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You should check out Bitcoin as a payment option, it was pretty much designed for your use case: http://www.weusecoins.com/en/ http://www.weusecoins.com/en/ Bi

by VMG 13y ago

You should check out Bitcoin as a payment option, it was pretty much designed for your use case: http://www.weusecoins.com/en/ http://www.weusecoins.com/en/ BitPay as a payment processor in particular: https://bitpay.com/ https://bitpay.com/

anuaitt 13y ago
Thanks for the information VMG.
- winter_blue 13y ago
  You should beware that converting bitcoins into INR is going to prove difficult in India. I have not yet heard of a single bitcoin exchange for Indian (INR) users. Correct me if I am wrong.
  - VMG 13y ago
    that's what BitPay.com is for - pays out in local currency
    - winter_blue 13y ago
      (On a bit of a tangent here:) The primary win of BitPay (and bitcoins in general) seems to the elimination of chargebacks. This is good for merchants, but not-so-great for customers. It especially isn't suitable for an environment like eBay where you could potentially have less than trusthworthy sellers. In such a situation it is necessary and beneficial to have some sort of middleman (could even be the government), that you could go to, in case whatever you "bought" wasn't what the seller represented it to be (or really any other such issue).
wfunction 13y ago
How are users supposed to get bitcoin? It's way too difficult right now compared to cash.
- sdfjkl 13y ago
  That's the problem exactly. While I encourage folk to implement bitcoin payment, as a developer I don't expect any significant amount of users to adopt it as regular payment option any time soon. Even my more nerdy friends are being very cautious about it - "regular" people like my parents wouldn't touch it even if they knew what the heck it was.
- VMG 13y ago
  It's a bit of chicken-and-egg problem at the moment, but it has become easier and easier. Blockchain.info + BitStamp works fairly well.
dave_sid 13y ago
I nearly fell off my chair at this response. The app is obviously aimed at non-programmers. Good luck getting them to pay you in Bitcoins.
bradleyjg 13y ago
That's a terrible idea. Bitcoin is difficult to use for both buyer and seller, has high transaction costs, and is associated in the minds of many customers with illegal transactions. All that is secondary though to the extreme lack of stability of value, which is pretty important in a medium of exchange. You might as well be telling him to accept tulips.
- axefrog 13y ago
  High transaction costs? Do you have even the slightest idea of what you're talking about? Bitcoin has pretty much the lowest transaction fees of any payment method, and you can even opt out of transaction fees if you're willing to wait slightly longer for processing.
  - bradleyjg 13y ago
    Transaction fees aren't the only cost. You get killed on the bid/ask spread because the USD/BTC market is very illiquid as compared to say USD/INR. The INR/BTC market is so thin you'd be lucky to get fills at all. I'd be interested to see someone do a USD -> BTC -> INR -> BTC -> USD and see a) if it's even possible in a reasonable amount of time and b) at what cost. Edit: here's a link to an Indian "local integration partner" of bitpay http://indiabitcoin.com/ http://indiabitcoin.com/. They are buying bitcoins for 82% of what they are selling them for.
  - mehwoot 13y ago
    This assumes you already have bitcoins. Like, your job pays you in Bitcoins or something. Oh, that isn't the case? Well expect to pay a transaction fee on buying bitcoins (about 5.65% where I live last time I checked). Once everyone uses bitcoins, it will be a different story. Until then, it's pretty much like anything else.

by VMG 13y ago

anuaitt 13y ago

Thanks for the information VMG.

winter_blue 13y ago
You should beware that converting bitcoins into INR is going to prove difficult in India. I have not yet heard of a single bitcoin exchange for Indian (INR) users. Correct me if I am wrong.
- VMG 13y ago
  that's what BitPay.com is for - pays out in local currency
  - winter_blue 13y ago
    (On a bit of a tangent here:) The primary win of BitPay (and bitcoins in general) seems to the elimination of chargebacks. This is good for merchants, but not-so-great for customers. It especially isn't suitable for an environment like eBay where you could potentially have less than trusthworthy sellers. In such a situation it is necessary and beneficial to have some sort of middleman (could even be the government), that you could go to, in case whatever you "bought" wasn't what the seller represented it to be (or really any other such issue).

wfunction 13y ago

How are users supposed to get bitcoin? It's way too difficult right now compared to cash.

sdfjkl 13y ago
That's the problem exactly. While I encourage folk to implement bitcoin payment, as a developer I don't expect any significant amount of users to adopt it as regular payment option any time soon. Even my more nerdy friends are being very cautious about it - "regular" people like my parents wouldn't touch it even if they knew what the heck it was.
VMG 13y ago
It's a bit of chicken-and-egg problem at the moment, but it has become easier and easier. Blockchain.info + BitStamp works fairly well.

dave_sid 13y ago

I nearly fell off my chair at this response. The app is obviously aimed at non-programmers. Good luck getting them to pay you in Bitcoins.

bradleyjg 13y ago

That's a terrible idea. Bitcoin is difficult to use for both buyer and seller, has high transaction costs, and is associated in the minds of many customers with illegal transactions. All that is secondary though to the extreme lack of stability of value, which is pretty important in a medium of exchange. You might as well be telling him to accept tulips.

axefrog 13y ago
High transaction costs? Do you have even the slightest idea of what you're talking about? Bitcoin has pretty much the lowest transaction fees of any payment method, and you can even opt out of transaction fees if you're willing to wait slightly longer for processing.
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  Transaction fees aren't the only cost. You get killed on the bid/ask spread because the USD/BTC market is very illiquid as compared to say USD/INR. The INR/BTC market is so thin you'd be lucky to get fills at all. I'd be interested to see someone do a USD -> BTC -> INR -> BTC -> USD and see a) if it's even possible in a reasonable amount of time and b) at what cost. Edit: here's a link to an Indian "local integration partner" of bitpay http://indiabitcoin.com/ http://indiabitcoin.com/. They are buying bitcoins for 82% of what they are selling them for.
- mehwoot 13y ago
  This assumes you already have bitcoins. Like, your job pays you in Bitcoins or something. Oh, that isn't the case? Well expect to pay a transaction fee on buying bitcoins (about 5.65% where I live last time I checked). Once everyone uses bitcoins, it will be a different story. Until then, it's pretty much like anything else.