News Amazon says no to Bitcoin

As i explained, even expecting it to beat PayPal adoption from 1999 to 2002, in the same timescale, isnt going to be easy simply because A) PayPal was the first to the scene and made it work, they had little competition going for them which worked for internet transactions for small businesses and regular folks and B) PayPal is a lot easier to get your head around, if someone wants to understand what a bitcoin is, its a rabbit hole of WTF. PayPal worked in fiat and acted more like an online bank account, your £10 stayed £10.

But it'll happen because it needs to happen, and there is no other non-crypto solution which is cost effective for everyone, cheap/cheaper than current options, instant, and can manage micro transactions under all those terms just as it can for £1m.

Im not interested in betting full-stop, theres enough gambling for my tastes in bitcoin as it is. Since when do people need deep pockets to express opinions around here? You seriously want to bet against it so badly you're going to wait 10-20yrs to collect/pay?

 

10-20 years would be a long time to collect Gareth lol. PayPal is not even the number 1 way of paying things on the Internet after what 14 years or something.

Credit cards are a lot safer due to anti fraud these days.

Bit coin price will need to fully stabilise and not move $50 swings in a day before any of the major companies even consider backing it. And that will take the sort of systems that nobody who wants bit coin to succeed want to see happen.

Assuming amazon apple steam is the 3 biggest online retailers ( no clue if this is true or not we can assume it isn't) none of the 3 accept bit coin not even sure all 3 accept paypal.

Contactless payments is the next big target area for most of the major companies.

 

only in the EU

in the usa atitudes to credit cards are a lot more laissez faire - no pin use and not even checking signatures 1/2 the time.

 

Googling a bit of information to back up what your talking about doesnt make you knowledgeable on the subject, Gareth, and clearly talking to 'retailers' doesnt help you much either with the sweeping assumptions you made.

Bitpay isnt even offering the same service as PayPal, its not targeted to the user, its a business solution. If anything its almost identical to a traditional CC processor. As a UK user, you cant even withdraw fiat to your bank account unless you have £1000 in there. Dont recall PayPal having a similar restriction whereby everything you sold, until it hit £1k it wouldnt auto withdraw it (and you cant manually either) so its hardly comparable to PayPal is it?

Every single bitcoin transaction is comparable to what paypal is, its online only, from 1 persons wallet to another persons wallet. Its not designed for businesses, its designed for anyone to use for large or small transactions.
So in that respect, the fact that it handles millions of payments and over $30m every single day, its almost certainly trumps what PayPal were doing in year 2-3. Heck, PayPal wasnt even available to half of Europe for the first handful of years, let alone less developed countries/continents.

So because i dont want to place a bet against something i have every belief will happen, it means im not that certain it will? Only by betting does it validate my belief?
wow.

Some people are capable of believing in something without needing the urge to bet against it, im surprised you've never experienced this before to be honest.

 

What happens if beer becomes the currency of the future your bet could be very expensive in time.

 

paypal is subject to financial regulation and securities - if a transaction goes wrong you have several legal paths you can go down. the same cannot be said of bitcoin (look at mtgox)

 

Paypal is more of an intermediary and not comparable.
If Paypal hypothetically accepted bitcoin you could pay with bitcoin via paypal and get all the protection/fees Paypal has to offer.

Bitcoin aspires to be a currency, not a financial service.
If an unregulated, unprotected company collapses and has your £/$/whatever in (effectively) cash form you are no better protected than mtgox users were.

 

Bit coin if it gets those legal paths will be so far from what it was originally created for it won't be worth a lot anyway.

The bulk of people who are pro bit coin have money invested in it. Personally got rid of what bit coin I had when it hit £500 that was enough for me to walk away.

If bit coin was a flat currency that did not go up and down like a crazy yo yo then it would likely have to have the legal stuff put in it.

As it is bit coin is the land of speculators who I thank as they made me a lot of money but it's just that a speculation will it go up or will it go down.

 

Pretty much the reaction i expected towards a statement with completely selective elements, and about as reasonable as 1 and then an equally generous 3 years for a bet entirely built to your purpose. Congrats on finally being able to put an argument together though, rather than just waffling on about this damn bet you've been desperate for. All that nonsense, and finally you've added something constructive, and only because it was baited out of you.

Had you simply stuck to your job of reporting the story at hand, not elaborated with amusing tales of why theres an uptake in businesses accepting bitcoins as payment, i wouldnt have felt the need to comment to correct you, or express an opinion.

Of course, im now informed it wasnt opinion, again this must be something else i missed upon registering: For any comments made, the intent and meaning behind them will be decided by someone with limited understanding of the matter, and you'll be told your statement isnt worth much unless you're willing to place a bet against it with laughable terms.

A bet we'll forget about... but lets put it into our calendars. Quality.

Its funny though, i'll give you that. Unless of course, its deadly serious? Please advise.

 

Not sure what you mean by legal paths.
Do you mean legal as in a recognised currency or regulation?

There cant really be regulation from a government perspective, but legalisation wouldnt change things, about as far as they're going from a legal standpoint is acknowledging its existence (legalised currency or otherwise) and how they intend to tax those activities. No harm in getting some legal clarification on that, rather than the vagueness where it could be argued in different directions, so nobody really knew where they stood, what was legally acceptable and what wasnt.

You're right on the cost of 'legal stuff' though, where its annoying though is when you really dont need that legal stuff, and yet you've got to pay for it all. Its electronic cash, you hand someone £10 and they get £10, you dont need someone to hold your hand, someone who'll ask for 3.4% or a fixed fee to do that job.

My understanding of coinbase is that its PayPal with bitcoins, though i havent really looked into it but i believe it has those same assurances/protections if you need/desire that peace of mine, and you pay a fee to do so. When you want to send money to a mate overseas, you send it manually. like PP friends & family ('framily' - damn you Sprint!).

Speculating is one aspect, the purchasing of btc with the intention/hope of profiting. I've never bought so much as a single satoshi, made and spent plenty though Its always worth having some btc though, for bitcoins to achieve acceptance and global adoption on any small scale, the value of the currency has to be sufficient enough to handle the financial requirements of its users.

If there is say £100m (MV) worth of btc and the userbase grows to the point where it needs £200m then the qty of coins cant double, the existing coins are in greater demand and that drives the price up accordingly.
It started off as a nothing currency, £3 a pop less than 3yrs ago. Its surpassed Western Union now i believe, but its still fairly small in the grand scheme, but the price had to go up because demand for it went up as adoption went up. As China banned it (twice! great job they're doing too) the price has gone down, demand & adoption went down.
So should adoption get to a place where its fairly commonplace, it gets to anything like PayPal, its going to need more bitcoins or bitcoins have to cost more, and they cant simply make bitcoins beyond what the network was originally designed to allow.

 

it being bitcoin related, would you believe that doesnt surprise me much?

 

Apologies for not reading the whole thread, but wanted to throw in my own view after reading most of page 1.

I've always looked at BitCoin as the next big boom and bust. I don't trust it, and I don't trust the people who control it. It seems to me that someone invents a scheme, people get excited, the safe investors jump ship long before risking their profits, and the larger and greedier fund managers lose lorry-loads of cash.

It seems the value of a BitCoin is about as guaranteed as a bundle of unlabelled subprimes.

 

Bitcoin is the start of a totally new way of thinking about things... Strip aside what it is as it stands and the type of people that are alleged to be involved with it and it plays to the idea that many people do not trust banks or governments. This mistrust goes right through society and people are looking for alternatives to the current "system". Bitcoin is an alternative and it is gaining traction, it may not end up being the final destination - it almost certainly will not (in its current form) but times are changing, the world is changing and there is a desire for something like bitcoin to succeed from people who have the means to make it happen.