2779 times)

reasons:
1. news/media relaxed the illegal rhetoric and started positive news
2. bitcoin stands at MANY commercial conferences and conventions
3. even political meetings and law making practices are becoming positive about bitcoin.. well atleast accepting its part of their future
4. tv shows mentioning it

along with this, businesses look for:
different ways to accept money cheaply compared to credit cards
get a free method of accessing a new customer base without advertising
ways to invest their profits in a time that banks only give half a percent after business fee's are removed

this is not the limit of reasons, there are many more than this. but 2014 was the year that perceptions changed from the 2010-2013 negative mindset

Exactly, for merchants the motivation might just come from that it is easy to adopt (Just download an app then it is good to go) and bring them more customer.  They converted every bitcoin to USD in each transaction, just discover later that bitcoin rise by 10x, then they will regret and start to ask questions

I think merchants are happy to accept any currency, so long as there is a suitable number of customers offering to pay with it. Most will just see the dollars being deposited to their accounts though, and they won't stop to ask "what makes money money?".

Really, until their suppliers also accept bitcoin, there isn't any incentive or reason for companies to hold Bitcoin, unless they really believe in its promise. Most just see it as a means to transact though, nothing more, nothing less.

True, I think most of them just use bitcoin as a marketing strategy, draw some bitcoiners as customer and get some media exposure

In fact, some of them indeed hold their bitcoin, see the bitpay report. Even they do not hold any bitcoin at all, the practice of accepting bitcoin payment alone could greatly widen their view and they might start to ask the question: "what makes money money?" Then they will dig further into the rabbit hole

And I have analyzed in An easy way to make bitcoin worth millions of dollars, more merchant adoption will give bitcoiners possibility to greatly raise the bitcoin's value, which is also a good marketing potential for bitcoin

Thanks. I hope it will move in that direction. More than BTC, so many altcoin made people believe in the "let's get rich, let's do it quick". There have been innumerable pum and dump schemes.

Anyway, I still consider the btc environment very "immature" in the sense we're kind of seeing its potential but we're not ready yet for the big jump.

 

But none of the companies actually hold the bitcoin, and are using bitpay to sell them on receipt. And if preparing for the fiat crash was the reason, then they would rather just buy it directly with their fiat in hand.

Preparing for the incoming fiat crash is one possibility, but I doubt if they really read the biggest scam in the history of mankind

Most of the companies more or less had met some limitation from banks, so bitcoin give them an alternative

...

There are three merchants I would never have bought from had they not accepted Bitcoin.  Sure, I could have found what I wanted from others (and paid differently), but paying by BTC was what I wanted to do.

Options are a big part of freedom.  I like having options.

I think that bitcoin was starting to be accepted as a hype thing to create a rush of sales from bitcoin users to make a quick buck. It is sad but true. If the companies were actually invested in the future of bitcoin then they would hold them rather than cashing out right away.

Hide what? I'm saying using Bitcoin would reduce the chance of fraud because it's an easy system to use. I can't see Bitcoin increasing their sales hugely because anyone who was going to buy something through the company was probably going to do so before Bitcoin was ever implemented. Reading on Dell's website, they said they started to accept Bitcoin due to few processing charges. Fraud may or may not be included in their reason for accepting it, but of course that would never be told to its customers.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/campaigns/bitcoin-marketing

For fraud? Are you serious? Do you really believe companies like Microsoft or Dell are trying to hide a few sales? If they do, they would be hugely stupid.

That are some solid points and logical arguments. But I'm wondering how people may think that 'surge of merchants accepting bitcoin is something unwanted and unfavorable. It is just a part of bitcoin evolution if that is happening we should be only happy because we are on a good way to mass adoption.

I can see Overstock having a huge part in Bitcoin as they were the first company to start taking it that's mainstream. Should have specified. I can only assume the other companies that followed didn't have an interest in BTC. Could be wrong though.

And you can't pay for a house in a faraway country or flee a warzone with your net worth in your head if that one person's action swallows the entire market cap.

It wouldn't be very convenient for the rest of the planet to wait around for one individual to cash out so everyone else can get moving again. A larger market cap makes for more widespread usability. End of.

No, your 100% right. Bitcoin was never intended to be an investment or for profit. 2014 turned Bitcoin into everyones want to get rich quick scheme. and next to 1% of them succeeded. 2015 will be the year of the "exit strategy" for bitcoin. where all the cry babies who bought in above $500 will start unloading and turning their back on bitcoin, which will be great as they are a plague and kill the bitcoin social sphere. Look at this forum for example. take a browse through the reputation section. 400 kids all crying about something, and every once in a while one of them jumps in on something in the marketplace or something like their opinion is gods gift. 2016 will be the year of the infrastructure, once all the kids have bailed out of bitcoin the guys who made the money in bitcoin will start to launch the products which will be the true infrastructure of bitcoins future. 2017 will be the year of adoption in the common place. You will be able to pay for your big mac and fries in bitcoin by the end of 2017, and bitcoins price will still be hovering around $300.

TL;DR

Bitcoin is not about "exchange value" or "investment" nor was it ever suppose to be, a bunch of succers got lead to believe it was, they got taken, and now their butt hurt.

Bitcoin is about revising the financial infrastructure of the world, thats all it was ever about, thats all it will ever be about. If 1BTC is worth $0.10 or $1Million dollars it does not matter. It's what you can do with it that is important.



Que the suckers who got taken and their rant about how i'm wrong in 3......2........1.......... Go for suckers

you sound a bit cynical but I do agree with you.
Some of the players just think in terms of profit.
Which, I mean, it's not bad. But it's not really about what bitcoin was for.
Or not?

It was all about free marketing. They dont really care about Bitcoin, and i dont blame them. But if putting a "hey we will take your bitcoin" sign up gets them more sales and they only have to pay a minimal fee why wouldnt they. It only makes sense to accept bitcoin from a marketing perspective. You wont see the same in 2015.

There are regulated exchanges meaning that your average person on the street can buy bitcoin without needing to meet anyone to exchange cash for bitcoin! 
A lot of money is being invested into legitimate bitcoin businesses too, I think they all see that bitcoin adoption is inevitable and they will be ahead of the curve getting in now.

All the forward-thinking merchants of all sizes around the world are gloaming onto the hot Bitcoin payments trend, many of them to cut costs and boost their bottom line.

If you use the Internet wayback machine on Bitpays website, you'll see that like 50% of the merchants they had partnered with over their inception no longer take Bitcoin.