3 ms·

Stripe’s entire business is built on credit card transactions. They added half assed bitcoin support and then killed it. This makes sense for a company that ha

Stripe’s entire business is built on credit card transactions. They added half assed bitcoin support and then killed it. This makes sense for a company that has every incentive to prolong a move away from credit cards. As soon as we switch to a decentralized “currency” stripes business will begin its decline.

gizmo385 9y ago
> As soon as we switch to a decentralized “currency” stripes business will begin its decline. You say this as if a large-scale, mainstream switch to a decentralized currency is right around the corner. With how volatile the market has been, what makes you think a switch like this is even remotely near-term?
- philwelch 9y ago
  It's so obvious, I'm just going to use a decentralized cryptocurrency to hail my self-driving electric car in like five years, so why bother supporting legacy technologies? /s
JohnTHaller 9y ago
Bitcoin transactions take hours to confirm now, making Bitcoin useless as a transactional medium. When people are paying 25%, 50%, and more to send Bitcoin of typical levels of purchase, it's time to get out. Stripe is honestly a bit late in dropping Bitcoin for transactions.
- solean 9y ago
  I sent ~$5k in btc last night for a $3 fee and it confirmed in around 30 minutes..
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    Then you got very lucky: https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time
vec 9y ago
I run a midsize ecommerce site and, from where I'm sitting, Stripe looks at least as essential in a crypto economy as they are now. We don't want to handle the mechanics of refunds. We don't want to handle the mechanics of disputes. We don't want to get scammed because we screwed up some small detail of our payment layer. We certainly don't want to do our internal accounting in more than one currency, crypto or otherwise. We're a tech company, not a financial services firm. From our perspective trusting a third party is a feature not a bug. It means less work for us and less surface area that we could conceivably screw up, and I for one am happy to pay a small premium for the extra insulation.
- Jommi 9y ago
  Wow. The short-sightedness in this comment is astounding. Check out on some of those "advantages" that trusting those thirdparties can mean for you: https://www.google.fi/search?q=paypal+destroyed+my+business&rlz=1C5CHFA_enFI760FI760&oq=paypal+destroyed+my+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.12585j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.fi/search?q=paypal+destroyed+my+business&... https://www.google.fi/search?q=amazon+destroyed+my+business&rlz=1C5CHFA_enFI760FI760&oq=amazon+destroyed+my+business&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3j0j69i65.2750j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.fi/search?q=amazon+destroyed+my+business&...
  - vec 9y ago
    Yeah, sure, what's your point? I worry about getting screwed over by any of a dozen vendors, including but not limited to our payment processor. I also worry about getting scammed, about losing all our money due to a bug, about costly human errors, and about getting priced out of the market by competitors who take shortcuts I'm not willing to. On balance, we feel that the benefits of sitting behind a payment processor outweigh the drawbacks. Our trust isn't absolute, but we feel the risk of trusting a third party is smaller than the risk we would have to incur by not trusting a third party.
    - Jommi 9y ago
      Exactly! All I wanted to point out that it's a personal decision, not an absolute one.

gizmo385 9y ago

> As soon as we switch to a decentralized “currency” stripes business will begin its decline. You say this as if a large-scale, mainstream switch to a decentralized currency is right around the corner. With how volatile the market has been, what makes you think a switch like this is even remotely near-term?

philwelch 9y ago
It's so obvious, I'm just going to use a decentralized cryptocurrency to hail my self-driving electric car in like five years, so why bother supporting legacy technologies? /s

JohnTHaller 9y ago

Bitcoin transactions take hours to confirm now, making Bitcoin useless as a transactional medium. When people are paying 25%, 50%, and more to send Bitcoin of typical levels of purchase, it's time to get out. Stripe is honestly a bit late in dropping Bitcoin for transactions.

solean 9y ago
I sent ~$5k in btc last night for a $3 fee and it confirmed in around 30 minutes..
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  Then you got very lucky: https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time

vec 9y ago

I run a midsize ecommerce site and, from where I'm sitting, Stripe looks at least as essential in a crypto economy as they are now. We don't want to handle the mechanics of refunds. We don't want to handle the mechanics of disputes. We don't want to get scammed because we screwed up some small detail of our payment layer. We certainly don't want to do our internal accounting in more than one currency, crypto or otherwise. We're a tech company, not a financial services firm. From our perspective trusting a third party is a feature not a bug. It means less work for us and less surface area that we could conceivably screw up, and I for one am happy to pay a small premium for the extra insulation.

Jommi 9y ago
Wow. The short-sightedness in this comment is astounding. Check out on some of those "advantages" that trusting those thirdparties can mean for you: https://www.google.fi/search?q=paypal+destroyed+my+business&rlz=1C5CHFA_enFI760FI760&oq=paypal+destroyed+my+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.12585j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.fi/search?q=paypal+destroyed+my+business&... https://www.google.fi/search?q=amazon+destroyed+my+business&rlz=1C5CHFA_enFI760FI760&oq=amazon+destroyed+my+business&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3j0j69i65.2750j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.fi/search?q=amazon+destroyed+my+business&...
- vec 9y ago
  Yeah, sure, what's your point? I worry about getting screwed over by any of a dozen vendors, including but not limited to our payment processor. I also worry about getting scammed, about losing all our money due to a bug, about costly human errors, and about getting priced out of the market by competitors who take shortcuts I'm not willing to. On balance, we feel that the benefits of sitting behind a payment processor outweigh the drawbacks. Our trust isn't absolute, but we feel the risk of trusting a third party is smaller than the risk we would have to incur by not trusting a third party.
  - Jommi 9y ago
    Exactly! All I wanted to point out that it's a personal decision, not an absolute one.