Awesome. Now to see how their integration works with regards to confirmation time. The best solution IMO is to use a risk analyzer to determine the number of needed confirmations. 0 conf for small payments for a merchant with a low fraud rate, with increasing confirmations needed as the size of the payment grows. I would look at BitPay's checkout flow to see the state of the art here.
Also hoping they implement the payment protocol (BIP70), which gives a much better user experience and improved security. Instead of copy pasting an address, a signed payment request is sent to the users Bitcoin wallet with a message stating something like "Bob's shop has requested a payment of 10USD (20mBTC) - accept?". Some particularly insidious coin stealing malware has been developed that modifies the payment address in the clipboard to be changed to an attackers address, and the whole UX around copying long Base58 encoded strings is horrible. Furthermore, the signed payment request serves as a receipt. With BIP70, the UX of bitcoin payments surpasses that of CC payments, IMO.
+1 to BIP70. Very exciting that a payment company as capable as Stripe is entering the bitcoin space. Much better for everyone if the Stripes of the world are at the center of the bitcoin ecosystem rather than the Gox's.
> The best solution IMO is to use a risk analyzer to determine the number of needed confirmations
As I understand it, you can still feel pretty safe with 0 confirmations if you're monitoring the bitcoin network for double-spend attempts over the average network propagation time. If you don't see any double-spend attempts anywhere on the net by the time most of the net has seen your transaction, you're probably good. There are a lot of hidden pitfalls in bitcoin security (such as - the above isn't guaranteed, if miners change their mind to be greedy and pick the transaction with the highest fee instead of the first one, that method breaks) so I'm not sure if it's bulletproof though.
Merchants that don't deliver their goods/services immediately (e.g., those that ship things) can accept transactions immediately in the UI, but wait for some number of confirmations to actually deliver.
The interesting part of this from my point of view is how Stripe will manage the conversion of received bitcoin back into dollars. Will they directly sell bitcoin to consumers themselves or trade on one (or more) of the exchanges.
Stripe are obviously taking the risk of the volatility so will probably want to keep the bitcoin float that they hold fairly small. They also need to keep a reasonable margin on these transactions and watch for people who don't complete transactions unless the price moves in their favour (after the price has been quoted).
I assume refunds are of bitcoin to the agreed dollar value not the same number of bitcoins as was spent, otherwise there would be risks there too.
Payments will arrive in their bank accounts in seven days or fewer. Neither Stripe nor its customers will hold onto the bitcoin, meaning the businesses that accept bitcoin will not be subject to the volatility of its price. Collison said his company is working with a variety of undisclosed partners to exchange the bitcoin into local currency in near real time.
i'm going to guess that they will exchange at spot and take a small transaction fee. having bitcoin on your balance sheet (volatility-wise) is not the wisest move for a startup.
The concept that Stripe may be moving away from strictly supporting Credit Card payments (which are awful, but necessary for now) and into alternatives is so exciting to me that I am literally shaking. We're building infrastructure to make bank-to-bank transfers palatable to consumers and drive their cost toward zero, but it's only if thought leaders like the Collisons embrace the move away from CC's that the move will happen. This is such a huge step!
Because as a consumer, I've never had a complaint about my CC, ever. With the NFC chips built into all new CCs (at least here in Canada) I tap my card and leave.
You can't get more convenient than that. As such, I don't think credit cards are going anywhere.
I am not sure what is exactly that awful in having free credit for X days, rewards for making purchases (which effectively cancels fees) and, the most important thing, chargebacks.
I can understand Credit Card issues from seller point of view, but for clients (that is most of us), they are not that bad.
Bitcoin will have to provide the same level of consumer comfort and safety to have wider adoption.
This also touches banking system as a whole. If I make an error in my bank transfer, I will get my money back and this is up to bank to return them, I don't have to worry about this. Who will give me back my bitcoin payment done by mistake?
The rush to defend credit cards on this thread is staggering but extremely interesting to me! It seems the consensus is that in the absence of an ideal solution, we love credit cards (especially in the USA). Two really important things:
1. Consumer protections are not a Credit Card thing - chargebacks and literally every single protection CC's give you are legally mandated by Regulation E - all payment processors must have them in place. It's unclear how this will relate to BTC, but other solutions (including my own) have this to the letter the same way CC's do. CC's want you to believe it's them, it's not - the US Government made those regulations.
2. Yes Billing and Shipping Address are needed in every instance - but there are better ways than typing them out, especially on a mobile phone. Sure there are services that can save that info for you, but a better solution is a network that already knows that info. Stripe could build that with their "remember me" features, I've built that by using the information your bank has. There are solutions, and we need them to move into mobile commerce where it's impossible for every app to have your info pre-saved. In a world outside the browser, we need better options.
would you please lend me few bitcoins to see how things work. /s
My CC got hacked twice on the internet, every time I got my money back., it took 90 days but ultimately was credited. Can I expect it from Bitcoin?
Anyway 99.9% people do not have bitcoins to spend. I like it, however it is far from becoming a mainstream payment method., and perhaps never will sadly.
I've seen a lot of replies to this comment that are missing the point tomasien is trying to make. BTC can actually completely wipe out the need for VISA, MC, etc. as it can serve for the underlying technology for transactions.
The only thing stopping this from happening today is illiquidity of the BTC<>(insert fiat currency) market. Once we see more liquidity, this dream can become a reality.
I used Stripe for several months, but then they said my business is "too high a risk" for them, 7 years in business (longer than Stripe), hosting company in Ireland, very low charge-back rate, all customers more than happy, good support etc!
Since then opened a merchant account with Elavon after referal from our bank for credit cards and started using Bitpay for bitcoin,
not only have lower fees (0% in case of Bitpay + 30$ a month for professional account), but also registered with Mastercard 3D Secure and Verified by Visa, which Stripe doesn't offer either.
Stripe is fantastic at building interfaces and APIs for payment processing - the fact that they could lead the move away from CC's (on which they built their business up until now) is thrilling to me. Step 1!
Given the recent guidance from the IRS regarding bitcoin (it's property like stocks or bonds... http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/0325irsbitc...) I wouldn't try to use it as a day-to-day currency. Every single transaction will represent a taxable event, requiring calculating cost-basis and capital gain/loss. If Stripe were announcing today a "pay with MSFT shares" feature, people would ridicule them. That's essentially what bitcoin payment is. (in the US at least)
It's really not that bad. Stripe would presumably offer you a full ledger showing the exact time and price of all the Bitcoins you used.
There are some things to be skeptical about, but the IRS hasn't made Stripe's use of Bitcoin any harder. They have to keep super-careful records anyway.
This is quite an intriguing move by Stripe, and I assume they'll provide a similar service to Neo&Bee, where merchants will be completely shielded from the price volatility in Bitcoin. It would be interesting if Stripe adds this Bitcoin support to the Stripe Checkout by default, being one of the first mainstream deployment of Bitcoin payments. It might also allow them to reduce fees, which have been largely set by the large card processors so far.
I'd like to see an easing of the "prohibited businesses"[0] restrictions for Bitcoin payments, since they aren't beholden to the credit networks for these transactions. I have a business in the works that tangentially falls under category #2 so I may not be able to use Stripe as it currently stands.
Pow! Add me to the list of people foaming at the mouth for this. I'm refreshing my email every minute in anticipation of seeing their API.
Now, under one provider, we can easily accept CC and BTC. This is great news for consumers because it means coinbase and stripe are now in head-to-head competition. These are both well funded startups with great usability. Bring on the feature war and lower transaction fees!
This is most exciting because this will enable great micropayment support on stripe, enabling a whole new breed of marketplace. Also, it is now easy to offer paid anonymous consumption of an API. This is a whole new world of opportunity!
I wish all these resources spent & millions of investment dollars would go to a better version of Bitcoin. BT is a major breakthru but it is still in an alpha stage. The main problem is that it is deflationary, to support a global economy it needs to slightly inflationary. This is because for hundreds of millions of people to use BT, the supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending. Right now more half of Bitcoin supply is already own by someone (a lot of them stolen). The BitCoin owners are holding on their stash in hopes that they will get a return on their investment. They will sell their BT for currency rather buy depreciating goods with them.
This is not a critical problem (or even a problem at all, depending on whom you ask). This has been argued again and again, and what is always comes down to is that, according to the Keynesians, an inflationary currency is preferable for encouraging economic growth, but the reality is that A) economics is not hard science and B) as long as the inflation/deflation rate isn't extreme, both inflationary and deflationary goods make fine exchange mechanisms.
>supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.
Why? If adoption increases, the value goes up, and people spend fewer bitcoins for the same thing. Bitcoin is especially good at this because it has a lot of base units.
>They will sell their BT for currency rather buy depreciating goods with them.
This is incorrect. You're arguing the extreme of the effects of deflation. People will buy goods with deflationary assets, because sometimes the expected value of owning a good is higher than the expected value of keeping an equivalent value of the deflationary asset.
The equivalent (and equally incorrect) ad extremum argument against inflation is "With inflationary currencies, no one will bother working, because they know the payoff of their labor will be worth less by the time they get it."
I disagree, because Bitcoin's monetary policy can be changed at any time. In fact, Dogecoin, which uses a fork of the Bitcoin code, just changed theirs a short time ago, without much fuss, to a continuous inflation policy like you mentioned. I agree that for either of them to be used as a currency (rather than just for speculation), a low and stable level of inflation is necessary.
But that's all about inflation in the long term. In the short term, the rate of inflation depends on other factors such as the rate of capital moving into the Bitcoin economy and the rate of Bitcoins being lost.
So right now, there's no reason people should hold back on adopting Bitcoin because of its current monetary policy of having a fixed maximum number of coins. It's not like there's a fixed amount of money or time that can be invested in it; there's no reason people like Stripe and merchants can't do their bit at the same time core Bitcoin developers do theirs..
if bitcoin weren't deflationary, it never would have been bootstrapped from zero. why would i buy a worthless bitcoin in 2010 if it was going to be worh the same or less in 20xx? This applies to all other cryptos as well; without central backing there is only supply/demand. No one wants to be the first to take a risk if there is no upside.
Actually it's current inflationary and will be for a while. It's deflationary eventual nature is a long term issue with plenty of time to be addressed; short term, it's inflationary.
I wonder how Stripe will handle customer disputes. Obviously Bitcoin doesn't have chargebacks, so will customers be out of luck if the merchant doesn't provide the services?
Why are they doing this? It's too late. No one is going to want to make Bitcoin transactions through a US-based company now because you know the Fed is going to start creating all sorts of lawsuits unless people follow the rules. I have zero Bitcoins but if I had any I'd play it safe and put it somewhere overseas (or if I did put it in a US-based company I'd want to make damn sure they were backed by an overseas bank).
I wonder how this will work. Once out of beta, will it be a default option, or will it require extra steps for both the developer and the end-user? And will we be able to operate primarily in Bitcoin end-to-end, or will everything be converted to/from a preferred currency (e.g. USD) during each transaction?
Stripe is going to convert it to the merchant's local currency in "real time" to prevent the problems in fluctuations of BTC value. This is shaping up to be very nice.
[+] [-] hendzen|12 years ago|reply
Also hoping they implement the payment protocol (BIP70), which gives a much better user experience and improved security. Instead of copy pasting an address, a signed payment request is sent to the users Bitcoin wallet with a message stating something like "Bob's shop has requested a payment of 10USD (20mBTC) - accept?". Some particularly insidious coin stealing malware has been developed that modifies the payment address in the clipboard to be changed to an attackers address, and the whole UX around copying long Base58 encoded strings is horrible. Furthermore, the signed payment request serves as a receipt. With BIP70, the UX of bitcoin payments surpasses that of CC payments, IMO.
[+] [-] vijayboyapati|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|12 years ago|reply
As I understand it, you can still feel pretty safe with 0 confirmations if you're monitoring the bitcoin network for double-spend attempts over the average network propagation time. If you don't see any double-spend attempts anywhere on the net by the time most of the net has seen your transaction, you're probably good. There are a lot of hidden pitfalls in bitcoin security (such as - the above isn't guaranteed, if miners change their mind to be greedy and pick the transaction with the highest fee instead of the first one, that method breaks) so I'm not sure if it's bulletproof though.
[+] [-] RoboTeddy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnrandom|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephlord|12 years ago|reply
Stripe are obviously taking the risk of the volatility so will probably want to keep the bitcoin float that they hold fairly small. They also need to keep a reasonable margin on these transactions and watch for people who don't complete transactions unless the price moves in their favour (after the price has been quoted).
I assume refunds are of bitcoin to the agreed dollar value not the same number of bitcoins as was spent, otherwise there would be risks there too.
Edit: Found this in other story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7481219 (http://recode.net/2014/03/27/stripe-merchants-will-soon-be-a...)
Payments will arrive in their bank accounts in seven days or fewer. Neither Stripe nor its customers will hold onto the bitcoin, meaning the businesses that accept bitcoin will not be subject to the volatility of its price. Collison said his company is working with a variety of undisclosed partners to exchange the bitcoin into local currency in near real time.
[+] [-] antr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcc1|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomasien|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnnewguy|12 years ago|reply
As a consumer or business?
Because as a consumer, I've never had a complaint about my CC, ever. With the NFC chips built into all new CCs (at least here in Canada) I tap my card and leave.
You can't get more convenient than that. As such, I don't think credit cards are going anywhere.
[+] [-] piokoch|12 years ago|reply
I am not sure what is exactly that awful in having free credit for X days, rewards for making purchases (which effectively cancels fees) and, the most important thing, chargebacks.
I can understand Credit Card issues from seller point of view, but for clients (that is most of us), they are not that bad.
Bitcoin will have to provide the same level of consumer comfort and safety to have wider adoption.
This also touches banking system as a whole. If I make an error in my bank transfer, I will get my money back and this is up to bank to return them, I don't have to worry about this. Who will give me back my bitcoin payment done by mistake?
[+] [-] tomasien|12 years ago|reply
1. Consumer protections are not a Credit Card thing - chargebacks and literally every single protection CC's give you are legally mandated by Regulation E - all payment processors must have them in place. It's unclear how this will relate to BTC, but other solutions (including my own) have this to the letter the same way CC's do. CC's want you to believe it's them, it's not - the US Government made those regulations.
2. Yes Billing and Shipping Address are needed in every instance - but there are better ways than typing them out, especially on a mobile phone. Sure there are services that can save that info for you, but a better solution is a network that already knows that info. Stripe could build that with their "remember me" features, I've built that by using the information your bank has. There are solutions, and we need them to move into mobile commerce where it's impossible for every app to have your info pre-saved. In a world outside the browser, we need better options.
[+] [-] frade33|12 years ago|reply
My CC got hacked twice on the internet, every time I got my money back., it took 90 days but ultimately was credited. Can I expect it from Bitcoin?
Anyway 99.9% people do not have bitcoins to spend. I like it, however it is far from becoming a mainstream payment method., and perhaps never will sadly.
[+] [-] mbesto|12 years ago|reply
The only thing stopping this from happening today is illiquidity of the BTC<>(insert fiat currency) market. Once we see more liquidity, this dream can become a reality.
[+] [-] tbrownaw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuhins|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcc1|12 years ago|reply
I used Stripe for several months, but then they said my business is "too high a risk" for them, 7 years in business (longer than Stripe), hosting company in Ireland, very low charge-back rate, all customers more than happy, good support etc!
Since then opened a merchant account with Elavon after referal from our bank for credit cards and started using Bitpay for bitcoin, not only have lower fees (0% in case of Bitpay + 30$ a month for professional account), but also registered with Mastercard 3D Secure and Verified by Visa, which Stripe doesn't offer either.
[+] [-] anurag|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jypepin|12 years ago|reply
I'm so glad they integrated bitcoin, which I think will be a really good contribution to make btc spread amongst normal users.
That's great to see them becoming more of a payment processor versus the simple credit card processor they were.
I love stripe, I love btc, and seeing them together is just really cool and a big step for both.
[+] [-] tomasien|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deegles|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielweber|12 years ago|reply
There are some things to be skeptical about, but the IRS hasn't made Stripe's use of Bitcoin any harder. They have to keep super-careful records anyway.
[+] [-] arboroia|12 years ago|reply
[Edit: Fixed bad grammar]
[+] [-] jeffgreco|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waffle_ss|12 years ago|reply
[0]: https://stripe.com/prohibited_businesses
[+] [-] pc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjvir|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evv|12 years ago|reply
Now, under one provider, we can easily accept CC and BTC. This is great news for consumers because it means coinbase and stripe are now in head-to-head competition. These are both well funded startups with great usability. Bring on the feature war and lower transaction fees!
This is most exciting because this will enable great micropayment support on stripe, enabling a whole new breed of marketplace. Also, it is now easy to offer paid anonymous consumption of an API. This is a whole new world of opportunity!
[+] [-] dergachev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rebelidealist|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyager|12 years ago|reply
This is not a critical problem (or even a problem at all, depending on whom you ask). This has been argued again and again, and what is always comes down to is that, according to the Keynesians, an inflationary currency is preferable for encouraging economic growth, but the reality is that A) economics is not hard science and B) as long as the inflation/deflation rate isn't extreme, both inflationary and deflationary goods make fine exchange mechanisms.
>supply of the coins need to gradually increase to support the flow of spending.
Why? If adoption increases, the value goes up, and people spend fewer bitcoins for the same thing. Bitcoin is especially good at this because it has a lot of base units.
>They will sell their BT for currency rather buy depreciating goods with them.
This is incorrect. You're arguing the extreme of the effects of deflation. People will buy goods with deflationary assets, because sometimes the expected value of owning a good is higher than the expected value of keeping an equivalent value of the deflationary asset.
The equivalent (and equally incorrect) ad extremum argument against inflation is "With inflationary currencies, no one will bother working, because they know the payoff of their labor will be worth less by the time they get it."
[+] [-] tlrobinson|12 years ago|reply
Bitcoin doesn't need to "support a global economy" for it to be useful/successful.
"Right now more half of Bitcoin supply is already own by someone"
Are you saying one entity owns half of all Bitcoins? I've heard the figure of a few percent thrown around, but never half.
[+] [-] a-priori|12 years ago|reply
But that's all about inflation in the long term. In the short term, the rate of inflation depends on other factors such as the rate of capital moving into the Bitcoin economy and the rate of Bitcoins being lost.
So right now, there's no reason people should hold back on adopting Bitcoin because of its current monetary policy of having a fixed maximum number of coins. It's not like there's a fixed amount of money or time that can be invested in it; there's no reason people like Stripe and merchants can't do their bit at the same time core Bitcoin developers do theirs..
[+] [-] eof|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnaritas|12 years ago|reply
Actually it's current inflationary and will be for a while. It's deflationary eventual nature is a long term issue with plenty of time to be addressed; short term, it's inflationary.
[+] [-] collision|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newaccountfool|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richcollins|12 years ago|reply
Any plans for an option to accept fiat and convert to BTC?
[+] [-] akama|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcmire|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] troyk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisfarms|12 years ago|reply
If so I'd also love stripe support for Direct Debit ... like GoCardless[1]
[1] https://gocardless.com/
[+] [-] Smudge|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgtruesdell|12 years ago|reply
http://recode.net/2014/03/27/stripe-merchants-will-soon-be-a...
[+] [-] bachback|12 years ago|reply