Bitcoin Forum

I'm assuming most merchants that are using a service like Bitpay are transferring most of their coins to the dollar. Now my question is does this hurt the bitcoin market in the long term?

If everyone was selling and nobody was buying then yes it would hurt the market, but simple transactions of selling them and someone buying them can only help the market as it shows demand.

No, why would it? The money will keep on flowing from BTC to fiat and back around again. Hopefully in the future we wont even need any coin processors and busineses can do it all themselves.

i don't think so furthermore the bitcoin market is decentralized

Bitpay stops people from getting to know bitcoin and how it works.

if every merchant takes btc via bitpay and not derectly then bitpay become the new mastercard

I've talked to a couple of individuals who run companies. When I mentioned Bitcoin to them and how it could enable their product to be seen in a more innovative way, they were quite interested.

However, once they learned about the volatility of Bitcoin, they instantly had their own doubts.

I think BitPay is a good gateway into the Bitcoin world for people who do not understand Bitcoin fully or to a full extent but still want to accept Bitcoin. BitPay has options to maintain the currency within Bitcoin, and I believe that companies will realize once using Bitcoin and Bitpay for a short while that they might want to use Bitcoin and not transfer to USD (or other fiat). The point is that Bitpay is getting them into the currency itself (indirectly) which will and could lead them into it directly.

Once Bitcoin stabilizes (if it does), Bitpay will probably target Bitcoin to Bitcoin transactions without transfers. As of now, they are targetting Bitcoin -> Bitcoin->USD because they want to target a broader audience, people who do not know about Bitcoin (or understand it) but might be willing to accept it.

Any exchange is good in the long term AS LONG as people keep buying BTC. If suddenly people stopped buying, due to some extraordinary reason, holders would panic sell thinking to themselves that the BTC train has run it's course. Thus, it's price can reach the very lowest bottoms of the dollar.

Who says bitcoin has to be a currency that you keep? Remember bitcoin has so many properties one of those is easily transfer, well here it is. The western union of the 21st century!

It helping Bitcoin adoption, so very good in the long term. Later merchants will not have reason exchange to USD for a fee

I think it is a good thing.  What I think is interesting is that the growing adoption of BitPay is not seeming to have a downward influence on the price of Bitcoin.  I would expect it to as - for the most part - BitPay is converting Bitcoin immediately into fiat.  That means they are putting a significant amount of SELL orders on the exchanges they integrate with.  I would think the growing use of BitPay would force the currency down.

The key is to have more and more transactions that is what we want!

Yes and it's a much needed service.
Without BitPay the barrier would keep out most merchants