Ever since Overstock announced that they were going to begin "accepting" payments in BTC in late 2013, many businesses have started "accepting" BTC as well. However, what they actually do is use a payment processor like BitPay or Coinbase to instantly and automatically convert the BTC behind the scenes so that in the end, they get the same old fiat. While most news articles ignore this aspect, I've always thought that a distinction should be made between businesses that accept BTC through a payment processor and those that accept BTC directly.
And it seems that I'm not the only one who thinks this:
Well, there’s just one problem there: Almost none of the businesses mentioned above technically accept bitcoin. Instead, they partner with a middleman - generally either Coinbase or BitPay - who takes a customer’s bitcoin, immediately converts it into cash, and then deposits the cash in the company’s bank account.
In other words, Dell, Expedia, Microsoft, and Time, Inc. don’t actually "accept" bitcoins, per se. They accept U.S. dollars. It’s their bitcoin processing partners who accept bitcoin. They, in turn, make money on transaction fees (in the case of Coinbase), or by selling their software and services as a subscription (in the case of BitPay).
BitPay, which has partnered with Microsoft, Newegg, and other merchants, confirmed to MONEY that the majority of its major clients ask that their bitcoins be instantly converted to cash. "I would say as a general trend most of our larger business do choose a settlement in 100% U.S. dollars because that’s how they do their accounting and finance," said Tony Gallippi, co-founder and executive chairman of BitPay.
Link:
http://time.com/money/3658361/dell-microsoft-expedia-bitcoin/Overstock sort of bucks this trend because they claim to retain a small percentage of the BTC that they get through Coinbase in the form of BTC without converting to fiat. Unfortunately for them however, the drop in BTC prices in the past year seems to have hit them quite hard which might possibly discourage other businesses from doing the same thing:
US retail giant Overstock lost $117,000 on its investments in cryptocurrencies during the first quarter of 2015, according to the company's latest quarterly earnings report.
Overstock listed its cryptocurrency holdings as valued at $233,000, down from $340,000 on 31st December.
Long one of the largest merchants in the digital currencies space, Overstock had previously indicated that it was holding as much as 10% of its proceeds from such sales in bitcoin.
Link:
http://www.coindesk.com/overstock-reports-over-100k-in-bitcoin-losses-for-q1-2015/Recently, I've learned that even Alpaca Socks (the first merchant to adopt BTC back in 2010) are using BitPay. It's possible that they are keeping a part of it in BTC just like the way Overstock is doing but I doubt it:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=974782I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this type of "adoption" of Bitcoin by major businesses is a good thing even if they are converting all of it into fiat. The mere fact that they are even acknowledging the existence of Bitcoin is a step in the right direction IMO and is probably something that would have been unthinkable back in 2009-2012. But like I said, saying that these businesses are actually adopting Bitcoin in the true sense of the word is a bit inaccurate since there is a huge difference between actually accepting Bitcoin directly and accepting Bitcoin through a payment processor that automatically converts it into fiat.
So are there any major or even semi-major businesses out there that actually do accept Bitcoin directly?
