How do you feel about businesses that stop accepting Bitcoin?

[FoBoT]

I do not feel any bad about those companies that stopped accepting bitcoin due to whatsoever reason they may have; fiverr.com fall into that category.
The major problem with them is that they do not have a crypto background but adopted it when the going was good.

[harizen]

Personally, for me, it's not a big deal after all.

Surely they have a sort of reasons why they decided to removed bitcoin payments which are reasonable to their views. Views that we customers will not understand.

These companies are reputable and no way they will just accept or removed a certain payment without undergoing a brainstorming. They didn't accept bitcoin just because of it's promising great value in the future. It's out of their context as their purpose is purely business.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It sounds like that business owner was still cashing out, just not via BitPay.

She was cashing out in part, and partly keeping some bitcoin to use as an investment and as a payment to others. From chatting to a couple of her employees, I believe one or two of them may have been accepting part of their salary in bitcoin, although I don't know this for sure. It is much easier for a small local company to do something like this than it would be for, say, a Starbucks employee.

If more primary sector companies down the supply chain started accepting bitcoin, then that would help more secondary and tertiary sector companies accept bitcoin too. But for the primary sector to accept bitcoin, the secondary and tertiary sectors need to want to pay in it. It's a bit of a Catch 22.

[1Referee]

They're better off accepting Lightning payments and skip BitPay entirely.

If you ask like $0.10-$0.50 in processing fees just because of the on-chain fees (which goes on top of the on-chain fees people have to pay for their own transaction), which BitPay does, that's not a good payment alternative at all, and I'm sure that there behind the scenes are a few other things they charge the merchant for aside from the default 1% fee.

I'm frequently using Bitrefill and I absolutely love their Lightning integration. If merchants start adopting this, they are less likely to drop Bitcoin as payment option.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If merchants start adopting this, they are less likely to drop Bitcoin as payment option.

I agree with you, but the hurdle to that is the initial set up. Accepting bitcoin payments directly involves a lot of time, money, and effort to set up your own wallets and terminals, train your staff how to use them, figure out a way to cash out if you need to, and sort how to pay your bitcoin taxes.

Setting up BitPay involves making an account and downloading an app. Even with the fees, BitPay is still cheaper than using credit cards, which almost all businesses do.

[GreatArkansas]

Remember when Steam decided to accept Bitcoin, only to roll back their decision later on?

I also observed this before on Steam, since I tried to play some games on steam and tried to purchase steam wallet funds by using Bitcoin, I think they also used BitPay before.

Just like what mjglqw said, it's BUSINESS. Since what I observed of gamers nowadays, not only on steam but on the general that don't have any idea what bitcoin is, they are just there to play games.
So, maybe Steam decided to stop accepting Bitcoin because of some problem like the volatility of the price of Bitcoin, the transaction confirmation (especially on the time they started to accept bitcoin, the network is really clogged before and the transaction fees are high).

[Patatas]

I think there are too many complications to implementing these bitcoin payment services. A company doesn't want to invest in developers who can implement a bitcoin payment processor as that adds to their business costs. Instead, they choose to use a third party payment mediator like BitPay/Coinpayments which are buggy as hell. This causes their customers to have unsatisfactory experiences and they rather get over a payment than lose a customer.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Take note, these services are businesses; not charities. Most businesses removed BTC payments either because only a very small percentage are using them, or because of the transaction speeds, or both.

Well said, and this is what I was thinking as well, though I'm not sure how much confirmation time has to do with a merchant's decision to drop bitcoin.  My guess is that people just aren't using bitcoin to pay for anything.  I mean, come on--the majority of people walking around on this planet don't own any crypto whatsoever and have no problems with using their debit/credit card to pay for things.

I think businesses that take bitcoin are doing it because bitcoin was red-hot in 2013, 2017, and now this year.  They want to jump on the bandwagon and they probably think accepting bitcoin might attract more customers.  Most businesses are not like Veldt Gold, which is primarily a huge supporter of crypto.  As stated, the stores that do take bitcoin don't actually receive bitcoin; they get fiat, so they really don't have any interest in crypto.  Like any other business, they just want your money in whatever form they can get you to send it with.

And as far as OP's question goes, I hold no malice toward any company that dropped bitcoin.  Like I just said, they most likely weren't crypto supporters in the first place and didn't deserve credit as such to begin with.  If people aren't using bitcoin to pay for their stuff, there's no reason to keep it as a payment option.

Bitcoin works as an investment.  It works great, in fact.  As a currency, it sucks ass--and I hate to write that on a forum dedicated to it, but it's the truth as I see it.  Fees, confirmation times, no customer protection, and some other factors I can't think of at the moment are the reason I say this.  I would predict that not only will merchant acceptance of bitcoin not grow, but it will actually decline to the point where there will be only a handful of places where you can spend it.  But we'll see.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Fees, confirmation times, no customer protection, and some other factors I can't think of at the moment are the reason I say this.

I completely agree with your points here, but there are various things that either are happening or could happen to address some of these issues. Lightning network makes confirmation practically instant, and also helps to reduce fees significantly. At the moment for LN adoption is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Most of the time the fees are only high in the first place because too many people just accept the default option their wallet is giving them, and we end up in a rapidly escalating loop of people jumping over each other to guarantee inclusion in the next block. A combination of better education and better wallets that don't do this could really help things.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I'll say they didn't understand the technology they intended to embrace but just followed the hype of bitcoin and started accepting bitcoin then when things didn't go as they expected they gave up just like new investors who FOMO into buying bitcoin because of the quick money mentality and when things don't go as they planned they give up.

Before a business starts accepting bitcoin as a payment option they should have been aware of all those factor we highlighted here and search for better mechanism to combat them. e.g for the double spending factor, they will only accept payment with at least one confirmation. Simple as that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

e.g for the double spending factor, they will only accept payment with at least one confirmation. Simple as that.

I actually don't think accepting zero-confirmations transactions is that terrible a thing to do for small volume trades. Let me explain a bit.

Almost every business accepts credit cards. If I pay by credit card, you can see the transaction has been made within a few seconds, but it takes 2-3 days before my card issuer actually transfers the money to the business in question. In those intervening days, it is fairly easy for me to cancel the transaction by phoning my card company/bank and claiming my card was stolen/lost/cloned/phished/hacked/whatever. Indeed, even after the money has been transferred, I can still challenge it and have it reversed if I'm persistent enough. Yet fraud rates are very low and almost every business accepts credit cards.

With bitcoin, the situation isn't that different. You can see the transaction has been made within a few seconds. It usually takes in the order of minutes to hours to confirm, based on your fees, rather than days it takes with credit cards. Once it has confirmed, I can't challenge it, and I certainly can't reverse it months down the line.

As a result, the vast majority of the security for unconfirmed transactions comes not from within the Bitcoin system, but from external factors such as the large numbers of honest Bitcoin users who would never attempt to defraud their vendors, the tolerance among vendors for small amounts of fraud, the ability (or threat) of vendors resorting to the legal system or other types of recourse, and other factors which have nothing to do with the design of the Bitcoin protocol.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

e.g for the double spending factor, they will only accept payment with at least one confirmation. Simple as that.

I actually don't think accepting zero-confirmations transactions is that terrible a thing to do for small volume trades. Let me explain a bit.

I get what you're saying but here is the catch, with those third party service providers like credit cards, the identify of the customers in regards to name, address of residence etc aren't anonymous but when it comes to bitcoin none of these things are necessary so it's easier for them to go away with fraud using bitcoin which is why the 1 confirmation requirement is necessary.

[Mpamaegbu]

Most businesses removed BTC payments either because only a very small percentage are using them, or because of the transaction speeds, or both. Which are very understandable reasons for removing BTC payments.

Or even for the exorbitant and unreasonable transaction fees in case the businesses have to do refund for a trade gone wrong. Miners fees is driving Bitcoin fans away and this is crazy.

[figmentofmyass]

I actually don't think accepting zero-confirmations transactions is that terrible a thing to do for small volume trades. Let me explain a bit.

Almost every business accepts credit cards. If I pay by credit card, you can see the transaction has been made within a few seconds, but it takes 2-3 days before my card issuer actually transfers the money to the business in question. In those intervening days, it is fairly easy for me to cancel the transaction by phoning my card company/bank and claiming my card was stolen/lost/cloned/phished/hacked/whatever. Indeed, even after the money has been transferred, I can still challenge it and have it reversed if I'm persistent enough. Yet fraud rates are very low and almost every business accepts credit cards.

With bitcoin, the situation isn't that different. You can see the transaction has been made within a few seconds. It usually takes in the order of minutes to hours to confirm, based on your fees, rather than days it takes with credit cards. Once it has confirmed, I can't challenge it, and I certainly can't reverse it months down the line.

there are additional caveats with bitcoin.

at a low enough fee rate, some transactions may never be confirmed, or could take several days after re-broadcasting. so a business may need to incur additional costs using CPFP to reliably receive certain payments within a reasonable time frame (assuming this works reliably at all given miner pool behavior). they may need to require a minimum fee rate or otherwise charge a fee on top that covers their costs to sweep. allowing zero conf tx simply invites people to pay low/no fees, which is problematic for merchants.

the ability to double spend unconfirmed transactions also raises some concerns. with credit cards, your identity is known to the issuer, and there are various factors like IP address/physical delivery address in online purchases and security cameras/witnesses in physical purchases to deter fraud attempts. but with bitcoin, what exactly constitutes provable fraud since outputs are tied to keys, not people? let's say i buy a big screen tv at best buy, pay with bitcoin with a low fee, walk out into the parking lot then double spend the tx with a higher fee. best buy doesn't know who i am, and to boot, is it provable in court that i'm the only holder of those private keys? private keys are hacked all the time, plus they can be controlled by multiple parties.

it seems like confirmed bitcoin transactions are incredibly secure for merchants. unconfirmed transactions? not so much. this is another reason why flexa's model (and presumably bakkt's) are attractive to merchants rather than accepting bitcoin directly. they don't need to wait for confirmations and accounts can be settled quickly because only confirmed outputs (in gemini's custody) are spendable at POS.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Setting a minimum fee requirement, refusing to accept transactions opted in to RBF, and only accepting zero-confirmation transactions for small value transactions (things like a cup of coffee or a fast food order, where waiting around for minutes to hours isn't really an option) goes a large way to minimize these risks. In your example with buying a TV, I completely agree that several confirmations are necessary before considering the deal "done".

My farmers market vendor that I discussed above accepts zero order confirmations from me, but we know each other by name and I'm a regular customer. I don't know what his policies are for new customers. I might ask him next weekend.

[BitHodler]

I don't care one bit. I like to see more merchant adoption than less, but people just aren't willing enough to spend their coins. Accepting Bitcoin or any other crypto yields more problems than it generates income for you.

Most people who want merchants to accept Bitcoin only want it because they believe the price may pump as result, but never actually spend a satoshi themselves. Just let merchants do whatever they think is right. It's their business.

If Bitcoin was such a great payment method none of the merchants that dropped Bitcoin would have done so. Bitcoin is a horrible payment method. You also have to buy back your coins afterwards. So cool. Not.

[Lucius]

I think there are too many complications to implementing these bitcoin payment services. A company doesn't want to invest in developers who can implement a bitcoin payment processor as that adds to their business costs. Instead, they choose to use a third party payment mediator like BitPay/Coinpayments which are buggy as hell. This causes their customers to have unsatisfactory experiences and they rather get over a payment than lose a customer.

I did not have any problems personally with payment processor like BitPay/Coinpayments, they are pretty simple for using if user has at least some basic knowledge how cryptocurrency works. Maybe the biggest problem with these processors is limited time for payment, and if user transaction is not confirmed in the given time, then you need to solve this with support. I recently had a small problem by using CoinPayments (transaction is timed out due to low fee), and i just solve it by sending message to seller to open payment with sending ticket to CoinPayment with ID of transaction.


As for those who accept bitcoin, and then for some reason stop doing so I can understand if it is a business decision only. But if such decision is in any way politically motivated, then such a service to some extent loses my trust.

[figmentofmyass]

I don't care one bit. I like to see more merchant adoption than less, but people just aren't willing enough to spend their coins. Accepting Bitcoin or any other crypto yields more problems than it generates income for you.

Most people who want merchants to accept Bitcoin only want it because they believe the price may pump as result, but never actually spend a satoshi themselves.

they'll probably be willing to spend some bitcoins after the price has pumped though. bitpay has released some data about this. the more the price rises, the more people are spending to lock in those dollar gains:

The more valuable bitcoin has become, the more people are using it to buy stuff.  ”We have definitely seen a ‘wealth effect’ pattern when the bitcoin price increases,” says James Walpole, BitPay’s marketing manager. In other words, if you already owned bitcoin and it rose in value, selling some bitcoin would give you more dollars to spend.

The bitcoin “wealth effect” is also evident in the buying patterns of customers at CheapAir, which sells plane tickets, hotel reservations and car rentals online. CheapAir was one of the earliest merchants to accept bitcoin payments in November 2013, and founder Jeff Klee says his bitcoin customers are now feeling flush. “With bitcoin we tend to generate more sales in premium cabins like business class or first class,” he says. “Certainly the average spend for the bitcoin customer is higher than a non-bitcoin customer.” CheapAir’s bitcoin payments have risen sharply over the last year and a half—a time when bitcoin’s price has risen sixfold.

[therhslv]

They eventually will accept again , probably looking for some 3rd party merchant to accept crypto . Or maybe they did take it off because barely few people used it on steam . But anyway where is the problem to integrate 3rd party API and let people buy how they want I think it does not take alot of funds to integrate , probably few hundreds and client steam update , thats it