Bitcoin Forum

https://blog.bitpay.com/jm-bullion-now-accepts-bitcoin-payments/

Do we still get excited about big merchants accepting bitcoins? Anyhow JM Bullion (http://www.jmbullion.com) are doing it the right way and offering 4% discount on BTC purchases compared to credit card payments.

in short. people in the gold industry want to dump gold. even at a discount.

seems bitcoin is the better investment :D

Don't know about that, but you could be right.  Gold has actually been doing pretty well as of late and bitcoin has been on the jungle bars.  Anyhow, I don't know if the rest of you get excited about merchants starting to accept bitcoin, but I'm happy.  I've ordered stuff from Provident and I may check JM out.  Provident doesn't have a great selection, don't know about JM.

i love to diversify my investments so might buy some gold.

but usually buying gold when it has gone up at a time when bitcoin has gone down is not the best time to be getting gold. i prefer to buy stuff when bitcoin has risen a bit, as it makes everything i buy cheaper.

Good news.  Nice discount to with the metals being so cheap. Maybe this will bring some silver and gold bugs over to BTC to diversify if they see it as a payment option.  Anything helps.

took them forever to implement this, glad they decided to finally give a chance. i will be getting my bling from jm .  btc getting more legit to the mainstream , very nice.

I have a feeling that this ended up driving up the value of Bitcoin, as we're back to $420 from a minor slump. Quite interesting.

I might buy some of this gold, a 4% discount almost seems too good to pass up. But at the same time, it looks like the market for gold might end up hitting a net negative, and thus it wouldn't be a good investment.

From their site, if paying with bitcoin:

All Bitcoin Orders Receive a 4% Discount Relative to Credit Card/PayPal Pricing

If paying with paper check:

All Paper Check Orders Receive a 4% Discount Relative to Credit Card/PayPal Pricing

If paying with bank wire:

All Bank Wire Orders Receive a 4% Discount Relative to Credit Card/PayPal Pricing


So, the "discount" is only a discount against credit card/paypal not against other methods of payment. I've never bought precious metals with anything but a bank wire. As a side note, bank wire is currently not available for them for some reason. I need legal confirmation that the money arrived. When using bitcoin, how do I prove the bitcoins were received by them? Unlike a bank wire, I'm not sure how well the court system would deal with hash addresses if there was any issue. And, as a final comment, I get bank wire transfers for free so I would pay zero to buy using a wire where I would pay a small transaction fee to use bitcoin. The cheapest methods to purchase are paper check (zero fee) and wire transfer (if you can get zero cost wire transfers).

Are they keeping the Bitcoins, or just exchanging them for fiat?

haha, everybody wants in on bitcoin these days.

looks to me like the big price rise that we were all waiting for is getting closer with each news.

Think about that, credit card company charge about 3 % fee. The merchant probably break even on this. This is a strong case that bitcoin offers a better way to transaction money.
I am curious if they keep the coins, or dump the coins right away after receiving it.

Good to see a well known merchant, also is accepting BTCitcoin payments and this will surely have a saying into strengthening it's value (a little at least) and hope the signs continue into more merchants doing the same. In regards to 4% discount, it's just their standard way against credit cards as mentioned by Preclus above.

The reason why it is a better investment, is only for the volatility and the quick profits to be made. The price is quite stable and holds it's ground and for investors it is only a hedge against economic instability. For speculators on the other hand, it is a ideal tool to make quick profits and also small enough to manipulate the price, once you receive whale status and collected enough coins to shift the price. Some speculators love a commodity with volatility, because it's exiting and not boring like gold. ^smile^ 

They use BitPay as payment processor so likely converting to USD instantly, although they could be keeping some % in BTC if they choose to.


Yes, as stated in OP you get 4% off compared to cc payments (and PayPal). That makes BTC payments the fastest (and cheapest for many) option.

You'll be paying via BitPay so you'll get order number + email receipt, similar to paypal, except you'll also have blockchain tx id as an extra proof.

This is nice to hear!  Now, can we get Wal-Mart and McDonald's in on the movement?  :)

This is the right way to go about it. Does it really cost 4% to take plastic? It's a fraction of that in Europe.

Transaction fees (anywhere between 0.5 percent and 5 percent per processed transaction, plus 20 to 30 cents for each transaction made) (http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4394-accepting-credit-cards.html)

There are some other fees as well. But I reckon the risk of charge back was also a factor here.

there are so many of the investors who are trading both bitcoin and gold on top of other things so by adding bitcoin to their payment method they are making it easier for their investors to switch between the two so they don't have to exchange bitcoin to fiat and fiat to gold and vise versa which means 1 less step 1 less fee.

Unfair, as always you americans get the good deals whereas we in Europe are stuck with rubbish prices!
We have to pay VAT on Silver, and generally more over spot that you do, now you get 4% off too...

I hope someone in Europe starts doing this too.  If they save money by accepting bitcoin, why not pass on the savings?

wow this is so cool to hear.
the best benefit is for those of us who have invested in both bitcoin and precious metals but also i think this might even help bringing some of the bigger investors as whales into bitcoin, if bitcoin gets their attention.

Its great news dont get me wrong and i like the discount but i cant use them being from UK.  I can however use their competitor apmex for a small delivery charge which only works if you buying in bull really but still.

I don't know how a blockchain tx id is proof of anything. A seller could just say it was not their address. How do you prove it was theirs? Anyone can create a bitcoin address, there is no requirement to show legal ID or anything else. Bitcoin has zero proof of actual underlying physical identify of the sender or the receiver of a bitcoin transaction.

I could start a website selling gold myself. A buyer comes in, I create a new address and tell them to send their bitcoins. They send the bitcoins. I tell them I never received the bitcoins and it wasn't my address.

Now, go to court to try and prove that the address way my address. You can't. You may have an email chain that says something. But I would have an email chain that had a different address in it, I'd just modify the email.

How are you going to prove I received your bitcoins?

Good to hear, they are most likely dumping it for fiat though which is a bit unfortunate, but more the exposure the better.

As I said, it's an additional proof. You could take screenshot of BitPay screen with specific payment address (and order number) to which you sent bitcoins to etc.

But yes, you can use pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin to scam people, it's a well known fact, but you could do the same with paypal/bank accounts registered under fake personal details not to mention cash transactions.

I don't recall anyone ever claiming to get scammed by any of the major BTC payment processors.

The "$10,000" limit for Bitcoin transactions that doesn't exist for checks or bank wires still leaves Bitcoin an inferior option... and simply unavailable if you want to-- say-- purchase a 1KG gold bar.

http://www.jmbullion.com/faq/minimum-maximum-order-sizes/

Says here that max BTC tx is $25,000 so 5 times higher than for cc and 2.5x higher than for paypal. Bank wire option has min tx of $2,500 (vs. $100 for BTC) so hardly superior.

Looks like the ultimate winner is the paper cheques. But do people still use those?