4 ms·

When a little startup already has better pricing than a well established billion dollar company, that's something to take note of. Most Bitcoin Processors give

When a little startup already has better pricing than a well established billion dollar company, that's something to take note of. Most Bitcoin Processors give confirmation fairly quickly. The customer doesn't have to wait 10 minutes. Taxes shouldn't be too big of an issue. They just get reported like accepting any other foreign currency. As for line of credit... you should check out Ripple.com

betterunix 14y ago
"When a little startup already has better pricing than a well established billion dollar company, that's something to take note of." By selling at a loss. We are not talking about a startup that outprices Amazon by actually doing something technically superior to cut costs, we are talking about a startup that is trying to use a loss leader strategy. Nothing to see here, it's a well known tactic. "Most Bitcoin Processors give confirmation fairly quickly. The customer doesn't have to wait 10 minutes." Last I checked, it was 10-30 minutes. More importantly, isn't using a payment processor defeating the whole point here? What advantage does Amazon get from using a BTC payment processor over Visa? Were we trying to avoid convincing Visa to become a Bitcoin processor? "Taxes shouldn't be too big of an issue. They just get reported like accepting any other foreign currency." Bitcoin is not a foreign currency. In all likelihood, Amazon would have to report taxes on BTC transactions as if they were barter transactions, which basically means reporting the dollar value of the goods being sold. That means that either Amazon has to adjust the prices of goods on a day-by-day basis to account for Bitcoin prices, or take the risk that they will wind up losing money as Bitcoin fluctuates (and without a futures market on Bitcoin, there are few ways to mitigate that risk, except the immediately convert the BTC they receive back into dollars -- so again, why bother with the extra complication?). As for lines of credit, the point is this: issuing a loan in a deflationary currency is a massively bad idea. Deflation makes loans harder to repay over time, and at an accelerating rate. Amazon would have to keep adjusting their interest rate on BTC lines of credit to stave off the possibility of a disaster, which would only make the credit more difficult to utilize. This is widely understood by economists, and it is among the more important reasons that governments work hard to prevent their currencies from deflating.

betterunix 14y ago

"When a little startup already has better pricing than a well established billion dollar company, that's something to take note of." By selling at a loss. We are not talking about a startup that outprices Amazon by actually doing something technically superior to cut costs, we are talking about a startup that is trying to use a loss leader strategy. Nothing to see here, it's a well known tactic. "Most Bitcoin Processors give confirmation fairly quickly. The customer doesn't have to wait 10 minutes." Last I checked, it was 10-30 minutes. More importantly, isn't using a payment processor defeating the whole point here? What advantage does Amazon get from using a BTC payment processor over Visa? Were we trying to avoid convincing Visa to become a Bitcoin processor? "Taxes shouldn't be too big of an issue. They just get reported like accepting any other foreign currency." Bitcoin is not a foreign currency. In all likelihood, Amazon would have to report taxes on BTC transactions as if they were barter transactions, which basically means reporting the dollar value of the goods being sold. That means that either Amazon has to adjust the prices of goods on a day-by-day basis to account for Bitcoin prices, or take the risk that they will wind up losing money as Bitcoin fluctuates (and without a futures market on Bitcoin, there are few ways to mitigate that risk, except the immediately convert the BTC they receive back into dollars -- so again, why bother with the extra complication?). As for lines of credit, the point is this: issuing a loan in a deflationary currency is a massively bad idea. Deflation makes loans harder to repay over time, and at an accelerating rate. Amazon would have to keep adjusting their interest rate on BTC lines of credit to stave off the possibility of a disaster, which would only make the credit more difficult to utilize. This is widely understood by economists, and it is among the more important reasons that governments work hard to prevent their currencies from deflating.