[EXPIRED] [BOUNTY] 1000 BTC for getting a major business to accept Bitcoin

[sirius]

I'm offering a 1000 BTC bounty for getting a major business to accept Bitcoins as payment. Conditions:

• The business should have at least tens of thousands of customers and a revenue of at least 50 -100 million USD.
• The business must accept Bitcoins as payment for the most of their services.
• The business must provide a reasonably convenient way to pay with Bitcoins. If it's an internet business, they should process the Bitcoin payments automatically.
• The bounty recipient(s) must prove that they convinced the business to start accepting Bitcoins. Contact Sirius by a PM or IRC when the business has shown interest in accepting Bitcoins.
• The bounty will be paid when the business has accepted Bitcoins as payment for 3 months. If they accept Bitcoins for less than 3 months but at least 3 weeks, the bounty will be 200 BTC.
• The bounty expires on 31.12.2011. The business must make the decision to try out Bitcoins before that.
• These terms are subject to change.

Ask me if you're unsure if your business qualifies. Feel free to contribute to the bounty amount.

Suggestion: Try to get a poker site to accept BTC

[mizerydearia]

From Linode's Lee Matos:

I do not know of our plans to accept bitcoins as payment. I think that it is safe to say that we will not be accepting bitcoins until they widely used across the public sector. I hope this helps!

I presume this type of hesitation to accept bitcoins until bitcoins are 'widely used across the public sector' is prevalent excuse across many businesses, and without any of them taking initiation and instead preserving hesitation, then there will never be an established 'wide use across the public sector.'

[error]

From Linode's Lee Matos:

I do not know of our plans to accept bitcoins as payment. I think that it is safe to say that we will not be accepting bitcoins until they widely used across the public sector. I hope this helps!

I presume this type of hesitation to accept bitcoins until bitcoins are 'widely used across the public sector' is prevalent excuse across many businesses, and without any of them taking initiation and instead preserving hesitation, then there will never be an established 'wide use across the public sector.'

I don't expect that the government will ever accept bitcoins.

[FreeMoney]

From Linode's Lee Matos:

I do not know of our plans to accept bitcoins as payment. I think that it is safe to say that we will not be accepting bitcoins until they widely used across the public sector. I hope this helps!

I presume this type of hesitation to accept bitcoins until bitcoins are 'widely used across the public sector' is prevalent excuse across many businesses, and without any of them taking initiation and instead preserving hesitation, then there will never be an established 'wide use across the public sector.'

I don't expect that the government will ever accept bitcoins.

I'll bet that there will eventually be some gang strong enough to claim local supremacy but not strong enough to mandate a money and will just go with the flow and use the natural money.

[Bitcoin Oz]

Thinkgeek.com is the obvious choice.

[Elwar]

I will contact my local Federal Reserve bank...

*fingers crossed*

[Elwar]

I do believe that large companies will need some software that would help them deal with Bitcoins.

I am not saying that it is impossible to create that software, but that the software has not yet been developed because we are not at that level yet.

[BurtW]

Could those developing software please post links to this site so we can match them with our potential businesses?  I know that there are some POS systems out there and more under developement.

[Elwar]

Could those developing software please post links to this site so we can match them with our potential businesses?  I know that there are some POS systems out there and more under developement.

I am not thinking that the POS part is as big of a deal as the accounting portion.

You have a day's worth of customers paying in Bitcoins going into a wallet and you have to trust an employee somewhere not to access that wallet and copy it onto his home computer. That end of things needs some work.

Right now it is ideal for a small business with a single owner.

[gusti]

Could those developing software please post links to this site so we can match them with our potential businesses?  I know that there are some POS systems out there and more under developement.

I am not thinking that the POS part is as big of a deal as the accounting portion.

You have a day's worth of customers paying in Bitcoins going into a wallet and you have to trust an employee somewhere not to access that wallet and copy it onto his home computer. That end of things needs some work.

Right now it is ideal for a small business with a single owner.

You can route all your incoming payments to a offline wallet, only authorized person will have access to it.
Similarly, employees cannot initiate transactions or have access to the business bank account.

[Dansker]

Hope someone is able to claim this bounty!

Could be a breakthrough, especially if the major business accepting bitcoins did so by using their own innovative way of doing so. Could drive bitcoin further away out of the amateur stage.

[f41lover]

I have an a idea about a VERY BIG business to contact, but the bounty is way too low for the excuse i will be using to convince the business itself. It should be at least ten fold that.

[t3a]

Thinkgeek.com is the obvious choice.

Unfortunately, thinkgeek (Geeknet) only has a revenue in the millions, not 50-100million.

[BitcoinPorn]

/r/Bitcoin has this up http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/l11df/in_this_thread_reddit_raises_1000_btc_for_charity/ suggesting Reddit be the one to accept the Bitcoin for the 3 months to get the 1000 btc, and then they could donate that to charity or whatever they want.


I however, come with this in mind, and I hope goons are reading this, SomethingAwful should do it

[Elwar]

I e-mailed Netflix

 

No reason they would have much difficulty accepting BTC for subscriptions.

[StanMarsh]

I don't understand this offer. In my point of view it doesn't make any sense. You could also say: "I will give 1000 BTC for free, if you are a big company and accept Bitcoins".
It is nearly impossible to "convince" a huge company to accept Bitcoins. And even if I'm successful and get a company to accept Bitcoins, why should the company tell anyone that it was me who had the idea for it? In fact, if they get to know that you will pay 1000 Bitcoins, they will just create a fake account and get the money for themselves. Even if I post in this thread that I've asked company xyz to do it, someone else (or a fake account from the company) could show up and say "I asked them 3 days ago! I was first!".
So what's the point?

[2112]

So what's the point?

It is a page from the playbook of pump&dump-ers. Do anything to move the inventory.

Bitcoin itself is not a stock, but some synthetic security. But the promotional efforts around it are straight from the "caveat emptor" section of the OTC Markets Group (if you allow me a little bit of USA-centrism).

http://www.otcmarkets.com/otc-101/otc-market-tiers

I just love their icon for the "caveat emptor" section of the "pink sheets":

[mizerydearia]

Thinkgeek.com is the obvious choice.

also see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=909

[sirius]

I don't understand this offer. In my point of view it doesn't make any sense. You could also say: "I will give 1000 BTC for free, if you are a big company and accept Bitcoins".

I don't mind if the bounty recipient works for the big company. You can freely divide the bounty in any way you want. What I care about is that the big company starts accepting BTC

It is nearly impossible to "convince" a huge company to accept Bitcoins. And even if I'm successful and get a company to accept Bitcoins, why should the company tell anyone that it was me who had the idea for it? In fact, if they get to know that you will pay 1000 Bitcoins, they will just create a fake account and get the money for themselves. Even if I post in this thread that I've asked company xyz to do it, someone else (or a fake account from the company) could show up and say "I asked them 3 days ago! I was first!".
So what's the point?

You should contact me when the business has initially shown interest in accepting BTC. You can make any arrangements you want that help you prove that you should get the bounty. I'll use my best judgement to reward the right person.

[nmat]

I doubt that any business with 100 millions USD of revenue would accept bitcoins right now. Do you realize how much a 1% shift in Bitcoin price (which happens everyday) would affect the company? Million dollar companies don't play the roulette with their revenues. Every dollar is accounted for.