[2017-12-15] Senior VP Says eBay “Seriously Considering” Bitcoin Integration

[Terraformer]

eBay, the $39 billion e-commerce platform, is seriously considering integrating Bitcoin into its platform as a payment method. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, eBay Americas senior vice president Scott Cutler stated that eBay is “seriously considering” integrating Bitcoin.

Power of Bitcoin

Throughout the past 12 months, the stock price of Overstock has increased by over 130 percent, triggered by the company’s involvement in various Bitcoin and Blockchain technology ventures. Several major conglomerates such as Japan’s GMO have also experienced a rapid increase in their stock values subsequent to their integration of Bitcoin.

It has become increasingly challenging for large-scale conglomerates and financial service providers to dismiss Bitcoin, because of its exponential increase in value and user base. Currently, the total market valuation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies exceeds $500 billion. As such, major banks like Goldman Sachs have started taking steps toward embracing the digital currency also, with Goldman agreeing to clear Bitcoin futures on behalf of their clients.

Cutler noted during the interview with Yahoo Finance “we’re not quite there yet.” Despite this, eBay is apparently demonstrating its optimism towards the digital currency. The company is also effectively showing the public that they are following the latest trends in finance.

High merchant fees

According to Bitcoin Fees, a transaction fee predictor on Earn.com, the fastest and cheapest transaction fee is currently 360 satoshis / byte or $13 per transaction. Granted, the transaction fee of Bitcoin depends on the size of the mempool. But, the size of the Bitcoin mempool has consistently remained above 110 million bytes over the past few days.

Moreover, casual users and newcomers will not continuously check the size of the Bitcoin mempool to come up with the optimal satoshis per byte-based fee to pay merchants on eBay. Without sufficient scaling and lower fees, users on eBay will likely not pay for items with a fee of over $10.

Already, Steam has temporarily disabled its integration of Bitcoin due to the increasing complaints about high fees from its clients. The merchant and e-commerce adoption rate of Bitcoin have slumped in regions outside of Japan.

Given the current state of the Bitcoin Blockchain, it is likely that e-commerce platforms like eBay will only integrate Bitcoin once secondary layer solutions are ready for integration, such as Lightning Network. It is important to note that second-layer scaling needs Segregated Witness (SegWit) to operate, and the adoption rate of SegWit remains below 10 percent.

The adoption rate of SegWit could increase by large margins in early 2018, upon the integration of SegWit by Coinbase and Blockchain.info, two of the global market’s largest Bitcoin wallet platforms

https://cointelegraph.com/news/senior-vp-says-ebay-seriously-considering-bitcoin-integration

[steadyrice]

Great news. I don't think bitcoin needs a popularity boost anymore but eBay is obviously one of the biggest marketplaces in the world and them adopting bitcoin can be nothing but good for btc and cryptocurrencies as a whole.

[iram1011]

High merchant fees

According to Bitcoin Fees, a transaction fee predictor on Earn.com, the fastest and cheapest transaction fee is currently 360 satoshis / byte or $13 per transaction. Granted, the transaction fee of Bitcoin depends on the size of the mempool. But, the size of the Bitcoin mempool has consistently remained above 110 million bytes over the past few days.

Moreover, casual users and newcomers will not continuously check the size of the Bitcoin mempool to come up with the optimal satoshis per byte-based fee to pay merchants on eBay. Without sufficient scaling and lower fees, users on eBay will likely not pay for items with a fee of over $10.

Already, Steam has temporarily disabled its integration of Bitcoin due to the increasing complaints about high fees from its clients. The merchant and e-commerce adoption rate of Bitcoin have slumped in regions outside of Japan.

Given the current state of the Bitcoin Blockchain, it is likely that e-commerce platforms like eBay will only integrate Bitcoin once secondary layer solutions are ready for integration, such as Lightning Network. It is important to note that second-layer scaling needs Segregated Witness (SegWit) to operate, and the adoption rate of SegWit remains below 10 percent.

The adoption rate of SegWit could increase by large margins in early 2018, upon the integration of SegWit by Coinbase and Blockchain.info, two of the global market’s largest Bitcoin wallet platforms

https://cointelegraph.com/news/senior-vp-says-ebay-seriously-considering-bitcoin-integration

I strongly agree with this. People won't use bitcoin that generally has became a store of value because of inbuilt deflation as a currency or for making small transaction until lightening network becomes the reality for bitcoin. But I still doubt that people will be willing to spend their bitcoins instead of inflationary fiat for ebay small transactions.

[davis196]

If eBay really wants to accept bitcoin payments, they will have to make the transactions reversible,in order to comply with their buyer/seller protection policies.Having reversible transactions will those high transaction fees and low confirmation time would look like a disaster.It would be easier for eBay to adopt some altcoin like ethereum or bitcoin cash.Bitcoin will remain only as a store of value.

[1Referee]

If eBay really wants to accept bitcoin payments, they will have to make the transactions reversible,in order to comply with their buyer/seller protection policies.

It's not that big of a deal. If we look at how things go right now, the buyers protection is something that is bank/creditcard-tied. Even if you do end up paying with Bitcoin, and you decide to charge back for whatever reason, it's the bank/credit account of the seller that gets charged, where Ebay then will give you back either the fiat equivalent straight, or the fiat equivalent in Bitcoin. It's something that we at this point don't know, so everything I say is just speculation.

Having reversible transactions will those high transaction fees and low confirmation time would look like a disaster.It would be easier for eBay to adopt some altcoin like ethereum or bitcoin cash.Bitcoin will remain only as a store of value.

Lightning Network is coming closer. It gets rid of Bitcoin's current limitations and hindrances, where at that point will see Bitcoin become the ultimate currency tool. Bitcoin's mainstream usage will then get a boost like we have never seen before. So no, we definitely don't need any merchant to accept whatever shitcoins.