It costs more to use bitcoin on bitpay than bitcoin cash

[figmentofmyass]

The amount they earn from these fees likely varies depending on if tx fees are increasing or not, and if so by how much. I don’t think it is a given they will always have positive profit from eventually spending the coin they receive.

it does seem like the "network fees" collected primarily subsidize their horribly inefficient fee practices. they are paying 28-35 sat/byte to sweep when the network is routinely confirming 1 sat/byte transactions. not to mention the fact that they could save an additional 40% on fees by using ubiquitously compatible P2SH wrapped segwit addresses. i can understand not implementing bech32 because of compatibility but not using P2SH is singlehandedly driving their customers costs up by 40%+. that's a real FU to all of us.

[eternalgloom]

I believe this is to cover the cost to spend the coin that bitpay receives from the payment of the invoice.

That's a BS excuse they like to pull to encourage people to switch to bcash. They wanted me to pay an extra ~$0.70 when the 6 blocks fee was 1 sat/B. Since I just wanted to buy a pizza that would amount to an effective fee of almost 10%.

**removed Takeway payment screenshot**

Tell me about it! I really wish Takeaway would just switch to another Bitcoin payment gateway, because the amount of fees they charge is way more than needed indeed.
Plus, have you ever had it happen that you manually add enough fees, by copying the payment to Electrum for example, just for them to put your payment on hold until you get enough confirmations?

Mind you, I get why they're doing this, my point is just that they do not use correct fee calculations.

[UserU]

BitPay rates are rubbish. When I first used it, I had to pay several dollars just for a $15 transaction.

But for services using BP as a method of deposit, you can avoid the hefty fees by using an external wallet (e.g. Electrum) and manually lowering the TX fees. It'd still go thru.

[Indamuck]

Several times make a purchase through bitpay on namecheap these days and yuppp they are indeed looks like force users to swap to bitcoin cash with its higher fee on bitcoin. I'm not happy with that , not a big fan of bitcoin cash though.

Bitpay getting fucked with their recent  policy change .. especially about how KYC needed for certain amount on transactions.

I do not have bCash shit. So even if I wanted to pay using bCash, I can not. To save ~0.50 or $1, I am not going through all these hassle to buy bCash shit and then pay through bitPay. I will directly pay using my BTC and this is what I do in fact. I am a namecheap customer so I use BitPay very often however I do not like this BitPay shit.

I hope a new business comes up and replace their service which will be Bitcoin focused.

A lot of bitcoiners hold both, I always suggested the smart thing to do was to hold both coins at the fork.  BCH has hung around better than a lot of people expected and I wouldn't be surprised if it pumped to insane levels like it did during the last bull run. 

Middlemen are annoying and add no real value, the whole point of bitcoin was to cut out middlemen in the first place.

[gentlemand]

A lot of bitcoiners hold both, I always suggested the smart thing to do was to hold both coins at the fork.  BCH has hung around better than a lot of people expected and I wouldn't be surprised if it pumped to insane levels like it did during the last bull run. 

I've still got plenty which I've been happily spending over the years. I fully expect it to go nuts again. But Bitpay embracing is a dead end all the same. No one's going to buy it to save a few cents on fees. The chain is empty which shows that hardly anyone is using it.

Even if they hate Bitcoin there's little reason to reject the tools that'll make them more money other than that hate.

[DaveF]

The amount they earn from these fees likely varies depending on if tx fees are increasing or not, and if so by how much. I don’t think it is a given they will always have positive profit from eventually spending the coin they receive.

it does seem like the "network fees" collected primarily subsidize their horribly inefficient fee practices. they are paying 28-35 sat/byte to sweep when the network is routinely confirming 1 sat/byte transactions. not to mention the fact that they could save an additional 40% on fees by using ubiquitously compatible P2SH wrapped segwit addresses. i can understand not implementing bech32 because of compatibility but not using P2SH is singlehandedly driving their customers costs up by 40%+. that's a real FU to all of us.

As I said earlier and what PrimeNumber7 saidroutinely confirming 1 sat/byte transactions does them no good. They are making money on the % they charge business. You you buy a laptop for $1000 BP takes their 1.5% so the merchant gets $985 the next day.
With that $15 they have to move it twice and make and hopefully make a profit on the sale of the BTC So they assume the worst case fees.

It sucks, but it's their business model. And for now it seems to be working for them.

-Dave

[jackg]

A lot of bitcoiners hold both, I always suggested the smart thing to do was to hold both coins at the fork.  BCH has hung around better than a lot of people expected and I wouldn't be surprised if it pumped to insane levels like it did during the last bull run. 

I've still got plenty which I've been happily spending over the years. I fully expect it to go nuts again. But Bitpay embracing is a dead end all the same. No one's going to buy it to save a few cents on fees. The chain is empty which shows that hardly anyone is using it.

I just checked an exchange and they're valued around 0.03 which is really low based on how endorsed they are by other companies. I had money on an exchange, maybe I should've given in and paid with that but I also don't want to hold bch and it seems better to pay without coming from an exchange (not sure why they don't realise that).

With that $15 they have to move it twice and make and hopefully make a profit on the sale of the BTC So they assume the worst case fees.

It sucks, but it's their business model. And for now it seems to be working for them.

-Dave

While the money is in there addresses, they have it. They could easily try to stockpile coins on another address to make fees cheaper and send those at 1 sat/byte.

This is the business model of quite a few sites in cryptocurrency, I saw some leaving transactions at 1 sat/byte to confirm that were months old.

Fees for credit cards in the UK are at 1% (debit is about 0.25-0.5) - paid by merchant - so this makes it much more expensive to spend bitcoins than it would for the merchant to accept debit, but it's nice to pay with btc so...

[EdenHazard]

Several times make a purchase through bitpay on namecheap these days and yuppp they are indeed looks like force users to swap to bitcoin cash with its higher fee on bitcoin. I'm not happy with that , not a big fan of bitcoin cash though.

Bitpay getting fucked with their recent  policy change .. especially about how KYC needed for certain amount on transactions.

I do not have bCash shit. So even if I wanted to pay using bCash, I can not. To save ~0.50 or $1, I am not going through all these hassle to buy bCash shit and then pay through bitPay. I will directly pay using my BTC and this is what I do in fact. I am a namecheap customer so I use BitPay very often however I do not like this BitPay shit.

I hope a new business comes up and replace their service which will be Bitcoin focused.

That's what I am doing , i have a reason to ignore the fee gap and stick to bitcoin.

A lot of bitcoiners hold both, I always suggested the smart thing to do was to hold both coins at the fork.  BCH has hung around better than a lot of people expected and I wouldn't be surprised if it pumped to insane levels like it did during the last bull run. 

Middlemen are annoying and add no real value, the whole point of bitcoin was to cut out middlemen in the first place.

But not with me , I am the one who don't believe in most fork coins, don't have any bitcoin cash and have no plan to have it.

I would always glad to do a direct transactions if there's a lot of option , unfortunately there's not much option, so for now a third party service like bitpay is needed .

[squatter]

As I said earlier and what PrimeNumber7 saidroutinely confirming 1 sat/byte transactions does them no good. They are making money on the % they charge business. You you buy a laptop for $1000 BP takes their 1.5% so the merchant gets $985 the next day.
With that $15 they have to move it twice and make and hopefully make a profit on the sale of the BTC So they assume the worst case fees.

I doubt that's their model. It's far too risky in terms of volatility. They likely have hedging mechanisms so they don't need to worry about the hour-to-hour volatility of Bitcoin. I recall reading that they sell everything OTC now -- likely at a premium -- and don't use exchanges for converting BTC/BCH to USD.

Their Bitpay and Copay wallets are infamous for drastically overestimating fees. I guess we shouldn't expect anything different from their business.

[PrimeNumber7]

The amount they earn from these fees likely varies depending on if tx fees are increasing or not, and if so by how much. I don’t think it is a given they will always have positive profit from eventually spending the coin they receive.

it does seem like the "network fees" collected primarily subsidize their horribly inefficient fee practices. they are paying 28-35 sat/byte to sweep when the network is routinely confirming 1 sat/byte transactions. not to mention the fact that they could save an additional 40% on fees by using ubiquitously compatible P2SH wrapped segwit addresses. i can understand not implementing bech32 because of compatibility but not using P2SH is singlehandedly driving their customers costs up by 40%+. that's a real FU to all of us.

Based on the transaction that jackg posted on the previous page, it doesn't look like BitPay is using SegWit years after it has been implemented. This implies their engineering staff is thin and possibly is suffering from a 'brain drain'.

[gentlemand]

and don't use exchanges for converting BTC/BCH to USD.

I would be pretty amazed if BCH had any type of OTC market. If one ever did exist it was probably Roger/ Bitmain only and weirdly enough they may not be super keen on buying any more.

I'd love to know what proportion of their throughput is BCH. It can't be very high.

[figmentofmyass]

and don't use exchanges for converting BTC/BCH to USD.

I would be pretty amazed if BCH had any type of OTC market. If one ever did exist it was probably Roger/ Bitmain only and weirdly enough they may not be super keen on buying any more.

jihan wu was planning to launch an OTC platform for bitcoin cash. it was actually supposed to launch last month but i haven't heard anything about it since june. i can't imagine there's much OTC demand but jihan seems like a true believer. he thinks "if you build it, they will come". we'll see.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ex-bitmain-ceo-jihan-wu-set-to-launch-crypto-otc-platform-next-month-report

[gentlemand]

jihan wu was planning to launch an OTC platform for bitcoin cash. it was actually supposed to launch last month but i haven't heard anything about it since june.

I'm absolutely positive an OTC service selling BCH would be a vast success in principle. Where it fatally stalls is that it's going to need an equal number of buyers...

[PrimeNumber7]

jihan wu was planning to launch an OTC platform for bitcoin cash. it was actually supposed to launch last month but i haven't heard anything about it since june.

I'm absolutely positive an OTC service selling BCH would be a vast success in principle. Where it fatally stalls is that it's going to need an equal number of buyers...

I believe most major alts have OTC markets, although not as big as the BTC OTC market. Altcoin OTC trading volume has very likely declined along with altcoin exchange volumes.

[malevolent]

jihan wu was planning to launch an OTC platform for bitcoin cash. it was actually supposed to launch last month but i haven't heard anything about it since june.

I'm absolutely positive an OTC service selling BCH would be a vast success in principle. Where it fatally stalls is that it's going to need an equal number of buyers...

I think Bcash might actually have enough believers for an OTC market to exist; /r/btc has a quarter of /r/bitcoin subscribers (even if many are regular bitcoiners subscribing out of curiosity, their overall views are probably more or less accurately reflected with upvotes/downvotes), and local.bitcoin.com is moderately popular for a new local-/P2P-based exchange.

[squatter]

I'm absolutely positive an OTC service selling BCH would be a vast success in principle. Where it fatally stalls is that it's going to need an equal number of buyers...

I think Bcash might actually have enough believers for an OTC market to exist; /r/btc has a quarter of /r/bitcoin subscribers (even if many are regular bitcoiners subscribing out of curiosity, their overall views are probably more or less accurately reflected with upvotes/downvotes), and local.bitcoin.com is moderately popular for a new local-/P2P-based exchange.

Indeed. Compared to Bitcoin it might look pathetic, but the fact is that it has a genuine community, some influential supporters in terms of mining and exchanges/services, and is comfortably the #4 coin by market cap. It's not going anywhere.

[buwaytress]

Yeah, I am a regular enough user of BitPay, unfortunately, because it's the only way I can use Bitcoin to order food (delivery), which happens at least once a week (sort of a tradition now and the kid gets a kick out of using Bitcoin).

As figment says, they overcharge the normal network fee every time, their dynamic fee adjustment also progressively overestimates. ie. the more congested the network, the greater the variance between what they charge you as a "network fee".

it does seem like the "network fees" collected primarily subsidize their horribly inefficient fee practices.

Primarily yeah, secondary a sneaky way to gain even more profit I'm sure. Users still have to pay the correct miner fee for next-block confirmation -- and from my experience this is equal to the network fee (in raw satoshi)... regardless if you're using SegWit or not!

So every time I use BitPay I lose on two fronts:
1. Paying their exorbitant network fee (which I'm sure leaves them with a balance when they consolidate since every input pays this fee).
2. Paying a miner fee that is WAY higher than what I would need for next-block confirmation, and as if I'm not using Segwit.

It used to be, when I'd try pay the regular fee, and allow BitPay to issue the "Unconfirmed Payment" notice -- the order would still go through if the tx confirmed in 30 mins anyway. AND, you could still do RBF with a few minutes to spare and everything would be fine.

But a few months back, they just killed off RBF (if your tx was RBF, they'd auto issue Unconfirmed Payment and then you have to get a refund from merchant).

So now, I just bite down whenever I'm ordering and the network's a bit crowded. It is ridiculous really.

P.S. I think the right title here is that Bitpay charges a higher fee to use Bitcoin than Bitcoin Cash;) It does make me wonder though, is it pricier to buy the same item in BTC? Only way is to see the invoice in BTC and BCH and compare. Is the dollar amount the same? I don't have BCH so I wouldn't be able to see the invoice I think (since you need to launch a wallet).

[PrimeNumber7]

Yeah, I am a regular enough user of BitPay, unfortunately, because it's the only way I can use Bitcoin to order food (delivery), which happens at least once a week (sort of a tradition now and the kid gets a kick out of using Bitcoin).

Pro-tip - you can use sites like gyft to buy gift cards for Uber, which I would think also can get you uber eats, but I am not sure. You can also buy gift cards to various other restaurants.

[figmentofmyass]

Yeah, I am a regular enough user of BitPay, unfortunately, because it's the only way I can use Bitcoin to order food (delivery), which happens at least once a week (sort of a tradition now and the kid gets a kick out of using Bitcoin).

Pro-tip - you can use sites like gyft to buy gift cards for Uber, which I would think also can get you uber eats, but I am not sure. You can also buy gift cards to various other restaurants.

but the only way to use bitcoin on gyft is through bitpay.

egifter is a better option for a couple reasons. unlike gyft, they still offer discounts. uber gift cards are 1% off and they also sell uber eats gift cards with a 2.5% discount. and if you really dislike bitpay, egifter also offers a 2nd option---netcents. i tried them once though and it wasn't a great experience. they didn't release the gift card until my payment had 6 confirmations.

[buwaytress]

Yeah, I am a regular enough user of BitPay, unfortunately, because it's the only way I can use Bitcoin to order food (delivery), which happens at least once a week (sort of a tradition now and the kid gets a kick out of using Bitcoin).

Pro-tip - you can use sites like gyft to buy gift cards for Uber, which I would think also can get you uber eats, but I am not sure. You can also buy gift cards to various other restaurants.

but the only way to use bitcoin on gyft is through bitpay.

egifter is a better option for a couple reasons. unlike gyft, they still offer discounts. uber gift cards are 1% off and they also sell uber eats gift cards with a 2.5% discount. and if you really dislike bitpay, egifter also offers a 2nd option---netcents. i tried them once though and it wasn't a great experience. they didn't release the gift card until my payment had 6 confirmations.

Thanks for the tip guys, and I know I should probably vote more with my wallet and do stuff like switch to gyft or whatever... but the hassle of buying a card and then using it up puts me off.

But tell me, have they updated how gift cards work? Can you buy an exact amount now, say like for Uber eats, or do you get to keep unused balances?

Uber eats is okay in my place but more expensive to use for the transport. But I would use it if I could get say netcents and buy a card with an exact amount. The 6-confirmation wait means I have to plan my buy like what... an hour ahead? And god forbid someone changes their minds about their order in that time haha.