New Indicator: Number of sites accepting bitcoin

[Andrew Bitcoiner]

I believe the "killer app" for bitcoin would be a payment processing service. Making smallish payments across borders is very troublesome and expensive, and I think various third parties could easily compete directly against credit card companies and Paypal.

This is what I have in mind:

A US-based company that can make bank transfers (write checks or make direct deposits) to US banks. The company holds a largish amount of BTC and USD in an exchange and hedges itself against fluctuations in BTC value. The recipients provide their identification to the company so that the payment processing company can cooperate with law enforcement and comply with money laundering laws. The money senders just send BTC (and remain anonymous if they so wish), the processing company covers its costs (+profit) with fees and then just sends the USD to the recipients. Everything is perfectly legal, I think. And even if the fees might initially be higher than even Paypal, I believe there could be demand for this service.

http://bitcashretail.com

[1714131724]

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[1714131724]

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[Cluster2k]

I believe the "killer app" for bitcoin would be a payment processing service. Making smallish payments across borders is very troublesome and expensive, and I think various third parties could easily compete directly against credit card companies and Paypal.

This is what I have in mind:

A US-based company that can make bank transfers (write checks or make direct deposits) to US banks. The company holds a largish amount of BTC and USD in an exchange and hedges itself against fluctuations in BTC value. The recipients provide their identification to the company so that the payment processing company can cooperate with law enforcement and comply with money laundering laws. The money senders just send BTC (and remain anonymous if they so wish), the processing company covers its costs (+profit) with fees and then just sends the USD to the recipients. Everything is perfectly legal, I think. And even if the fees might initially be higher than even Paypal, I believe there could be demand for this service.

http://bitcashretail.com

How does your service get around money laundering and anti terrorism legislation in the USA and other countries?  Do people who want to transfer money have to identify themselves with sufficient ID?  This is more a follow up to the original question of transferring money between countries, and bitcashretail.com was cited as the answer to that.

Also you have at least 2 spelling errors on your front page.  "onvert" and "BitCashRetai.com"

"BitCashRetail.com is designed for Merchants and Sellers to get the maximum rate of return on what they have to sell at no cost*"

"* Some fees apply, please read the Terms Of Service"

Aren't these two statements directly contradictory?

[Spekulatius]

Updated

Since my last update 2 month have past. In despite of a continued devaluation of bitcoin against real world currencies, the number of businesses accepting bitcoin on- as well as offline has risen constantly. Especially the segment of professional services, like software- consulting or creative services has picked up. Some previous entries vanished and are not part of the count anymore, others were created.

I will continue to illustrate the stats of the list at irregular intervals, feedback and contributions welcome!

[sethsethseth]

I was very suprised to see this number has only increased by 100 or so in 6 months.  I was expecting to see exponential growth instead of linear.  Estimating the black market growth would be interesting. It was attempted in this thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40758.0

[Technomage]

I was very suprised to see this number has only increased by 100 or so in 6 months.  I was expecting to see exponential growth instead of linear.  Estimating the black market growth would be interesting. It was attempted in this thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40758.0

I believe it will continue to be linear until Bitcoin is accepted as payment by a prominent, well known merchant. We need only a couple of those and it'll explode to exponential growth. But not before. There is simply not enough marketing potential yet to fuel massive merchant growth. I'm very confident that this will change in a couple of years though, it requires a spark of some sort. It's just a matter of time.

[Spekulatius]

Update 

[sethsethseth]

I keep checking this thread hoping for updates:)

[Spekulatius]

updated monthly,
next update in T-07 days..

[Spekulatius]

DECLINE!

update (watch first post of thread)

[Technomage]

DECLINE!

update (watch first post of thread)

Just like you explained in the first post this is due to a cleanup process. In recent months there has been talk that the list needs to be evaluated from top to bottom, not many have participated in it but I think this has already had a significant effect. It will probably lead to more decline when evaluation of all entries is finished.

It's a good thing for Bitcoin users because the list had a good number of dead/zombie sites, which will now be removed.

[kjlimo]

how do you view the Merchants_&_Donations.ods file?  What program can I use?

And this does not include brick & mortar stores, correct?

[Spekulatius]

use open office, libre office, gnumeric,..

Yes it includes real world stores as well. All entries from indent "4 Internet & Mobile services" are counted.

[sethsethseth]

How is march coming along?

[kjlimo]

I suggest adding some more colors like orange, pink, yellow, dark green, etc.  Right now there seems to be a lot of shades of blue that are a little tougher to distinguish.  Not that big a deal, but thought I'd throw it out there.

Looking forward to seeing if the trend changes this month!  I haven't had a chance to review the data with open office.  I've been too bust @ work preparing for my vacation.

Ciao!

[Spekulatius]

updated!

--> see first post!

[RaggedMonk]

Awesome!  Always reassuring to see growth 

[Spekulatius]

updated

--> OP 

[bb113]

I wonder if merchants could be convinced to contribute to this project themselves. They would have to respond to an email once a month to verify they are still in business or something. Also, maybe they would be willing to fill out a poll asking how much business (roughly) they do each month.

[Spekulatius]

whoa! That sounds like alot of work
more work than I can handle. Maybe some one wants to step in..? 
mayyyybeeeeee...?

[ShireSilver]

I wonder if merchants could be convinced to contribute to this project themselves. They would have to respond to an email once a month to verify they are still in business or something. Also, maybe they would be willing to fill out a poll asking how much business (roughly) they do each month.

What I do for merchants listed on my Shire Silver site is have them pay $1/month. If they decide to no longer participate, they have an incentive to update that status. It might be a trivial amount, but it does help ensure only those who are serious in acceptance are listed. Perhaps a satoshi/month or so might work for this.