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> We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. There is also a risk with accepting credi

> We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. There is also a risk with accepting credit card payments, which is part of the reason why businesses don't actually process credit card payments themselves. They outsource that to a specialized third party that deals with the risks, like Stripe. The same thing is true for Bitcoin; almost every online store uses BitPay, who take care of the claimed volatility risk. (Also, there was a pretty stable three-year period for Bitcoin from early 2014 to late 2016 or so. Widespread adoption failed to materialize, so it's not like "once it's stable it will miraculously be adopted by everyone".) > the fees are very high Yep. Fees, delays, and unreliability are the actual problems of the moment.

anonytrary 9y ago
> who take care of the claimed volatility risk. Under the hood how do they do that? Are are they converting your BTC to USDT on-deposit, then additionally from USDT to BTC on-withdrawal?
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  They guarantee the vendor a certain rate for a time window of 15 minutes or so. If the buyer makes a payment within this time frame and gets at least one confirmation (which is the buyer's gamble), BitPay pays the vendor immediately in USD (or other fiat). I guess they have USD reserves to make these payments and restock them by converting part of their Bitcoin holdings from time to time. If Bitcoin collapses completely, they blow up. Though even their risk is controlled because they can stop processing payments at any moment.