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They don't accept Bitcoin as Bitcoin. They only employ a third-party service to take Bitcoin on their behalf and exchange them for US dollars. It's not showing

by Sprint 13y ago

They don't accept Bitcoin as Bitcoin. They only employ a third-party service to take Bitcoin on their behalf and exchange them for US dollars. It's not showing any trust in Bitcoin, just hopping on a bandwagon for PR.

jasonlingx 13y ago
Just goes to show, you don't need to trust bitcoin to use bitcoin ;)
josu 13y ago
How is that different from accepting credit cards via a third party?
- xander7b 13y ago
  If they had faith on the long-term future of BitCoin, they would have accepted them as BitCoins and stored them as some sort of an investment rather than immediately converting them to USD.
  - yelnatz 13y ago
    It's still a method of accepting payment.
  - pandler 13y ago
    Isn't that a bit paradoxical? If the long term success of BitCoin rides on people using it to make transactions (e.g. paying for games by zynga), then what good is it for businesses to hoard large amounts of it for speculation?
  - pandler 13y ago
    Isn't that a bit paradoxical? If the long term success of BitCoin rides on people using it to make transactions (e.g. paying for games by zynga), then what good is it for businesses to hoard large amounts of it for speculation?
  - merloen 13y ago
    Companies don't like having their costs in one currency, and their revenue in another. It's called currency risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_risk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_risk) and companies generally try to avoid it or hedge against it.
  - josu 13y ago
    Don't forget that bitcoin is also a payment system.
jedc 13y ago
I think the first half of your statement is true (employing a third-party service to take Bitcoin) but the second half (automatically exchanging them to USD) is an assumption that can change over time as Zynga gets comfortable managing Bitcoin. I would think it's valuable for the entire Bitcoin network to have more merchants accepting it than less, so how is Zynga accepting Bitcoin a bad thing?
- poolpool 13y ago
  They are not accepting bitcoin. They are partnering with a company to handle whatever needs to be done to give them real live USD they can put in their bank accounts. They are still only accepting USD: just making it easier for people with bitcoin to give USD to them.
  - shawabawa3 13y ago
    What they do with the payment after receiving it is irrelevant. You can pay using bitcoin. It doesn't make any difference to the customer that it's going through another company and getting converted to USD
    - triptychs 13y ago
      The thing to remember here is that people are changing USD > BTC, paying with BTC, and then that BTC is going back to USD. What's the point? This accomplishes nothing other than allowing Bitcoin exchanges to collect tx fees between customers and Zynga. It's non-conducive to adoption. On the other hand, if Zynga were holding BTC, paying employees in BTC, and those employees started consuming with BTC, then they would actually be "using" it. Otherwise it's the same exact thing as punching in your credit card details.
    - poolpool 13y ago
      Yes and I can pay for everything with euros in the United States by that logic. All I have to do is go to a friendly bank on the corner and convert to USD.
kolev 13y ago
I got into a public dispute with Max Keiser and his psychotic followers about this and people said it was semantics. There are three distinct moments: 1) Accepting Bitcoin (kudos to BitPay and Coinbase for making it so easy!), which is primarily a cheap PR move; 2) Having real commerce going thru this channel (i.e. volume as USD equivalent) - everybody seems shy about it; and 3) Truly accepting Bitcoin into a Bitcoin wallet!

by Sprint 13y ago

jasonlingx 13y ago

Just goes to show, you don't need to trust bitcoin to use bitcoin ;)

josu 13y ago

How is that different from accepting credit cards via a third party?

xander7b 13y ago
If they had faith on the long-term future of BitCoin, they would have accepted them as BitCoins and stored them as some sort of an investment rather than immediately converting them to USD.
- yelnatz 13y ago
  It's still a method of accepting payment.
- pandler 13y ago
  Isn't that a bit paradoxical? If the long term success of BitCoin rides on people using it to make transactions (e.g. paying for games by zynga), then what good is it for businesses to hoard large amounts of it for speculation?
- pandler 13y ago
  Isn't that a bit paradoxical? If the long term success of BitCoin rides on people using it to make transactions (e.g. paying for games by zynga), then what good is it for businesses to hoard large amounts of it for speculation?
- merloen 13y ago
  Companies don't like having their costs in one currency, and their revenue in another. It's called currency risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_risk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_risk) and companies generally try to avoid it or hedge against it.
- josu 13y ago
  Don't forget that bitcoin is also a payment system.

jedc 13y ago

I think the first half of your statement is true (employing a third-party service to take Bitcoin) but the second half (automatically exchanging them to USD) is an assumption that can change over time as Zynga gets comfortable managing Bitcoin. I would think it's valuable for the entire Bitcoin network to have more merchants accepting it than less, so how is Zynga accepting Bitcoin a bad thing?

poolpool 13y ago
They are not accepting bitcoin. They are partnering with a company to handle whatever needs to be done to give them real live USD they can put in their bank accounts. They are still only accepting USD: just making it easier for people with bitcoin to give USD to them.
- shawabawa3 13y ago
  What they do with the payment after receiving it is irrelevant. You can pay using bitcoin. It doesn't make any difference to the customer that it's going through another company and getting converted to USD
  - triptychs 13y ago
    The thing to remember here is that people are changing USD > BTC, paying with BTC, and then that BTC is going back to USD. What's the point? This accomplishes nothing other than allowing Bitcoin exchanges to collect tx fees between customers and Zynga. It's non-conducive to adoption. On the other hand, if Zynga were holding BTC, paying employees in BTC, and those employees started consuming with BTC, then they would actually be "using" it. Otherwise it's the same exact thing as punching in your credit card details.
  - poolpool 13y ago
    Yes and I can pay for everything with euros in the United States by that logic. All I have to do is go to a friendly bank on the corner and convert to USD.

kolev 13y ago

I got into a public dispute with Max Keiser and his psychotic followers about this and people said it was semantics. There are three distinct moments: 1) Accepting Bitcoin (kudos to BitPay and Coinbase for making it so easy!), which is primarily a cheap PR move; 2) Having real commerce going thru this channel (i.e. volume as USD equivalent) - everybody seems shy about it; and 3) Truly accepting Bitcoin into a Bitcoin wallet!