Title: Consumer's view of BitPay and bitcoin transaction "costs" Post by: Minor Miner on November 12, 2013, 05:01:32 PM I have not purchased anything with bitcoin through a intermediary/shopping cart that did instant F/X exchange, until last week when I used a website that used bitpay for conversion. It had always been a sent number of coins I needed to pay. Last week, I purchased some miners and paid Bitpay and thought the price did not seem near market. It was off by 3%.
Then I tried to buy from the same company on the weekend. The market was $324 at Bitstamp and $323 at Bitpay's own API, when the payment window came up the US dollar amount divided by the bitcoins calculated to a $304 exchange rate. I did not do the transaction because I felt like I was being ripped off. Not a "cheap and easy" transaction in any stretch of the imagination. Title: Re: Consumer's view of BitPay and bitcoin transaction "costs" Post by: Minor Miner on November 12, 2013, 05:07:25 PM Not a "cheap and easy" transaction in any stretch of the imagination. Well, you are using a middleman. Did you expect them to provide the service for free? Bitcoin is still a baby. BitPay builds bridges to the fiat economy. That bridge will never be as smooth as a pure bitcoin economy, but a pure bitcoin economy doesn't exist yet. What do you not understand about this? Title: Re: Consumer's view of BitPay and bitcoin transaction "costs" Post by: Minor Miner on November 12, 2013, 05:16:55 PM Not a "cheap and easy" transaction in any stretch of the imagination. Well, you are using a middleman. Did you expect them to provide the service for free?Bitcoin is still a baby. BitPay builds bridges to the fiat economy. That bridge will never be as smooth as a pure bitcoin economy, but a pure bitcoin economy doesn't exist yet. What do you not understand about this? So, my simple question would be: how do I know how many bitcoins I need to have when I know both the US $ price and the bitpay API (up to the minute) exchange rate? Title: Re: Consumer's view of BitPay and bitcoin transaction "costs" Post by: Phinnaeus Gage on November 12, 2013, 05:34:34 PM Quote I would assume that Bitpay looked at my order and then figured out how many bids they would have to smack down in order to exchange it all, and USED that as their clearing price. I'm almost 100% sure that the above is not the case having tracked several BitPay payments in the past via BlockChain. The overall gist expressed in the OP may have merit and, if such is the case, I'm sure a BitPay principle will be here shortly to address said concerns. I suggest you, or somebody else, kindly PM them, asking them nicely and pointing to this thread, whereupon probably Tony will arrive on the scene and address the issues, as he's done so in the past concerning like, and dissimilar issues related to BitPay. Tony's a cool dude, and Team BitPay does its best to make sure that all their loyal customers are well-served. ~TMIBTCITW Title: Re: Consumer's view of BitPay and bitcoin transaction "costs" Post by: Minor Miner on November 12, 2013, 05:46:21 PM Quote I would assume that Bitpay looked at my order and then figured out how many bids they would have to smack down in order to exchange it all, and USED that as their clearing price. I'm almost 100% sure that the above is not the case having tracked several BitPay payments in the past via BlockChain. The overall gist expressed in the OP may have merit and, if such is the case, I'm sure a BitPay principle will be here shortly to address said concerns.I suggest you, or somebody else, kindly PM them, asking them nicely and pointing to this thread, whereupon probably Tony will arrive on the scene and address the issues, as he's done so in the past concerning like, and dissimilar issues related to BitPay. Tony's a cool dude, and Team BitPay does its best to make sure that all their loyal customers are well-served. ~TMIBTCITW If this is the explanation, it is not a "bitpay" problem, it is a bitcoin problem that is exasperated by the dilution of volume of having many exchanges. But, as a consumer (and most consumers are NOT going to understand this) all you see is a transaction that should cost XX bitcoins costing 107% of XX. I would think the only solution will be when the exchanges are gone/transformed and bitcoins are traded as either a currency or commodity on the established exchanges. It is a liquidity problem I am almost sure. But, I am open to other solutions because when you buy miners and they are priced in US $ and you want to use a certain number of coins, how are you to know how many you can buy? |