Bitcoin Forum

A company outside the U.S. owes me money. They want to send it to me with Bitcoin. It appears to me the value of a bitcoin varies greatly from one day, or sometimes one hour, to the next. My question is, if the company pays me in bitcoins what happens if the value drops significantly before I can sell them and convert them to cash? Also, where is a trusted place to sell bitcoins?

Thank You

If the value dropps precipitously then you are SOL unless you want to hold on to them until the price comes back up. Mt. Gox is where most people trade but you can also use btc-e (russian site), google them if you need to.

Still, international money transfers are where Bitcoin shines, for senders and receivers both, and it seems as likely that your Bitcoins would appreciate as they would depreciate against the dollar.

The easy part is sending the BTC's and getting them into dollars at MtGox or another exchange. The problem is getting the dollars from the exchange and to your bank account. If you are in the US, I thing dolla might be the best route. Otherwise you are likely to be forced to use bank wire that is slow and may have some uncool fees.

Sounds like a good deal.

Thank you for all the responses. Have any of you heard of the Coinbase bitcoin buying site?

how about spending the bitcoins on stuff.

I had this argument with someone who posted something on my local kijiji classifieds and I asked them if they would be interested in trading anything when they came to drop off the item to my house, they said no without stepping through the door, they only wanted cash. I then pointed out to them, what do you want cash for, if not to buy things? They thought a second and said, hey your right! came into my garage and saw I had 4 tires for a car i had sold, and he needed them. He pointed out that he only wanted the cash to buy tires anyway, and said that he never really thought about barter.

So instead of getting hung up on pulling dollars out of bitcoins, why not just relax and buy something with them....

Isn't it a lot of hassle,much more than $ or plastic? If it wasn't for the crazy run-up in price and a hope for a lot more or a personal need for the underground economy,why bitcoins? Bitcoins seem to be time consuming to use.Plus the horror stories of wallet rip-offs,key-stroke thieves and other situations with little legal remedies,along with lost passwords.Speculation seems to be the only reason to bother.

bitcoin, indeed all cryptos, really needs a dedicated futures exchange, so much volatility is killing the crypto economy, is those people who simply want to buy and sell tangible things using cryptos, so they need a reliable mechanism to lock in the price via a contract or something just like businesses take out futures on commodities for materials they need

I agree that is not the ethical way of doing business. However, Look at the brighter side. What if the BTC gains value and doubles.?
There is a chance for both.

If I had a choice I would have the company send my money by some other means but they simply won't. This might be a stupid question but how do you receive an exact amount with bitcoins? Is there a decimal system for fractions of a bitcoin?

Bitcoins are extremely divisible! i.e. 3.2345645645 BTC is a real figure that can exist! It depends on the total amount owed, but personally I'd probably prefer payment in BTC :)

You do have a choice. Although Bitcoin is a great system for sending money internationally, perhaps the greatest aspect of it is that nobody can be forced to use it if they don't want to. Bitcoin is an experimental and volatile currency with real risks associated with it, and you should not be pressured into using it if you are not comfortable with it. Unless your contract with this company specifically states that they will only pay you in bitcoins, you can insist on payment in dollars, and sue them if they refuse. Talk to a lawyer if they refuse to budge on the issue.

The value of BTC varies by the minute a lot, not just by the day.  I hate sending my coins back and forth between exchanges because sometimes I lose 10% in the hour or two when are in transit.

I noticed that also. Within an hour's time I've seen the value drop by a couple of dollars. I've also seen it go up just as quickly. Isn't the value locked in at the time you submit the bitcoins to the buyer?

Thanks for the info. What do you mean by you would prefer payment in BTC?

That he would rather receive Bitcoins than an equivalent value in fiat (e.g $, Euros, or Pound Sterling)

Your safest bet is probably to have them transfer during the weekends (saturday is usually calm, today not so much though) or not before a quick rise in price. You can also negotiate an extra fee to account for volatility, which would be what you deemed fair. I guess you could also accept pending that they match the difference in exchange price at the time you sell, since this is easy to verify by them as it takes almost precisely an hour for a transaction to confirm.

You should also ask them to sent directly to an address you have on a BTC exchange, so withing an hour of them sending it you can exchange for $/€/Yen/etc. I would test this first with a small amount first since I don't hold much BTC in exchanges - I know you can do it that way.

I would also verify my personal information first, so you can transfer the money out as soon as you receive and exchange the BTC for cash.

I would Take the Bitcoins. In my opinion that's better than losing half the fiat money due to conversion fees or wire fees.
But do what feels best for you!

.... and inflation, taxes, confiscations, devaluations, etc

At the moment the vast potential of cryptos is 99% unrealized.  These are just the very first days - the genesis of a new paradigm.  It might succeed, or it might fail.  Only time will tell.

The current volatility mitigates cryptocurrencies' veracity as true currency.

no different than if they paid you in dollars, the value of the dollar is always losing value as well, its just harder for the average person to see that...

you never know, they value might double by the time you get your btc, anyway, everybody thinks now is a good time to buy btc.

in any market, that sentiment usually precedes a crash.

There is a good chance the price of bitcoin could skyrocket over the next few years. Hold on to them.

If you are interested to withdraw your USD funds into a EUR or GBP bank account, I can make a payment at current USD/EUR or USD/GBP exchange rate to your bank account with 0% commission.

If you want more info, please check my post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195665.msg2034134 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195665.msg2034134)

Most of the trades below 1.0 will be far less interesting due to validation, it needs 0.1 (10%!) to get validated in a less-than-year time, for small transaction it's not interesting.

Even ripple which is meant to be able to easily do small trades, usually gateways will refuse trades which are too small, sadly.

Not nearly at the rate bitcoins can lose value though.

If OP has the money to potential lose then I would suggest holding on to the coin.

I checked out fastcash4bitcoins but they appear to have a problem keeping enough funds on hand. Their PayPal payout option runs out of funds just a few hours after they refund it. Do you know of any other vendors that have a PayPal payout option?

 I would accept fiat currency only and not bitcoin.

Another newbie question. If the company that owes me money uses EUR currency how would I get the USD equivalency of that if they pay me in bitcoins?

Sounds like a good deal.

You sell your bitcoins for USD. Doing that while getting the best exchange rate without getting ripped off (hint: don't use PayPal or eBay, no matter what) is entirely your problem, not theirs. That's why I strongly recommend you don't use Bitcoin for large transactions until you're confident that you've got it all figured out. Again, you don't have to accept bitcoins unless you have a contract that says you do.

Why not use PayPal? People here and other places have recommended exchanges that offer PayPal payouts like fastcash4bitcoins and bitcointopaypal. Are these not safe to use?

Yes. Coinbase is very easy to use. Set up a free account, link a verified bank account, go to the merchant tools and check the box that says "instantly convert to USD" (or whatever it says), make sure the "Keep at least xx BTC in my account" box is unchecked. Now, anytime someone sends bitcoins to that address, they will be sent to your bank account at the end of the day at the exact value that they were when they were sent to you, minus a 1% + $0.15 fee. It's really super simple.

For example, if you make 10 $10 USD sales throughout the day, you will get $100 - $1.15 = $98.85 USD sent to your bank at the end of the day, regardless of the value of BTC.

I hope this helps!