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>The value of it fluctuates so much that actually buying/accepting it seems incredibly risky. The price can go down just as fast as it goes up. Why? If someone

>The value of it fluctuates so much that actually buying/accepting it seems incredibly risky. The price can go down just as fast as it goes up. Why? If someone sends me 1BTC I'll just instantly sell 1BTC, it is tremendously unlikely that I'm gonna get screwed even if there's a 1-2 second delay. >if the value of a BTC is going up, why would I use it to buy anything? Because you want things and not numbers on the internet. >As someone looking to accept BTC for purchases, how do I do so with confidence that when I accepted $3400 today that by the time I cash out it's not worth $2700? By being smart and not waiting to cash out. Your maximum loss will be the value of whatever buffer coins you hold, and I guess you could hedge around that too.

45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
There is no 1-2 second delay tho; bitcoin transactions take 1 hour to confirm. At best, you might have 7 blocks between receiving, sending and being credited on the exchange. Of course, this is possibly things like Litecoin are more stable as you can 'get in and out' in 15 minutes.
- celticninja 9y ago
  Some places will allow immediate conversion to dollars. I know bitpay used to facilitate that.
  - 45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
    Bitpay was cashing to fiat from unconfirmed bitcoin tx's? SMH If its a bitpay to bitpay tx its all internal and likely didnt actually touch the bitcoin blockchain.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      This was merchant payments. Essentially bitpay guaranteed the USD you would get at the point the transaction occurred. They didn't send the USD, that happened a day later. So buyer pays in btc, bitpay handle the transaction, probably sell the same amount on an exchange at that point, tx confirms and they pay out the USD. The BTC then goes into the bitpay reserve for the next merchant.
      - tlrobinson 9y ago
        Note that they guarantee the exchange rate, assuming the transaction is eventually confirmed. https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002990823-How-do-I-prevent-double-spend-fraud-on-unconfirmed-payments- https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002990823-Ho...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ryanlol 9y ago
  You don't need to move the coins to an exchange to effectively lock in an exchange rate for them.

45h34jh53k4j 9y ago

There is no 1-2 second delay tho; bitcoin transactions take 1 hour to confirm. At best, you might have 7 blocks between receiving, sending and being credited on the exchange. Of course, this is possibly things like Litecoin are more stable as you can 'get in and out' in 15 minutes.

celticninja 9y ago
Some places will allow immediate conversion to dollars. I know bitpay used to facilitate that.
- 45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
  Bitpay was cashing to fiat from unconfirmed bitcoin tx's? SMH If its a bitpay to bitpay tx its all internal and likely didnt actually touch the bitcoin blockchain.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    This was merchant payments. Essentially bitpay guaranteed the USD you would get at the point the transaction occurred. They didn't send the USD, that happened a day later. So buyer pays in btc, bitpay handle the transaction, probably sell the same amount on an exchange at that point, tx confirms and they pay out the USD. The BTC then goes into the bitpay reserve for the next merchant.
    - tlrobinson 9y ago
      Note that they guarantee the exchange rate, assuming the transaction is eventually confirmed. https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002990823-How-do-I-prevent-double-spend-fraud-on-unconfirmed-payments- https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002990823-Ho...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ryanlol 9y ago
You don't need to move the coins to an exchange to effectively lock in an exchange rate for them.