Bitcoin

howamidifferent

Posted by someone else earlier. Shows locations that accept BTC.

http://www.coinmap.org/

AtomicHorror

pedronomix wrote: »

This may be a rather naive question, are there any actual businesses in Ireland that accept Bitcoin payments for goods or services?

About 5 bricks and mortar businesses (see Coinmap), I don't know how many online businesses. There's a couple in Northern Ireland too.

Not much, but not nothing.

Inquitus

AtomicHorror wrote: »

About 5 bricks and mortar businesses (see Coinmap), I don't know how many online businesses. There's a couple in Northern Ireland too.

Not much, but not nothing.

closer to nothing than much though!

To the mooon!

pedronomix

It will be interesting to see haw crypto currencies evolve but clearly they are still some distance from being relevant to the vast majority of businesses. With 275 posts so far, they are certainly a talking point and arouse some pretty strong responses from proponents and sceptics alike !

CelticRambler

Stamply wrote: »

Bitcoins are certainly of interest to businesses due to their potential future as an easy-to-use web currency that makes payment online as easy as email. ... Its a public service to inform businesses of powerful trends and considering the sheer pace of change on the web, BTC could be widespread in a mere 5 years.

Of course it might tank, but if it doesn't, if it is widely used among consumers in 5 years and business owners only learn about it then, they will be playing catch-up in the pacy world of online commerce...

If I was an established business owner now, I would certainly want to be aware of BTC ...

If I was an established business (read online retailer) now, I would be accepting BTC, but I'm not. I stand by my comments above, which I would say are reinforced by the two subsequent posts listing far more altcoins than I was aware of. For me as a trader, that's the problem: there's nothing unique about BTC.

I simply don't believe the "neglibile" transaction fees are sustainable in the longterm, and even if they remain modest, there's nothing - absolutely nothing - to stop Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, PayPal or any other payment processor slashing their fees as soon as they start to feel threatened. OK, AMEX won't, but the others probably will. We've already seen it, and who's going to have the marketing advantage when speaking to the brain-dead audience that drives most of our commerce - Visa/Mastercard or Bitcoin? And how many businesses are really going to sink or swim based on 20ct transactions?

But let's say BTC holds its own and is in "widespread" use throughout the first world in five years. It's no bother for any business owner to play catch up. Small businesses will always be more flexible than the monoliths, and most small businesses will take anything in payment if they can re-use it. Just prior to the arrival of the Euro, I made one quick 'phone call to my IT provider, had my till software updated to take every legacy currency and announced to my local UK city that anyone could pay their bill in any soon-to-be obsolete Eurozone money. "Catch-up" took all of about 2 minutes - no-one in the business needs to know how cryptocurrencies work as long as the funds end up in the till.

pedronomix

Garrett FitzGerald would have loved it! Most importantly, it works in theory and who cares about practice! The thinking man's trading beads!

Stamply

CelticRambler wrote: »

If I was an established business (read online retailer) now, I would be accepting BTC, but I'm not. I stand by my comments above, which I would say are reinforced by the two subsequent posts listing far more altcoins than I was aware of. For me as a trader, that's the problem: there's nothing unique about BTC.

I simply don't believe the "neglibile" transaction fees are sustainable in the longterm, and even if they remain modest, there's nothing - absolutely nothing - to stop Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, PayPal or any other payment processor slashing their fees as soon as they start to feel threatened. OK, AMEX won't, but the others probably will. We've already seen it, and who's going to have the marketing advantage when speaking to the brain-dead audience that drives most of our commerce - Visa/Mastercard or Bitcoin? And how many businesses are really going to sink or swim based on 20ct transactions?

But let's say BTC holds its own and is in "widespread" use throughout the first world in five years. It's no bother for any business owner to play catch up. Small businesses will always be more flexible than the monoliths, and most small businesses will take anything in payment if they can re-use it. Just prior to the arrival of the Euro, I made one quick 'phone call to my IT provider, had my till software updated to take every legacy currency and announced to my local UK city that anyone could pay their bill in any soon-to-be obsolete Eurozone money. "Catch-up" took all of about 2 minutes - no-one in the business needs to know how cryptocurrencies work as long as the funds end up in the till.

If they succeed in forcing traditional payment processors to reduce their fees then that is a big success. And if they succeed in this they will also have proved their utility by definition, so there will be many people around the world who will use the currency for ideological reasons rather than purely financial, i.e. they don't want middle men...

Your post seems to be a negative point against Bitcoin, but it is actually very positive...

alb

My join date on boards is 2001, and I lurked for quite a while before I even signed up. I remember how it was then. My non-techy friends would never use any online forum, people used to ask me why anyone would ever want to talk to, or discuss things with, 'strangers on the internet', People would say it was only for nerds and techies. The more the user base on boards grows, the more it can support more forums, and the more forums it supports the wider an audience of new users it appeals to. Like Bitcoin, the utility boards has increases as it gains more users.

Many people I know that ridiculed the idea of boards or IRC or any internet text-based communication in general now use boards, twitter and facebook etc. At first the services were clunky, niche and took technical knowledge to use but the combination of utility growing with user base, and technological advances (e.g. better search, smart phones) making use easier, lead to large growth.

I know these are very general observations, but I feel like I'm seeing the same pattern again, I grew up through the computing and internet revolution and I feel like I'm seeing the same pattern again, except this time I realise the potential. When a new technology offers benefits over existing technology, gains utility as the userbase grows and is steadily gaining more users I think the odds of continued success are good. It will either fail to ever gain critical mass or it will continue to grow until market saturation or until it is replaced by something better.

Do I think Bitcoin as money has already reached critical mass? It has for sure among enthusiasts, techies and black markets. Even if exchanges were outlawed globally tomorrow it would just go underground but still exist. I don't think it has reached critical mass yet in terms of the general public, but I think its close enough. The current growth rate (of all aspects - market cap, users, services, exchanges, media attention) is so fast that if there is no hostile intervention from US and European governments I can see it being at critical mass by the end of 2014 (assuming it does not fail for some unforeseen technical reason of course).

pedronomix

2001, wow! We have had some exciting times since, dot com and property bubbles and bursts, add in massive banking systemic failure. Look at all the tech firms that are no longer with us. Being prescient in hindsight is not a great talent!

alb

pedronomix wrote: »

2001, wow! We have had some exciting times since, dot com and property bubbles and bursts, add in massive banking systemic failure. Look at all the tech firms that are no longer with us. Being prescient in hindsight is not a great talent!

Email and Internet companies came and went for sure, but the original protocols, TCP/IP, IMAP, HTTP have stayed in use, and more people use them today than ever before. The usage of the invention of the internet or email never crashed, just bad companies trying to cash in on the hype.

So in fact, I agree with you, if the invention of Bitcoin suceeds there will most likely be a boom and bust of Bitcoin companies too, and this can happen without the usage of Bitcoin itself ever reducing. It could be mining companies, mining hardware producers, alternative coins etc.

Also, I've been outspoken on boards about the risk of property investment before, I have never owned property. I'm also no fan of dependency on banks too big to fail, which is one of the main reasons I'm interested in Bitcoin.

alb

CelticRambler wrote: »

If I was an established business (read online retailer) now, I would be accepting BTC, but I'm not. I stand by my comments above, which I would say are reinforced by the two subsequent posts listing far more altcoins than I was aware of. For me as a trader, that's the problem: there's nothing unique about BTC.

No argument here, except the last point - what's unique about BTC is its level of adoption - it has by far the largest mining power supporting it, and by far the largest number of supporting services and merchants (bitpay, range of wallet software etc).

CelticRambler wrote: »

I simply don't believe the "neglibile" transaction fees are sustainable in the longterm, and even if they remain modest, there's nothing - absolutely nothing - to stop Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, PayPal or any other payment processor slashing their fees as soon as they start to feel threatened. OK, AMEX won't, but the others probably will. We've already seen it, and who's going to have the marketing advantage when speaking to the brain-dead audience that drives most of our commerce - Visa/Mastercard or Bitcoin? And how many businesses are really going to sink or swim based on 20ct transactions?

Credit card companies for online transactions will never be able to compete because their product was never intended for online transactions. It is fundamentally flawed in terms of security for online purchases, and it will never be possible for them to provide their service as cheaply as the Bitcoin network can do it. It's like saying the post office could compete with email by lowering the price of stamps and increasing delivery speed.

Paypal have a better chance, especially if they incorporate crypto currencies into their existing products. They don't need to compete with crypto necessarily, they could use their existing position to become one of the leaders in crypto-based services.

CelticRambler wrote: »

But let's say BTC holds its own and is in "widespread" use throughout the first world in five years. It's no bother for any business owner to play catch up. Small businesses will always be more flexible than the monoliths, and most small businesses will take anything in payment if they can re-use it. Just prior to the arrival of the Euro, I made one quick 'phone call to my IT provider, had my till software updated to take every legacy currency and announced to my local UK city that anyone could pay their bill in any soon-to-be obsolete Eurozone money. "Catch-up" took all of about 2 minutes - no-one in the business needs to know how cryptocurrencies work as long as the funds end up in the till.

Agree, and I suspect it may be more like the next 1 or 2 years rather than 5 when this is easy enough for merchants and trust and awareness of crypto is at a significant level. Though it will probably take longer before the price volatility is low enough that merchants are willing to actually hold crypto rather than convert it immediately to fiat, or able to pay their suppliers.

AtomicHorror

Inquitus wrote: »

closer to nothing than much though!

To the mooon!

Trajectory matters more than quantity. It's early days. What did you think of my point about illegal vs. legit business? I sure hope you're not planning to make points hit and run style, doesn't make for a very interesting thread.

Stamply

alb wrote: »

Agree, and I suspect it may be more like the next 1 or 2 years rather than 5 when this is easy enough for merchants and trust and awareness of crypto is at a significant level. Though it will probably take longer before the price volatility is low enough that merchants are willing to actually hold crypto rather than convert it immediately to fiat, or able to pay their suppliers.

So in the meantime they'll need a system that allows merchants to accept Bitcoin that is converted into fiat immediately and tracks an index so that their prices adjust automatically.

Graham

Graham wrote: »

I am at a loss to understand your logic when on another very recent bitcoin thread your position is refreshingly straightforward.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Help me out, what thread and which opinion?

Implying that your opposition are shills and then failing to back it up is not scepticism.

Happy to help you out:

This thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057072456

This opinion:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=88068222&postcount=169

Stamply

Graham wrote: »

Happy to help you out:

This thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057072456

This opinion:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=88068222&postcount=169

I am at a complete loss as to understand why you post at all, as these links in no way explain your point about AtomicHorror's opinion. He seems to be consistent across both threads and the second one is a link to a particularly innocuous comment about public awareness of BTC growing...

Are you afraid to actually make a point because it might be shown up as inconsistent? It seems much easier to appear to make a point for the purposes of casual, non-attentive readers.

Interesting Spicy debate going on here.

In my opinion as an entrepreneur and not really an investor, I wouldn't be accepting any payments in bitcoin right now unless I was operating a business that required some anonymity, and given that requirement I had to use a system of payment like Bitcoin (or Sexcoin :pac:). Other then that its blatantly too risky at this stage as far as I can see, I mean business is hard enough without the risk of your bank balance/currency devaluing one morning.
I had to deal with losing 100's of thousand of euro from the books of a company i ran overseas between 2007-2011 because I had sold goods in Euro at the beginning (pre crisis when it was $1.40) but had to convert that euro to another currency at a later stage to pay for materials, and with such volatility it was a nightmare with daily currency watching and trying to get directors to sign off on currency transfers immediately so we would gain/not lose money. I had to become a currency trader of sorts just to manage this side of the business because of the sudden risk with the financial crisis. And really you should be trained/educated properly in that sort of stuff if your going to start dealing with it.

I would hate to have to do this again with something like Bitcoin, so the lessons I learned before would stop me from using this medium until it becomes solidified in society and not associated with illegal operations, speculation and so on.
Happy to throw a few quid on it as a pure investment gamble though

Graham

Stamply wrote: »

So in the meantime they'll need a system that allows merchants to accept Bitcoin that is converted into fiat immediately and tracks an index so that their prices adjust automatically.

Alternatively merchants can just continue to use fiat and completely sidestep the additional overhead that bitcoin entails.

Stamply

Graham wrote: »

Alternatively merchants can just continue to use fiat and completely sidestep the additional overhead that bitcoin entails.

Very good, have a cookie...

AtomicHorror

Graham wrote: »

Happy to help you out:

This thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057072456

This opinion:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=88068222&postcount=169

Okay I've read my own post in your link and I don't get how this is relevant. In it I state I am sceptical about the future of bitcoin- there are better posts of mine that illustrate that opinion and how I justify speculation too. However that opinion doesn't seem any less cautious or nuanced than my opinion on whether businesses should adopt bitcoin. No simple answers, a lot of caveats. Please will you stop implying stuff and just make your point plainly?

Any chance you'd concede that you misrepresented that opinion on businesses by the way? When I pointed out the discrepancy between your "paraphrasing" and my actual statement, you slid right past that and switched to this weird argument about some abstract quality of my opinions in other threads.

AtomicHorror

Deleted User wrote: »

I had to deal with losing 100's of thousand of euro from the books of a company i ran overseas between 2007-2011 because I had sold goods in Euro at the beginning (pre crisis when it was $1.40) but had to convert that euro to another currency at a later stage to pay for materials, and with such volatility it was a nightmare with daily currency watching and trying to get directors to sign off on currency transfers immediately so we would gain/not lose money.

A point I made before is that small businesses are in a much better position to deal with bitcoin because that momentum that comes from needing layers of approval for decision making is lessened or perhaps even absent. I think your post helps to illustrate that, though I know you weren't dealing with the extreme volatility of bitcoin! It's little wonder that Baidu found it difficult. It looks like small businesses will have to be the ones that shoulder most of the risk associated with making bitcoin stable, with a few big businesses perhaps performing the function of raising awareness, confidence and a sense of legitimacy. Of course that could be one heck of a double edged sword... Another exit like Baidu could mean curtains for bitcoin if the pool of other businesses is too small. Sole traders, online crafty types- these are probably the best hope for bitcoin to become stable initially.

Graham, please feel free to interpret the above as meaning that small and big businesses should- nay must- immediately adopt bitcoin. Easiest thing would be to quote that last sentence from the word "small" to "bitcoin" omitting any unwanted context. You're welcome.

AtomicHorror

AtomicHorror wrote: »

A point I made before is that small businesses are in a much better position to deal with bitcoin because that momentum that comes from needing layers of approval for decision making is lessened or perhaps even absent. I think your post helps to illustrate that, though I know you weren't dealing with the extreme volatility of bitcoin! It's little wonder that Baidu found it difficult. It looks like small businesses will have to be the ones that shoulder most of the risk associated with making bitcoin stable, .

I guess though that aside from approval process with directors etc the size of the business is relative to the risk at hand.
If bitcoin is where your money is big business or small business you still would need to be very much on the ball in terms of buying and selling at the right time, and the average sole trader say is not going to be trained or educated in handling that kind of issue, and it would increase the risk of bankruptcy massively, given the current instability of things.
If we are talking about musicians for example using it to sell music or whatever, I know Im generalising but surely they would be the last type people to be doing financial gambling like this. Or take a plumber who runs his own business that pays his mortgage, it could be suicide for him to take the bitcoin risk.

For me it will be interesting to see can this medium stabilise in the next few years, I really don't see how it can because surely the only businesses that will really give it a good go are the ones that have to, ie. the silk roads of this world or whatever has taken its place and due to the illegalities they are inherently unstable.
I think you'd need to be a real gambler to let that risk into an SME, or your business would have to be in a position to take a hit if the **** hit the fan, and I don't think enough are in a comfortable position to do this in order to stabilise the currency.

Realistically I just don't see how it can stabilise. It would be nice if it did though given that there are benefits to it.

Peterdalkey

ElRifle is on the right track here, it is plainly obvious that some of the more prolific posters on this topic have little actual experience of running a business on their own account. While taking an idea forward as a business is always a risk, running one is all about minimising risk. This is all the more so when the business is in trading/manufacturing where purchases are from third parties and they have to be paid in a fixed currency. Service businesses can take a risk in this area, as most of their input costs are internal.
SMEs are generally conservative and in my opinion will be late adopters of any crypto-currency that becomes widely used and stable. This was the case with both fax and email in the past. Incremental Innovation in lower cost payment methods/services such as Stripe will stimulate reactions from the embedded players, once they start to take meaningful market share. In the medium term cc companies will not respond to any threat from crypto currencies until they start to have a widespread impact on the status quo.

eCommerce will see a new landscape in payments as credit cards are a high cost legacy system that has been cobbled up as an expensive and rather poorly secured online payment solution. PayPal is just a high cost intermediary with some extra functionality. My bet is that we will see a completely new low cost, very simple online payment/ cash movement platform emerge at some point.

pedronomix

Peterdalkey wrote: »

ElRifle is on the right track here, it is plainly obvious that some of the more prolific posters on this topic have little actual experience of running a business on their own account. While taking an idea forward as a business is always a risk, running one is all about minimising risk. This is all the more so when the business is in trading/manufacturing where purchases are from third parties and they have to be paid in a fixed currency. Service businesses can take a risk in this area, as most of their input costs are internal.
SMEs are generally conservative and in my opinion will be late adopters of any crypto-currency that becomes widely used and stable. This was the case with both fax and email in the past. Incremental Innovation in lower cost payment methods/services such as Stripe will stimulate reactions from the embedded players, once they start to take meaningful market share. In the medium term cc companies will not respond to any threat from crypto currencies until they start to have a widespread impact on the status quo.

eCommerce will see a new landscape in payments as credit cards are a high cost legacy system that has been cobbled up as an expensive and rather poorly secured online payment solution. PayPal is just a high cost intermediary with some extra functionality. My bet is that we will see a completely new low cost, very simple online payment/ cash movement platform emerge at some point.

Good post from a business point of view. I would expect that some of the better technical attributes of the operation of crypto currencies will form part of such a new payment system.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Stamply wrote: »

So in the meantime they'll need a system that allows merchants to accept Bitcoin that is converted into fiat immediately and tracks an index so that their prices adjust automatically.

Sounds like www.bitpay.com

This guy just invested in them.

Carlosd

As long as there is no regulator or authority responsible for tracking the use of bitcoins whenever fraud is evidenced, bitcoin and other virtual currencies like these will allow fraudsters to run around ripping individuals and business off.

It should be banned until there is some central register called upon under the above circumstances. I know of several business that have been victims of fraud from bitcoin enabled anonymity.

Stamply

Carlosd wrote: »

As long as there is no regulator or authority responsible for tracking the use of bitcoins whenever fraud is evidenced, bitcoin and other virtual currencies like these will allow fraudsters to run around ripping individuals and business off.

It should be banned until there is some central register called upon under the above circumstances. I know of several business that have been victims of fraud from bitcoin enabled anonymity.

1) Bitcoin is not anonymous, every transaction can be and possibly is already tracked.

2) The primary goal of Bitcoin is not fraud prevention. Fraud is inevitable and is rife in our current system, with merchants getting hit regularly. Bitcoin is likely to have less fraud, but that is incidental as long as it is not too much higher than the current level of fraud... Bitcoin is not competing with perfect!

Carlosd

1. It is anonymous. What do you mean 'is possibly tracked? It is not tracked. One coins are bought they can be used to buy product on multiple sites and these sites cannot be traced.

2. It doesn't matter that it's primary goal is not fraud prevention. This is my point. As long as it enables fraud there needs to be a system to identify the fraudster. Fraud is less inevitable where anonymity is not lauded. Of course bitcoin is not competing with perfect, it's competing with banks which are obliged to kyc and trace money in/money out except here bitcoin doesn't adhere to the same money laundering rules and this is why it is a perfect vessel for fraud. Don't be blinded by hype. If you take 2 seconds to understand what bitcoin is and how it works you should appreciate how dangerous it is.

Stamply wrote: »

1) Bitcoin is not anonymous, every transaction can be and possibly is already tracked.

2) The primary goal of Bitcoin is not fraud prevention. Fraud is inevitable and is rife in our current system, with merchants getting hit regularly. Bitcoin is likely to have less fraud, but that is incidental as long as it is not too much higher than the current level of fraud... Bitcoin is not competing with perfect!

Stamply

Carlosd wrote: »

1. It is anonymous. What do you mean 'is possibly tracked? It is not tracked. One coins are bought they can be used to buy product on multiple sites and these sites cannot be traced.

Not even close to being true, do a bit of reading...

Carlosd wrote: »

2. It doesn't matter that it's primary goal is not fraud prevention. This is my point. As long as it enables fraud there needs to be a system to identify the fraudster. Fraud is less inevitable where anonymity is not lauded. Of course bitcoin is not competing with perfect, it's competing with banks which are obliged to kyc and trace money in/money out except here bitcoin doesn't adhere to the same money laundering rules and this is why it is a perfect vessel for fraud. Don't be blinded by hype. If you take 2 seconds to understand what bitcoin is and how it works you should appreciate how dangerous it is.

Doesn't enable fraud any more than fiat currency, and the basic premise suggests fraud will be lessened... Yet fraudsters will always find a way.

If you take 2 seconds to understand what bitcoin is and how it works

Your views are very misinformed about how Bitcoin actually works. It takes a hell of a lot longer than "2 seconds"...

AtomicHorror

Peterdalkey wrote: »

ElRifle is on the right track here, it is plainly obvious that some of the more prolific posters on this topic have little actual experience of running a business on their own account.

Probably true, but you'll also note that those posters are not handing out business advice. They're mostly just addressing what they see as misconceptions about bitcoin....

Carlosd wrote: »

As long as there is no regulator or authority responsible for tracking the use of bitcoins whenever fraud is evidenced, bitcoin and other virtual currencies like these will allow fraudsters to run around ripping individuals and business off.

...like this. The whole point of bitcoin is to avoid centralised control. By all means regulate exchanges locally and enforce taxes locally, but I don't think there's a need for some international bitcoin authority- what would they do? How would they operate? Wouldn't fraud be better handled by existing law enforcement authorities? They just need to get to grips with the new technology.

Carlosd wrote: »

1. It is anonymous. What do you mean 'is possibly tracked? It is not tracked. One coins are bought they can be used to buy product on multiple sites and these sites cannot be traced.

Most bitcoin business sites are not anonymous and don't claim to be. The Tor network ones do make that claim, but that claim didn't help Silk Road much. They still got identified and prosecuted.

Peterdalkey

This is a business and enterprise forum and the general interest is in how Bitcoin relates to this general topic. It is interesting that the thread on the same topic in Investing etc has died the death, so the proponents have moved here to share their "expertise" .