Kim Dotcom Announces Bitcoin acceptance on Mega!

[herzmeister]

don't wanna poop the party, but isn't this MEGA + Bitcoin thing a bit overrated?

I feel MEGA is only interesting for a handful of warez groups. For most every-day users the 50 free GBs are enough.

And establishment-conform corporations will choose other, more conform providers of cloud services.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Anyone care to wax poetic on the significance of this development?

[cypherdoc]

don't wanna poop the party, but isn't this MEGA + Bitcoin thing a bit overrated?

I feel MEGA is only interesting for a handful of warez groups. For most every-day users the 50 free GBs are enough.

And establishment-conform corporations will choose other, more conform providers of cloud services.

yeah, but MEGA is extremely high profile.  so whether you think adoption of Bitcoin is a good or bad thing by MEGA, at the very least its another major news event for Bitcoin.  which in my opinion, is a good thing.

[btcinstant]

Cool stuff!

[notig]

Does anyone else get the feeling that bitcoin is just a little too powerful for it's own good.

[Fuzzy]

Does anyone else get the feeling that bitcoin is just a little too powerful for it's own good.

It's becoming a little too big for certain special interest groups to ignore anymore, but that was inevitable, and some might say the very purpose of bitcoin itself.

Bitcoin only gets better as it gets bigger, so I wouldn't say it can ever be too big.

[Liquid]

This is good news up up goes the bitcoin price pls 

[Puppet]

Yeah which means that Mega doesnt really accept bitcoins, they accept USD but allow their reseller to exchange bitcoins for USD seamlessly instead of using an exchange.

Precisely.  A quick check on Mega's site reveals no mention of the word bitcoin, I only see Paypal, visa and the like. This is no different then amazon "accepting bitcoin"  just because www.spendbitcoins.com allows (edit: allowed) you to buy amazon vouchers with bitcoins. Okay, and the CEO tweeting about it, which admittedly would be big news if it were amazon's CEO, but its not.

[pof]

Not mean to be negative, but bitvoucher exchange rate is horrible.
At current prices, you will end paying $14 for a $9.99.- worth subscription ...

It's 9.99€, not 9.99$.

[gusti]

Not mean to be negative, but bitvoucher exchange rate is horrible.
At current prices, you will end paying $14 for a $9.99.- worth subscription ...

It's 9.99€, not 9.99$.

You are right. Still 5% more expensive, either.

[Technomage]

This is big news. Much bigger than the Reddit news, even. Kim Dotcom is such a high profile guy. I think that Bitcoin is actually becoming the default currency of the Internet.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

It's still important to note that none of these big sites accept BTC directly. It has turned out so far that payment processors like Bitpay and Coinbase are critical infrastructure to take the burden of legal risk, competency handling Bitcoin, and exchange rate volatility off the merchant's shoulders. This also suggests that there is great profit opportunity in starting competing payment processors/gateways, and we may see venture capital flowing in that direction.

[Technomage]

It's still important to note that none of these big sites accept BTC directly. It has turned out so far that payment processors like Bitpay and Coinbase are critical infrastructure to take the burden of legal risk, competency handling Bitcoin, and exchange rate volatility off the merchant's shoulders. This also suggests that there is great profit opportunity in starting competing payment processors/gateways, and we may see venture capital flowing in that direction.

Good point. I believe this will always be the case. Bitcoin is a complex technical animal at its core, it will be more efficient for most companies to outsource the technicals to companies that know their stuff. As long as that market remains a free market and competitive, it is a good thing. I also believe that market will become even more competitive in the future.

I can't even see how that market could not remain a free market since Bitcoin itself is a free to use technology.

[herzmeister]

It's still important to note that none of these big sites accept BTC directly.

that's just an implementation detail of those sites though.

should Bitcoin become popular enough so that they can spend them themselves for hardware etc, they will less and less need those payment providers.

[Technomage]

It's clear that more and more merchants will want bitcoins directly since the payment processors have much cheaper rates if there is no fiat conversion. As Bitcoin fulfills its potential as the currency of the Internet, this will definitely happen.

It still doesn't change the fact that payment processors will be used because they offer so much, for so little. Doing everything yourself can be a pain in the ass.

[marcus_of_augustus]

It's still important to note that none of these big sites accept BTC directly.

that's just an implementation detail of those sites though.

should Bitcoin become popular enough so that they can spend them themselves for hardware etc, they will less and less need those payment providers.

Yep. In the longer term big sites might have a sys admin and a payments (bitcoin) IT personnel and do away with a banking/accounts flunky or two ... accepting bitcoin directly.

[tvbcof]

don't wanna poop the party, but isn't this MEGA + Bitcoin thing a bit overrated?

I feel MEGA is only interesting for a handful of warez groups. For most every-day users the 50 free GBs are enough.

And establishment-conform corporations will choose other, more conform providers of cloud services.

Just as a point of reference, I never gave a damn about warez (in part because open-source software just works better for me and I don't have interest in movies or music.)  I also have never had an more involvement in anything criminal than the average person and have no plan to...under our current laws...or at least those laws which are publicly known.

Mega and Bitcoin are equally (and highly) important to me on philosophical grounds.  It is debatable about what I am politically, but I am definitely anti-fascist and anti-totalitarian.

Corporate issuance of dept/money and massive, pervasive, and wholesale surveillance of populations are two things which really trouble me.  Bitcoin and the implementation of cryptography popularized by the Mega (hopefully  family of) products are giant steps forward in my opinion.  These two are several of the most important developments of the last decade in my opinion.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

It still doesn't change the fact that payment processors will be used because they offer so much, for so little. Doing everything yourself can be a pain in the ass.

Yep

[Puppet]

It still doesn't change the fact that payment processors will be used because they offer so much, for so little.

Hmm.. assuming the merchant wants dollars in his account, Bitpay will cost him 3% (1% to accept the coins, 2% to convert them to dollars on his bank account). Credit card companies actually often charge less and even paypal is (considerably) cheaper if you have enough volume.

[caveden]

I feel MEGA is only interesting for a handful of warez groups. For most every-day users the 50 free GBs are enough.

I have this feeling too. But then again, there's no such a thing as a free lunch, so how are these 50GB going to be payed for? I suppose that, as for everything else "for free" on the web, it's going to be payed via advertising. But then again, if his advertisers use traditional payment vehicles, what's to stop the financial blockade?

If only Mega was large enough to convince some major web advertisers to start dealing in Bitcoin....  

It's still important to note that none of these big sites accept BTC directly. It has turned out so far that payment processors like Bitpay and Coinbase are critical infrastructure to take the burden of legal risk, competency handling Bitcoin, and exchange rate volatility off the merchant's shoulders.

I believe these companies should start looking into what it takes to handle their clients pay rolls (is that the English term for the process of paying your employees?).
Like, allowing employees to choose to receive, say, 10% of their salaries in Bitcoin. Then automatically tunneling part of the Bitcoin revenue the company has into Bitcoin salaries for their employees, making less exchanges against fiat and thus saving on fees for its client.
Also, these Bitcoin-specialized companies could handle the legal challenges, if any, that paying salaries in Bitcoin would represent.

I think that would speed up Bitcoin usage quite a bit.