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PayPal Integrates Bitcoin Processors BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin
An anonymous reader writes: PayPal today announced partnerships with three major Bitcoin payment processors: BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin. The eBay-owned company wants to help digital goods merchants accept Bitcoin payments, although it is starting with those located in the U.S. and Canada first ("We are considering expanding to other markets," a PayPal spokesperson told TNW. "Stay tuned.")
PayPal says it chose to integrate the third-party functionality directly in the PayPal Payments Hub because the aforementioned trio already offers its customers protections when dealing with the virtual currency. The company envisions anything that can be obtained digitally, such as video games and music, being sold in Bitcoin.
PayPal says it chose to integrate the third-party functionality directly in the PayPal Payments Hub because the aforementioned trio already offers its customers protections when dealing with the virtual currency. The company envisions anything that can be obtained digitally, such as video games and music, being sold in Bitcoin.
so much commission for so little work, its almost free money
it will be easier for paypal to steal your coins than it will for them to steal money from you.
Because you didn't really think that they were freezing your account for a 'good' reason other than to line their own pockets right?
and so the concentration of bitcoin into a few rich hands goes forward.
Yes, it most certainly is.
Some people say the same about Bitcoin too.
a little bit.
A company owned by paypal the does like zero business relatively is considering allowing partners that deal in bitcoin. Woohoo!
Saying paypal has anything to do with this is like saying you like chocolate because your brothers, wifes, uncles dog does.
Look at the drop in the value of bitcoin (in dollar terms) over the last year. The same goes for any of the alt coins, at least the ones with enough volume in the market to be remotely useful.
It's all over but the shouting. The pump and dumpers are making some money, but as a currency it's just too risky to hold since the value is tanking.
Who is running this Ponzi?
I'm perfectly happy with you NOT making profits off the wild swings on this currency.
I'm also very happy with you NOT owning the bitcoin that I have since it has been worth more every year since it's inception. Conversely, the non-digital fiat currency in my pocket has studiously gone DOWN in value every year that bitoin has come out. (And it's gone down in value for hundreds of years since it was first minted)
You're so lucky you're so smart to stay away from bitcoin.
Thanks!
so many middlemen, so much percent ... so much commission for so little work, its almost free money
In this particular case the middle provide a valuable service, they keep a merchant's accounting simple and the middlemen take all the risk.
Using something like coinbase, a merchant never sees or touches a bitcoin. The merchant does all their pricing and accounting in fiat currency (dollars, euro, etc). If a customer wants to use bitcoins the merchant sends the fiat price to the exchange, the exchange returns an equivalent bitcoin amount and a bitcoin payment address (the exchange's), when the coins are received the exchange informs the merchant and most importantly credit the merchant's account for the exact fiat amount originally specified. regardless of the coin's current exchange rate. The merchant's accounting is not complicated by new IRS rules regarding bitcoins (its an asset not a currency) since they never touch a coin, nor do they care about coin price fluctuations.
TFS says "PayPal says it chose to integrate the third-party functionality directly in the PayPal Payments Hub"
Sounds to me like, from a user's point of view, PayPal will be accepting Bitcoin. When you use your Visa card with Paypal, it goes through at least two third-party banks, but you as a customer don't know or care about that. It sounds like paying with Bitcoin will be similar to paying with your Visa card. In both cases, Paypal works with third parties, but you as a PayPal customer don't have to think about how that happens behind the scenes.
I only come here for the bitcoin stories now. The better the news, the harder the slam-dunk declarations that bitcoin is a huge failure. And yes, I bring my popcorn. When news of bitcoin first broke on slashdot back in 2009 I kinda thought you guys would be behind it. Apparently 'left behind' is more appropriate. You may now slay the troll.
Yep - Let the paypal bashing begin. Wait until Paypal acts as it's own clearinghouse for bitcoin transactions. It wants to keep control over refunds to the buyers and still wants to be able to 'freeze' your account like it does now.
I find this all very ironic.
Fairly recently, Paypal had been executing a series of direct attacks on people found to (or suspected to) be selling digital currency. They were relentless, reversing transactions without sufficient information, throwing multiple collection agencies at people and not answering legal inquiries; probably because they feel they are above the law. And in fact, if what I've been reading is true, they have been getting away with quite a bit.
Now, here we are with Paypal finally attempting to get in (and likely try to dominate) the game.
I still maintain companies like Paypal need to be regulated, with tighter rules as a regular banking institution. I will continue to press my gov't representatives on this issue.
To any readers out there: if you're otherwise interested in Bitcoin but are concerned about volatility, you should buy bitcoins with a fixed number of dollars each month. This will absorb much of the volatility. If/when the price goes up again, you won't care as much about volatility because you'll be spending all those coins over a long period too.
Source: I did the first half in 2011, and am doing the second half now.
I think a good example of regulation is the recent raid of Butterfly Labs, a bitcoin ASIC manufacturer who had been defrauding customers about delivery dates. Protection from fraudsters is helpful but "tighter rules" aren't - why do you think the banks are still so terrible despite the regulations you're asking for? Every time you close a loophole you complicate the law and make it easier for lawmakers to get away with accepting bribes. For any random person to start their own rival to PayPal, the barrier to entry should be low.
Coinbase has 1.7 million user wallets ( https://coinbase.com/about ). I buy my bitcoins from them because I can pay via ACH transfer from my bank account. It's very convenient. My understanding is BitPay recycles their coins through exchanges.
> Why not just pay with regular money?
Most merchants who take bitcoin are online (76,000 total merchants, 5000 physical locations). Even in the US not everyone has access to a bank card, and outside developed countries the majority don't. Bitcoin doesn't arbitrarily seize or close your account because they don't like your business. If you need to send money right away (bank wires) or internationally at any speed, the fees are really high. Some merchants offer a discount for bitcoin purchases, because they get to avoid bank fees for debit/credit purchases, chargebacks, and fraud. Even cash has significant overhead - you have to monitor employees and customers, count it, take it to the bank, etc.
If all you do is buy stuff with your debit card at local stores, there isn't much reason to use bitcoin, but not everyone is in the same situation.
At least, because the bitcoin protocol is open, you can freely choose between *ANY* of the available middleman. And your choice isn't restricted by the choice of the other party.
Before bitoin:
- the merchant you buy from uses PayPal
- therefore, if you want to buy stuff, you need to use PayPal too.
(Note only that, but you're further forced down the line to use a credit card supported by PayPal, most probably Visa/Mastercard, so you're further forced to use one other middleman).
After bitcoin:
- the merchant you buy from, could be using PayPal's integrated support for bitcoins. Or the merchant could directly use one of the other 3rd party's coin processor. Or the merchant could be using an entirely different payment processor that wasn't mentionned already (random exemple: coinjar).
It doesn't matter, they can choose the middle-man of their liking, as long as the middle man support the bitcoin protocol.
- you the client needs to send your payment using the bitcoin protocol, sending BTCs as the intermediate form. You could be doing that with paypal's partnership with coinbase. Or you could have your own account at bitpay. Or you could have exchange EUR into BTC from a platform like BTC-e. Or you could actually be using a person-2-person service like localbitcoins, and gotten your BTCs in hand after having personally handed a EUR bill to a person you met in a cafe. Or you could have actually mined them, back when mining any significant amount was realistic. Doesn't matter. You're free to chose your own middleman as long as it follows the same protocol. Your choice is completely independant from what the other person has chosen.
This freedom of choice is bound to bring more competition between payment processor and other middle men, and encourage competing on quality, etc.
(Think like the advantage that SEPA system bring in Europe for payment between banks. Except it's a bit faster.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It sounds like paying with Bitcoin will be similar to paying with your Visa card.
With a subtle difference difference:
if you pay with your VISA card, not only does paypal need to collaborate with a bank, that in turn collaborates with Visa Inc., but that requires you to also have an account in a bank that also works with Visa Inc.
By being at one side of the transaction (merchant) Visa Inc. forces itself on your side of the transaction (consumer). You have no choice.
if you pay with bitcoin payment protocol, you're free to pick your way of handling the payment:
enven if the merchant use PayPal partnership with bitpay, you're not required to be using bitpay too to send your BTCs.
You could be using Coinbase instead. You could be using one of paypal's competitor (OkPay also offers bitcoin support). You could be using a different payment processor not mentionned here (coinjar as a random example). You could get your BTCs form entirely different source (localbitoins, mining, exchange like BTC-e, etc.)
it's up to you, and the particular choice of middle men on the merchant side of the transaction doesn't force anything on you.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yup, the value of BTC does vary a lot. That doesn't make the bitcoin payment protocol any less valuable to exchange money around.
That only means that, if you want stability and predictibility, you'd better hold you value in a currency like EUR or USD, and exchange it to BTC only to do the payment (automatically by a payment processor - e.g. one of the listed 3 or any other one, or manually at an exchange).
But don't think this is about enabling BTC as yet another account currency at PayPal (in fact, that's not possible).
It's about a way to transfer funds to a paypal merchant. An alternative to using a credit card (an alternative to Visa or Mastercard).
And an alternative that gives you a freer and wider choice of middlemen to pick from (to pay by credicard on the internet, your basically restricted to only pick between Visa Inc. and MasterCard - to pay the bitcoin protocol, any solution that follows the protocol is acceptable. Bitpay. But also Coinjar. But also localbitcoins. But also convering your coins at BTC-e. etc.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
> if you pay with your VISA card, not only does paypal need to collaborate with a bank, that in turn collaborates with Visa Inc., but that requires you to also have an account in a bank that also works with Visa Inc.
Very slightly different. As you know, Visa doesn't issue cards, Visa is just a brand and thousands of banks issue cards and slap the Visa logo on them.
Just like lots of places create Bitcoin, lots of places create Visa cards. We can s/Visa/Bitcoin/g and it's still true:
if you pay with your Bitcoin, not only does paypal need to collaborate with a bank, that in turn collaborates with Bitcoin, but that requires you to also have an account in a that also works with Bitcoin.
It's slightly different, but not that much. We just replace the word Visa with the word Bitcoin. Both are essentially brands - Bitcoin branded coin numbers and Visa branded card numbers.
Just like lots of places create Bitcoin, lots of places create Visa cards.
Uh.... No. bitcoin is a protocol that anyone is free to use (or not).
There are no "places that create bitcoin", just lot of software instances using the bitcoin protocol to push BTCs around.
We can s/Visa/Bitcoin/g and it's still true:
if you pay with your Bitcoin, not only does paypal need to collaborate with a bank, that in turn collaborates with Bitcoin, but that requires you to also have an account in a that also works with Bitcoin.
...except for the part that there is no company called Bitcoin. There is no "Bitcoin Inc." controlling how bitcoin work and collecting fees.
There's an optional concept of "fees" in the bitcoin world. But that's not collected by an entity, that's a tip for miner to encourage them into including your transaction into the next block of the chain.
You could be using payment processor that collect a fee, or you could be using entirely different ways to send BTCs around. That's up to you.
Whereas, PayPal, Visa Inc. and MasterCard wordwide are very real companies collecting fees as middle men.
Visa and MasterCard form a duopoly that basically has nearly control of every payment anywhere.
There are no such company controlling anything in the bitcoin protocol. If you're not happy with a payment processor (say you hate both big processors bitpay and coinbase) you're free to move to any other one. As long as the new one follows the same protocol, it's still usable and interoperable with anyone else.
bitcoin is mainly a protocol, open for everyone to implement.
The closest to it in the "classic payment" world is SEPA. SEPA is *NOT* a company (unlike Visa and Mastercard), it's a standard for fast payment between banks in Europe.
Any SEPA compliant-bank can quickly and easily send money to any other compliant bank. You don't need to use the same bank as a merchant, as long as yours supports SEPA, you can also quickly send payments to the merchant. You're not forced to deal with the same company at both ends.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]