If Uber/Lyft/Paypal would accept bitcoin, game changer?

[llyfee4u]

Just imagine if Uber, Lyft or Paypal would incorporate the acceptance of bitcoin onto their respective platforms?  This would be a great step in the right direction and it would definitely bring a whole new group (millions of people) into the crypto world.  Or am i completely off here?

[Danslip]

There are so many companies can accept bitcoins as payment method. But btc payment option brings so many problems. First and biggest problem is volatility. Crypto world is not stable and less volatile no matter of which coin/token you are referring

[llyfee4u]

There are so many companies can accept bitcoins as payment method. But btc payment option brings so many problems. First and biggest problem is volatility. Crypto world is not stable and less volatile no matter of which coin/token you are referring

You're right.  I only those three as big tech companies and the ease of use of their platforms. 

[LeGaulois]

There are so many companies can accept bitcoins as payment method. But btc payment option brings so many problems. First and biggest problem is volatility. Crypto world is not stable and less volatile no matter of which coin/token you are referring

From the company side, it is not a big problem as it seems. There are solutions for merchants to have their payment in Bitcoin converted automatically in fiat this to avoid the volatility. Bitpay, Paymium and surely some others offer this solution. So as merchants you don't lose any money. The same could be implemented for the customers side.

[Celebrity]

There are so many companies can accept bitcoins as payment method. But btc payment option brings so many problems. First and biggest problem is volatility. Crypto world is not stable and less volatile no matter of which coin/token you are referring

Volatility can be fixed by automatic hedging bots designed for companies, so that they never get affected negatively. But the real problem is that, transaction confirmation speed here. It's too slow really.

[squatter]

Just imagine if Uber, Lyft or Paypal would incorporate the acceptance of bitcoin onto their respective platforms?  This would be a great step in the right direction and it would definitely bring a whole new group (millions of people) into the crypto world.  Or am i completely off here?

I don't think it's a game changer at all. Back in 2014, everyone thought merchant acceptance was a big deal. I've learned over time that consumer payments aren't the key to adoption, particularly because merchants generally just use Bitpay or Coinbase to process their transactions into dollars. That's likely what Uber would do as well (although maybe they would keep a small amount in BTC, like Overstock did).

[marky89]

There are so many companies can accept bitcoins as payment method. But btc payment option brings so many problems. First and biggest problem is volatility. Crypto world is not stable and less volatile no matter of which coin/token you are referring

From the company side, it is not a big problem as it seems. There are solutions for merchants to have their payment in Bitcoin converted automatically in fiat this to avoid the volatility. Bitpay, Paymium and surely some others offer this solution. So as merchants you don't lose any money. The same could be implemented for the customers side.

It can be done, but I don't think this is particularly useful to adoption, especially if it's done through payment processors that just dump directly to fiat. We saw a lot of merchants adding Bitcoin payment options throughout the 2014-2015 bear market, and I don't think it drove adoption.

Seeing it as a merchant payment option might help overall BTC recognition, but as a consumer, it wouldn't make me think, "I better go out and buy some BTC so I can spend it on Uber." Especially if I knew anything about it and took into account the costs of acquiring BTC. And the fees to spend it on low-cost consumer payments. It doesn't make much sense.

It would be interesting if these companies accepted BTC and then also began including it in their investment portfolios. That would definitely have an effect on supply. But I don't know how likely that is.

[TryNinja]

From the company side, it is not a big problem as it seems. There are solutions for merchants to have their payment in Bitcoin converted automatically in fiat this to avoid the volatility. Bitpay, Paymium and surely some others offer this solution. So as merchants you don't lose any money. The same could be implemented for the customers side.

It can be done, but I don't think this is particularly useful to adoption, especially if it's done through payment processors that just dump directly to fiat. We saw a lot of merchants adding Bitcoin payment options throughout the 2014-2015 bear market, and I don't think it drove adoption.

Seeing it as a merchant payment option might help overall BTC recognition, but as a consumer, it wouldn't make me think, "I better go out and buy some BTC so I can spend it on Uber." Especially if I knew anything about it and took into account the costs of acquiring BTC. And the fees to spend it on low-cost consumer payments. It doesn't make much sense.

It would be interesting if these companies accepted BTC and then also began including it in their investment portfolios. That would definitely have an effect on supply. But I don't know how likely that is.

The problem is that to start accepting Bitcoin itself, and using it to pay other expenses, a company would need to start taking a loss as a way of spreading Bitcoin's adoption.

Imagine if a restaurant start accepting Bitcoin. The owner receives 0.05 of Bitcoin from a dinner and has to pay the ingredients he spent to make the food. How would he pay his bills if the company he owes doesn't accept Bitcoin? He will always have the need to sell Bitcoin for fiat, to then, pay the market that sold him his ingredients.

Bitcoin is still very dependent from the fiat. Maybe in the future we may start seeing some Bitcoin to Bitcoin ecosystem.

[Halcyon Days]

This would definitely change things and I am sure, a lot of BTC enthusiast will use this function. However, one issue for the majority is, that the BTC price is fluctuating quite a lot, which makes a everyday usage of the coin difficult.

[Scorpion]

I think we need to take a step beyond that and make a decentralized taxi platform, no middle man so the fees are less for the customer and the earnings are more for the driver. It would be a blockchain and drivers are customers are rated and fully secured behind a blockchain database. This platform would also accept all the major cryptocurrencies I think.

[ivrynx]

if they would accept bitcoin, i don't think it will be a game changer unless, there companies made  an innovation, that it is only meant for bitcoins. that course could be a game changer, however it will depend on the market where they are located, for example uber, uber here in my country has some problems with the current government, and thankfully it is already been settled, then next, is the patronage of people to bitcoins, there are only a handful of people who lives in the city, with knowledge of bitcoins, and has trust on uber, so their market  is too low for us. lyft however is not here in my country. as for paypal, i think people with bitcoins, would rather transfer their bitcoins via wallet, instead of giving their address to paypal, since paypal is a different platform. if they could only companies would think up of ways on how they can also serve, people with bitcoins and we can see that we can all benefit from it, it only means that they will gain customers, and probably it will be a game changer, in which others will follow.

[Singbatak]

If this happens it is definitely a big contribution to bitcoins. And many people will be drawn here to invest. And there's going to be the introduction of bitcoins as money.

[Yakamoto]

Just imagine if Uber, Lyft or Paypal would incorporate the acceptance of bitcoin onto their respective platforms?  This would be a great step in the right direction and it would definitely bring a whole new group (millions of people) into the crypto world.  Or am i completely off here?

A big thing I have been thinking about recently is that businesses accepting Bitcoin is less about getting companies to accept Bitcoin so as to grow the community and more to cater to existing Bitcoin users. Even if they start to accept Bitcoin, it maybe increases the speculation value but people will just keep using the same old systems they used to be using. There may be "new" users using the new payment methods, but the real size of the community likely doesn't grow significantly.

[Sithara007]

PayPal itself is a mode of payment and they view Bitcoin as their competitor. So there is hardly any chance of Bitcoins getting accepted in PayPal. Also, there are are technical issues as well. PayPal transactions can be reversed, but Bitcoin transactions are irreversible.

[pawanjain]

Just imagine if Uber, Lyft or Paypal would incorporate the acceptance of bitcoin onto their respective platforms?  This would be a great step in the right direction and it would definitely bring a whole new group (millions of people) into the crypto world.  Or am i completely off here?

Lets just assume what you are saying is true. If these companies start accepting bitcoin then the price of bitcoin will increase by atleast 4 to 5 times. These companies have millions of customers from around the world. As they introduce a new mode of payment the customers attraction will go towards bitcoin. As bitcoin is already famous people would want to buy bitcoins and hence there will be huge crowd on the buy list of bitcoin.
This will increase the price of bitcoin to its peak and then God knows what will happen.

[pooya87]

Just imagine if Uber, Lyft or Paypal would incorporate the acceptance of bitcoin onto their respective platforms?  This would be a great step in the right direction and it would definitely bring a whole new group (millions of people) into the crypto world.  Or am i completely off here?

i don't know what Lyft is but if Uber does it then it would be a nice little step towards more adoption.
but i don't think PayPal is going to be that helpful. their rules and how they centralize things and take ridiculous fees and generally how it works is never helpful in adoption of bitcoin. of course it will be good because it can help many convert between PayPal and bitcoin, back and forth, but the disadvantages seems more to me.

[Kanapka]

Maybe, but they won't any time soon, so better waste your brain with something more useful.

[Dudeperfect]

Even if they are denying to look at it at this stage, I am sure that in the coming years they have to accept Bitcoin as a payment method due to increase in demand from their customers. I see the valuable efforts of companies like Bitpay to allow merchants (online/offline) to accept Bitcoin with the proper invoicing system. Yes, considering the large user base of these companies I believe it would help Bitcoin user base to grow but it's going to grow in any way. If they are accepting Bitcoin then that would boost the speed of growth.

[ubercool]

Uber may accept BTC in the near future but Paypal?? I dont think they will ever accept BTC, they think BTC is a competitor for their shitty services. But they dont know that BTC is much more than that. I feel Amazon or eBay will become a bigger impact than Paypal's acceptance.

[Xenoph0bia]

I don't think that. Firstly, more people should start adopting the bitcoins; so if any service providers offers to accept bitcoins then there should be more users who can make the transactions by bitcoins, otherwise the idea will be failed.