People love reward programs. I used to use my American Express card exclusively as opposed to cash just so that I could accumulate skymiles. I figured out the savings I was getting and it was less than 1% of each purchase going toward a future plane ticket.
What do you think?
The reason AmEx (and VISA/Mastercard) can give a reward is because the merchant is subsidizing it. The merchant fee is the same whether or not the customer gets a reward. Now consider what is possible, today: $100 if paying with Amex (with or without you getting a rebate, as it costs the merchant the same $98 worth of bitcions if paying with bitcoin. in both of those instances, the merchant gets the same amount in the bank a couple days later. Which of the two would you as a consumer choose (assuming you know about bitcoin)? Here's an example - http://www.bitmit.net/en/trade/i/2846-100-at-t-gophone-prepaid-wireless-refill-card/descrPay $100 with your credit card to AT&T or pay $95 worth of bitcoins. Here's their catalog (with T-Mobile, and other wireless providers): - http://www.bitmit.net/en/user/TangibleCryptoNow what I'm waiting for is the first smart cookie to start offering a credit card with rewards or merchant loyalty program where the reward earned is in bitcoins rather than airline miles. |
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- http://www.quickbitcoins.netshows "QuickBitcoins is down. Quickbitcoins is currently down. Any orders currently in process are not affected. We appreciate your patience." Is this just a temporary situation? |
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The biggest strength of Bitcoin is payments under 1000 BTC over the Internet. Above this amount wire transfers of fiat start to become competitive. For an online merchant accepting Bitcoin is actually a no brainer especially with services such as Bit-Pay.
The big advantages are:
No risk of chargebacks this is especially important for international transactions, "at risk" merchants, high value low margin transactions and escrow services.
No need to qualify for a merchant account.
No need for the purchaser / sender to have good credit. This by the way is a big market.
No risk of identity theft. Credit cards were never designed for transactions over the Internet and their use over the Internet is inherently insecure. They were designed in the 1950's and 1960's for in person / card present transactions. All the industry has managed to do is lessen the risk. Furthermore services such as PayPal are hamstrung by using credit cards as a funding source.
Very low or minimal transaction costs.
Here is my favorite: Bitcoin is the only electronic payment method that can be used to give alms to the poor directly. How many homeless persons have merchant accounts? But all a homeless person needs to beg for Bitcoin is card with a QR code!
Interestingly, you could be describing Dwolla there with each of those as well. |
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I believe the purchaser would just generate public addresses himself and keep his private key secret. All manufacturer need to know are public addresses after all.
Oh, I see. You are going to produce these on-demand then. That's going to be spendy. When I read "very massive production" I figured there would be large batches of these made all at once. Creating a handful of them, each one produced independently, are hugely different. |
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Just out of curiosity, exactly what kind of wallet would not let me receive coins on the same address I'm sending from?
Online wallets mostly, or from exchanges like MtGox because there the bitcoins from every user are together in one big wallet. Don't use for SatoshiDICE any of the following: Mt. Gox or any other exchange, GLBSE, Instawallet, Easywallet, Paytunia, Flexcoin, online casinos or other services (e.g., CoinDL) where you have an account, |
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Ok, so I think my app is almost ready,
App? as in mobile app? Or will this be a web-based survey? |
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i only use mtgox if i want to do arbitrage, i deposit BTC, wait for price to go up, sell , use dollars to buy btc again and take out all btc That's a funny definition of arbitrage there. |
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I like the idea of using an old android phone.
Did the carrier put in a back door when they made that build? Do they still have the ability to remotely access or monitor the device? |
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Don't you mean, "never bothered to reinstate a method to accept bitcoins following the MyBitcoin mess"? Yup, fixed now. Thanks. I mean, couldn't you just come right out and advertise that Bitcoin travelers are not limited to the amount of cash they carry? Wouldn't it be great if resorts would take Bitcoin?
In my response above I was thinking of describing how travel is one industry that should be looking closely at Bitcoin. Travel is one of the categories that often requires "high risk" merchant accounts. The first movers could use the ability to offer a lower price to bitcoin customers as a competitive advantage. The category has unique challenges though which explain why it sees a lot of chargebacks. Travel is a prepayment for a later service with a party that you might never have done business with before (e.g., hotel in a new city). I can see consumers preferring credit cards over bitcoin for travel, specifically so the chargeback protection remains available as an option. There certainly are solutions, such as using an escrow partner who performs arbitration. But that's a big divergence from a VISA/Mastercard transaction. On the other hand, if its discounted by 5% for paying with Bitcoin and for a repeat visit to a hotel I've either been to before or one that is a reputable, I'll take the 5% discount over the chargeback protection / insurance. |
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So, my client isn't able to get the block chain because of how I set my clock on my computer (I think it's crappy, but I don't care).
I hadn't known about this. So would it retrieve blocks but then get to a certain block and stop? How were you able to troubleshoot / determine this was the cause? Would downloading a completed blockchain from the nightly "skip" past checking and have let you continue on your merry way (until the next problem block?) |
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This version of the chart will show a rise as well, just to a fraction of a degree. - http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popularWhile those SatoshiDICE transactions are a little different than other transactions, they still cause demand for bitcoins (i.e., you can't wager on SatoshiDICE with bitcoins you don't actually own) so excluding them isn't really the right approach in determining bitcoin usage rate movements either. |
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