11 ms·

Shopify accepts Bitcoin

218 points by rasengan 13y ago

achalkley 13y ago
This is really forward thinking Shopify! Great news.
- ewang1 13y ago
  Well, there's little risk to Shopify in allowing bitcoins to be used. Any risk is still on the seller.
  - achalkley 13y ago
    Risk in what way?
    - grey-area 13y ago
      Given the volatility, probably price fluctuations is the main risk. That could have an upside or a downside for a seller. The seller would also have to trust bitpay (who it seems shopify are using) to store the coins securely, but that's really just like trusting any other payment provider, and hopefully bitpay have insurance and proper financial controls, unlike many exchanges. Great to see this happening though - I wonder what the comparison on fees is between accepting bitcoin and credit cards, have the fees just moved from one provider (mastercard say) to another (bitpay), or are they significantly lower? Is there anyone here accepting bitcoin who can enlighten us on the pros and cons?
      - nwh 13y ago
        They use Bitpay, all the incoming transactions are converted to USD automatically.
      - unlimited_power 13y ago
        I am not accepting bitcoin or using BitPay but the fees seem to be much lower than any credit card: https://bitpay.com/pricing https://bitpay.com/pricing Also, I'm not sure what you mean by price fluctuations. BitPay accepts bitcoin from the customer and automatically converts it to the seller's local currency at market price. So the price is always fair and the seller never deals with bitcoin.
        grey-area 13y ago
        I am not accepting bitcoin or using BitPay but the fees seem to be much lower than any credit card Sounds good at $30 a month or 1% per transaction, $30 per month almost too good to be true, but I guess they can make it up in volume if they have enough customers sending payments through. The only drawback would be persuading customers to pay in bitcoin, but that could come in time. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by price fluctuations. BitPay accepts bitcoin from the customer and automatically converts it to the seller's local currency at market price. So the price is always fair and the seller never deals with bitcoin. Ah I see, thanks for the correction - I'd assumed the seller set a price in bitcoin. Can't see much risk for sellers then if the prices are not set in bitcoin and it goes through a payment processor who moves it immediately to their local currency, and pays out (immediately?). I guess bitpay then has the risk as they have to hold bitcoins till they can sell them and deal with fluctuations in the meantime.
        makomk 13y ago
        I think the risk for the sellers is that the price fluctuations may exceed Bitpay's ability to smooth them out causing them to go bankrupt.
- kineticfocus 13y ago
  It's an interesting company... (HR vid 'Draw the Owl') https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSe2imUyvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSe2imUyvg
  - AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
    The CEO looks high as a kite.
pbreit 13y ago
Will be interesting to see if Shopify (or anyone in general ecommerce) ever reports on the popularity of Bitcoin as a payment method considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries.
- jzwinck 13y ago
  No reason to use Bitcoin to purpose legal items? How about not having to divulge your credit card or bank account details to sellers? This exact same problem is apparently important enough that even the established players are trying to solve it, with things like one-time use credit card numbers and third-party authentication pages.
  - MichaelApproved 13y ago
    A bit off topic but is anyone trying to work subscription payments with bitcoin? Is that even possible without something like a prefunded account?
    - achalkley 13y ago
      The only way you could do it without a "pre funded" account (online like Coinbase) was if you had a RPC-Client for your transactional wallet, say on your local machine. This client would schedule payments.
      - unlimited_power 13y ago
        Also take a look at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjusted_.28micro.29payments_to_a_pre-determined_party https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_7:_Rapidly-adju...
- RickHull 13y ago
  > considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries. This is quite asinine. I assume you've never tried to purchase an item in country A from merchant A' accepting currency A'', while you are in country B using bank B' with an account denominated in B''. The hurdles, generally, are numerous and diverse. Any lack of hurdles is quite exceptional, and completely dependent upon international agreements between nations, banks, and any number of permutations thereof. Instead, you could simply transact in BTC.
kristopher 13y ago
For those who had a hard time finding the official information, I will repost it here: Brian Alkerton Shopify Employee Hey Everyone, Just a quick update on this: our Bitpay integration is feature-complete and can be added to your store now. Due to the fact that it's a very new feature and not something we're ready to roll out to all stores just yet, you will need to contact me to have it enabled, and I may want to follow up with you for your feedback once you've been using it for a while, but it works. When active, Bitpay will appear as a credit card processor in the Checkout page of your shop admin - enter your access key and you'll be all set to go. One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way as the other credit card processors on Shopify, meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors. PayPal Express Checkout can be used as a secondary option with Bitpay in the same way it can be used with all other gateways. To activate, email me your shop URL at brian@shopify.com and I'll do my best to get everyone up and running promptly!
- krrrh 13y ago
  One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way as the other credit card processors on Shopify, meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors. This is so half-assed, and frankly sort of typical in terms of the strange limitations that Shopify saddles you with (similar to how it took them 5 years to fix their database so you could modify a shipping address as a merchant). Sure, it would be fun to have a button that allows a customer to pay with bitcoin if they want to or are able to, but how many merchants would forgo credit card processing in favor of bitcoin? This "feature" is link-bait, and nothing more at this time.
atmosx 13y ago
BitCoin can be better viewed as gold. If you would use gold to buy something then you will use BTC (illegal markets apart of course). But peercoin could stand a chance to become a sort of online trading currency because of it's inflationary[1] policy. Something BitCoin should also have in order to become a widely accepted currency instead of a hoarding mechanism that gives the early adopters huge advantage over anyone else. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin#Steady_inflation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin#Steady_inflation [1]: http://ppcoin.org/ http://ppcoin.org/
- negamax 13y ago
  Gold is inflationary. There's infinite amount of that on asteroids and other planets. Bitcoin is totally an asset. It will probably have far wider usage than currency.
  - atmosx 13y ago
    I wrote a 30+ words comment, but to make it shorter: * The nature of BitCoin could make it from an asset worth 350 USD to 0 USD overnight. * Gold has been there for centuries. I won't even comment on the asteroid thing.
    - jafaku 13y ago
      > I won't even comment on the asteroid thing. Because you can't refute it?
      - atmosx 13y ago
        No I can't. Neither I can refute that you're... Batman!
      - TillE 13y ago
        Nobody will be mining asteroids and shipping the resources back to Earth within our lifetimes. Certainly not profitably. It's a complete irrelevance unless you're specifically talking about 100+ years in the future.
jwmoz 13y ago
To the moon!
- shloime 13y ago
  Stores want bitcoin as a secondary method of payment, not a first...
knodi 13y ago
Bitcoins are better not spent these days as they seem to increase in value almost 10%-20% daily.
- d4vlx 13y ago
  To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments. If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?
  - oleganza 13y ago
    One way to start selling a bit of your stash is to actually spend some part of it. No hassle with exchanges, no fees and no tax implications. Historically, people were more willing to "cash out" by spending coins during boom periods: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=7&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popu...
    - d4vlx 13y ago
      > One way to start selling a bit is to actually spend them. That is what I was getting at, in order for Bitcoin to have a reason to exist people must spend them on goods and services. Bitcoin most likely would not exist for long if it became purely a store of wealth. Not that that will happens but many people are treating that way. > no tax implications Wouldn't that be tax evasion?
      - Toucan 13y ago
        UK point of view: No, it's tax avoidance. Tax will still be paid in the form of VAT/Sales Tax and Corporation Tax. You avoid paying Capital Gains tax.
      - oleganza 13y ago
wcummings 13y ago
It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it. I prefer Bitcoin for online purchases, if a vendor accepts it, I'll use it. Purchases aren't tracked, or being sucked up by some SIGINT program, no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right) and I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.
- panarky 13y ago
  I've also had good experiences using Bitcoin for online transactions. Fast, cross-border, nearly free. But I assume the transactions are getting analyzed by any number of government and corporate entities. There's a lot to be learned from the public blockchain, especially if any transaction in the chain can be linked to your identity (such as sending/receiving with exchanges or online wallets). I assume that authorities have access to your identity at exchanges and online wallets, can link your identity to addresses used for deposits and withdrawals, to IP addresses you use, and from there to historical and future transactions.
  - wcummings 13y ago
    Pseudo-anonymity is still loads better than a CC transaction from my point of view, but your point is taken. Of course, you can always buy Bitcoin with cash (:
    - tjoff 13y ago
      Many purchases requires that you reveal your whereabouts or otherwise identify yourself (physcial address, mail, phone number, google/service-account). And bam, you and all your transactions with the bitcoins you bought with cash are once again public.
      - wcummings 13y ago
        I think most people are familiar with what pseudo-anonymous means, no need to keep restating it in different ways.
knotty66 13y ago
Every story I Hear from Shopify seems good. Thanks Tobias and the rest of you guys. And thanks for open sourcing so much. Especially Liquid templates and Batman.js.
knotty66 13y ago
Every story I Hear from Shopify seems good. Thanks Tobias and the rest of you guys. And thanks for open sourcing so much. Especially Liquid templates and Batman.js.
kmook 13y ago
I am starting to see services like this http://www.freesafeip.com/bitcoin http://www.freesafeip.com/bitcoin which is a more generic version of another similar service http://pizzaforcoins.com/ http://pizzaforcoins.com/ It may be a matter of time before any site can accept bitcoins indirectly if people started using these services.
QuasiAlon 13y ago
Is this a bigger thing for Bitcoin or for Shopify. One the one hand, another sign of bitcoin being integrated into mainstream sites. On the other hand, quite possibly Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins (assuming they have a profit margin). imho and everything :)
- walden42 13y ago
  > Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins They're using BitPay's service to instantly convert to fiat, so they're not getting any bitcoins.
  - QuasiAlon 13y ago
    Interesting. Thank you very much for your comment.
    - walden42 13y ago
      No problem!
SkyMarshal 13y ago
If any shopify folks still reading this, have you had any issues with your bank refusing to do business with merchants that accept bitcoin? Been hearing that new bitcoin companies are having problems along these lines, due to increasing FDIC scrutiny.

218 points by rasengan 13y ago

achalkley 13y ago

This is really forward thinking Shopify! Great news.

ewang1 13y ago
Well, there's little risk to Shopify in allowing bitcoins to be used. Any risk is still on the seller.
- achalkley 13y ago
  Risk in what way?
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Given the volatility, probably price fluctuations is the main risk. That could have an upside or a downside for a seller. The seller would also have to trust bitpay (who it seems shopify are using) to store the coins securely, but that's really just like trusting any other payment provider, and hopefully bitpay have insurance and proper financial controls, unlike many exchanges. Great to see this happening though - I wonder what the comparison on fees is between accepting bitcoin and credit cards, have the fees just moved from one provider (mastercard say) to another (bitpay), or are they significantly lower? Is there anyone here accepting bitcoin who can enlighten us on the pros and cons?
    - nwh 13y ago
      They use Bitpay, all the incoming transactions are converted to USD automatically.
    - unlimited_power 13y ago
      I am not accepting bitcoin or using BitPay but the fees seem to be much lower than any credit card: https://bitpay.com/pricing https://bitpay.com/pricing Also, I'm not sure what you mean by price fluctuations. BitPay accepts bitcoin from the customer and automatically converts it to the seller's local currency at market price. So the price is always fair and the seller never deals with bitcoin.
      - grey-area 13y ago
        I am not accepting bitcoin or using BitPay but the fees seem to be much lower than any credit card Sounds good at $30 a month or 1% per transaction, $30 per month almost too good to be true, but I guess they can make it up in volume if they have enough customers sending payments through. The only drawback would be persuading customers to pay in bitcoin, but that could come in time. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by price fluctuations. BitPay accepts bitcoin from the customer and automatically converts it to the seller's local currency at market price. So the price is always fair and the seller never deals with bitcoin. Ah I see, thanks for the correction - I'd assumed the seller set a price in bitcoin. Can't see much risk for sellers then if the prices are not set in bitcoin and it goes through a payment processor who moves it immediately to their local currency, and pays out (immediately?). I guess bitpay then has the risk as they have to hold bitcoins till they can sell them and deal with fluctuations in the meantime.
        makomk 13y ago
        I think the risk for the sellers is that the price fluctuations may exceed Bitpay's ability to smooth them out causing them to go bankrupt.
kineticfocus 13y ago
It's an interesting company... (HR vid 'Draw the Owl') https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSe2imUyvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSe2imUyvg
- AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
  The CEO looks high as a kite.

pbreit 13y ago

Will be interesting to see if Shopify (or anyone in general ecommerce) ever reports on the popularity of Bitcoin as a payment method considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries.

jzwinck 13y ago
No reason to use Bitcoin to purpose legal items? How about not having to divulge your credit card or bank account details to sellers? This exact same problem is apparently important enough that even the established players are trying to solve it, with things like one-time use credit card numbers and third-party authentication pages.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  A bit off topic but is anyone trying to work subscription payments with bitcoin? Is that even possible without something like a prefunded account?
  - achalkley 13y ago
    The only way you could do it without a "pre funded" account (online like Coinbase) was if you had a RPC-Client for your transactional wallet, say on your local machine. This client would schedule payments.
    - unlimited_power 13y ago
      Also take a look at: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjusted_.28micro.29payments_to_a_pre-determined_party https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_7:_Rapidly-adju...
RickHull 13y ago
> considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries. This is quite asinine. I assume you've never tried to purchase an item in country A from merchant A' accepting currency A'', while you are in country B using bank B' with an account denominated in B''. The hurdles, generally, are numerous and diverse. Any lack of hurdles is quite exceptional, and completely dependent upon international agreements between nations, banks, and any number of permutations thereof. Instead, you could simply transact in BTC.

kristopher 13y ago

For those who had a hard time finding the official information, I will repost it here: Brian Alkerton Shopify Employee Hey Everyone, Just a quick update on this: our Bitpay integration is feature-complete and can be added to your store now. Due to the fact that it's a very new feature and not something we're ready to roll out to all stores just yet, you will need to contact me to have it enabled, and I may want to follow up with you for your feedback once you've been using it for a while, but it works. When active, Bitpay will appear as a credit card processor in the Checkout page of your shop admin - enter your access key and you'll be all set to go. One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way as the other credit card processors on Shopify, meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors. PayPal Express Checkout can be used as a secondary option with Bitpay in the same way it can be used with all other gateways. To activate, email me your shop URL at brian@shopify.com and I'll do my best to get everyone up and running promptly!

krrrh 13y ago
One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way as the other credit card processors on Shopify, meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors. This is so half-assed, and frankly sort of typical in terms of the strange limitations that Shopify saddles you with (similar to how it took them 5 years to fix their database so you could modify a shipping address as a merchant). Sure, it would be fun to have a button that allows a customer to pay with bitcoin if they want to or are able to, but how many merchants would forgo credit card processing in favor of bitcoin? This "feature" is link-bait, and nothing more at this time.

atmosx 13y ago

BitCoin can be better viewed as gold. If you would use gold to buy something then you will use BTC (illegal markets apart of course). But peercoin could stand a chance to become a sort of online trading currency because of it's inflationary[1] policy. Something BitCoin should also have in order to become a widely accepted currency instead of a hoarding mechanism that gives the early adopters huge advantage over anyone else. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin#Steady_inflation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin#Steady_inflation [1]: http://ppcoin.org/ http://ppcoin.org/

negamax 13y ago
Gold is inflationary. There's infinite amount of that on asteroids and other planets. Bitcoin is totally an asset. It will probably have far wider usage than currency.
- atmosx 13y ago
  I wrote a 30+ words comment, but to make it shorter: * The nature of BitCoin could make it from an asset worth 350 USD to 0 USD overnight. * Gold has been there for centuries. I won't even comment on the asteroid thing.
  - jafaku 13y ago
    > I won't even comment on the asteroid thing. Because you can't refute it?
    - atmosx 13y ago
      No I can't. Neither I can refute that you're... Batman!
    - TillE 13y ago
      Nobody will be mining asteroids and shipping the resources back to Earth within our lifetimes. Certainly not profitably. It's a complete irrelevance unless you're specifically talking about 100+ years in the future.

jwmoz 13y ago

To the moon!

shloime 13y ago
Stores want bitcoin as a secondary method of payment, not a first...

knodi 13y ago

Bitcoins are better not spent these days as they seem to increase in value almost 10%-20% daily.

d4vlx 13y ago
To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments. If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?
- oleganza 13y ago
  One way to start selling a bit of your stash is to actually spend some part of it. No hassle with exchanges, no fees and no tax implications. Historically, people were more willing to "cash out" by spending coins during boom periods: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=7&show_header=true&scale=0&address= https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popu...
  - d4vlx 13y ago
    > One way to start selling a bit is to actually spend them. That is what I was getting at, in order for Bitcoin to have a reason to exist people must spend them on goods and services. Bitcoin most likely would not exist for long if it became purely a store of wealth. Not that that will happens but many people are treating that way. > no tax implications Wouldn't that be tax evasion?
    - Toucan 13y ago
      UK point of view: No, it's tax avoidance. Tax will still be paid in the form of VAT/Sales Tax and Corporation Tax. You avoid paying Capital Gains tax.
    - oleganza 13y ago

wcummings 13y ago

It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it. I prefer Bitcoin for online purchases, if a vendor accepts it, I'll use it. Purchases aren't tracked, or being sucked up by some SIGINT program, no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right) and I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.

panarky 13y ago
I've also had good experiences using Bitcoin for online transactions. Fast, cross-border, nearly free. But I assume the transactions are getting analyzed by any number of government and corporate entities. There's a lot to be learned from the public blockchain, especially if any transaction in the chain can be linked to your identity (such as sending/receiving with exchanges or online wallets). I assume that authorities have access to your identity at exchanges and online wallets, can link your identity to addresses used for deposits and withdrawals, to IP addresses you use, and from there to historical and future transactions.
- wcummings 13y ago
  Pseudo-anonymity is still loads better than a CC transaction from my point of view, but your point is taken. Of course, you can always buy Bitcoin with cash (:
  - tjoff 13y ago
    Many purchases requires that you reveal your whereabouts or otherwise identify yourself (physcial address, mail, phone number, google/service-account). And bam, you and all your transactions with the bitcoins you bought with cash are once again public.
    - wcummings 13y ago
      I think most people are familiar with what pseudo-anonymous means, no need to keep restating it in different ways.

knotty66 13y ago

Every story I Hear from Shopify seems good. Thanks Tobias and the rest of you guys. And thanks for open sourcing so much. Especially Liquid templates and Batman.js.

knotty66 13y ago

Every story I Hear from Shopify seems good. Thanks Tobias and the rest of you guys. And thanks for open sourcing so much. Especially Liquid templates and Batman.js.

kmook 13y ago

I am starting to see services like this http://www.freesafeip.com/bitcoin http://www.freesafeip.com/bitcoin which is a more generic version of another similar service http://pizzaforcoins.com/ http://pizzaforcoins.com/ It may be a matter of time before any site can accept bitcoins indirectly if people started using these services.

QuasiAlon 13y ago

Is this a bigger thing for Bitcoin or for Shopify. One the one hand, another sign of bitcoin being integrated into mainstream sites. On the other hand, quite possibly Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins (assuming they have a profit margin). imho and everything :)

walden42 13y ago
> Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins They're using BitPay's service to instantly convert to fiat, so they're not getting any bitcoins.
- QuasiAlon 13y ago
  Interesting. Thank you very much for your comment.
  - walden42 13y ago
    No problem!

SkyMarshal 13y ago

If any shopify folks still reading this, have you had any issues with your bank refusing to do business with merchants that accept bitcoin? Been hearing that new bitcoin companies are having problems along these lines, due to increasing FDIC scrutiny.