Reddit Considering Accepting Bitcoin

http://betabeat.com/2012/11/reddit-considering-accepting-bitcoin-as-payment-for-reddit-gold-subscriptions/

by met3 • 14 years ago

194 139 14 years ago

Original source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/12vg6t/the_admins_a...

OP, "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter." - http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

shazow• 14 years ago

-1. The Reddit comment has almost no context. The BetaBeat article explains Reddit, Reddit Gold, Reddit Gold pricing, Bitcoin, contains a full quote of the comment, and a number of other things that random Hacker News readers might lack complete context on.

pyrotechnick2• 14 years ago

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

cs702• 14 years ago

Just the fact that someone at Reddit is publicly discussing the possibility of accepting Bitcoin is compelling anecdotal evidence that Bitcoin is on the usual path to wider adoption of all innovative products. It now appears to be expanding from a tiny number of innovators to a still-small but considerably larger number of early adopters.[1] I'm persuaded Bitcoin is likely to gain much wider adoption over the long haul.[2]

Kudos to Reddit!

[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfInn...

[2] I've written down my reasoning at http://cs702.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/on-the-potential-adopt...

Edits: added context; made my point clearer.

Goronmon4• 14 years ago

If a lay person were to ask how they get back their Bitcoins if they are stolen from their account, say due to a person gaining access to their computer, what do you tell them?

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

You tell them it's the same as cash.

esrauch• 14 years ago

I think the correct response is asking how they would get back their money if cash was stolen from their house.

BitCoin is like cash, not like a credit card. You wouldn't want to leave a significant amount of cash laying around your house and you shouldn't keep a significant amount of BitCoin on your computer.

bo1024• 14 years ago

Same thing you tell them if someone accessed their computer and transferred money out of their bank account. "Secure your [stuff]."

smanek• 14 years ago

If a lay person were to ask how they get back their dollars if they are stolen from their wallet, say due to a person mugging them, what do you tell them?

jerf2• 14 years ago

The current answer is, you can not.

In the long term, I suspect you'll see insurance companies arise that would handle that. In the end they'd probably build a better system than the one that currently exists, which sort of uses rollbacks as a crutch to avoid needing really solid security. (There are many reasons for that. Not all of them are bad.) But there's many a theft betwixt here and there.

travisp• 14 years ago

This is an important question to raise. One of the only reasons that credit cards were able to take off was because the credit card companies promised to limit your liability if your credit cards were stolen.

Similarly, there are countless examples of people's bank and investment accounts getting hacked, with the banks and brokerages reimbursing their customers to prevent bad PR.

Given this, I imagine that it would be a long time before the average person would be comfortable maintaining any store of money as Bitcoins (versus quick conversion and payment for things, but then what's the point?).

javert2• 14 years ago

I'm really surprised nobody has mentioned Coinbase, which is YC funded, as an answer to this question.

Coinbase is a hosted bitcoin wallet.

In terms of security, I'd certainly be happy trusting them with several hundred dollars worth of bitcoins at a time, which more than enables e-commerce using bitcoins.

drivebyacct26• 14 years ago

The same thing I'd tell someone if they left their wallet on a coffee table in public and it were stolen.

Why is this being downvoted? What am I supposed to say? I'd say the same thing as if they were hacked and malware stole their credit card. Computers aren't magic; there is an expectation that you know what you're doing with them. If you don't know how to secure a wallet, don't use Bitcoins. If you don't know how to keep malware from stealing your credit card, don't download virus-infested porn or go buy an iDevice.

I'm assuming I was being seen as cynical but as with "the command line" and "Git", I'm not sure what people want. A magic, easy, secure solution? Sure, we'll just ignore the fact that identity management, authentication and security aren't complex issues that are still evolving today.

If we're just rehashing "Centralized currency is easier to use" then by all means, whatever, yes, Bitcoins are currently harder to use than cash both because they're more complicated and because there is almost no infrastructure to support their use. But frankly, that's really a completely separate issue from whether or not they can be used securely. I can give you tens of security and usability problems that cash has day-to-day that Bitcoins are unaffected by.

gnaritas• 14 years ago

At this point in time, I'd say lay persons aren't using bitcoin to begin with.

prawks• 14 years ago

Get some physical BitCoins

https://www.casascius.com/

nym9• 14 years ago

Use a wallet like Coinbase, which stores 87% of funds offline.

http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/coinbase/

dlitz• 14 years ago

Well, nothing yet, but multi-signature Bitcoin accounts are the current top priority of upstream Bitcoin developers, so I suspect we'll soon see hardware tokens and/or 3rd-party services acting helping to prevent Bitcoin theft.

Actually, this could be a boon for computer security: We might actually get some real security, rather than the ex post facto "security" that antivirus products supposedly provide.

celticninja• 14 years ago

The same way you would go about getting back cash that was stolen from your wallet when you left it lying around in an unsecure area.

to be honest, if someone is handling BTC then as long as they password protect their wallet then the only way the BTC can be stolen is if someone gains access to their password. as with any online banking facility, or debit card facility, if your password or PIN becomes compromised and money stolen from your account you have no automatic right to restitution.

riffraff• 14 years ago

There are plenty of things that were popular at some point and on the brink of exploding, but have faded over time.

(just because yesterday I saw some hReview microformat now obsoleted by latest and grandest schema.org stuff)

mrb5• 14 years ago

It is not a random "someone" at Reddit. It is their CEO! :)

kaonashi• 14 years ago

Bitcoins will only be valuable insofar as they can be converted to tax-driven or commodity currencies.

dmix6• 14 years ago

For users who have never used Bitcoin, the cost and time involved in acquiring something as small as $3.99-$29.99 is quite high. It would likely cost as much as 10-50% of that cost in fees.

So I'm not sure if this will create new bitcoin users. But more vendors always helps.

ewillbefull• 14 years ago

> the cost and time involved in acquiring something as small as $3.99-$29.99 is quite high. It would likely cost as much as 10-50% of that cost in fees.

Where are you getting these figures? I can pay 0.5% in fees or less to purchase bitcoins on MtGox. Other solutions are nowhere near 10%.

dmix6• 14 years ago

I use a bank deposit site that charges me $3 to deposit funds regardless of the amount (cavirtex).

Then coinbase takes 1% to transfer money somewhere.

So for $3.99 = $3 deposit fee + 0.039c for 1% coinbase

= $3.04 or equivalent to 76% of the cost

For $29.99 = $3 deposit + 0.2999c for coinbase

= $3.30 which is equivalent to 11% of the cost

nym9• 14 years ago

Coinbase.com will allow you to buy up to $100 with a 1% fee. It's pretty much what I'm recommending these days to Americans.

http://howdoyouusebitcoins.com/

dmix6• 14 years ago

See my post below. I factor the deposit fee not just the wallet transfer fee.

killerstorm• 14 years ago

Well, it's an alternative payment method, i.e. one people should use if they don't want to pay via PayPal/Google Checkout. E.g. it's for people from outside of USA.

I'll give you an example. I live in Ukraine.

When my father wanted to buy something via PayPal, he had to:

* get a debit card, which requires going to bank, signing some papers, etc. (Ukrainians often have debit cards for receiving salaries, but those usually have internet payments completely blocked. Ukrainians rarely have credit cards.)

* fill it with USD, again going to bank.

* register on PayPal site

* call bank to unblock internet payments (this requires ~10 minutes)

* try paying

* call bank again, apparently they haven't unblocked it

* try again

* Success!

Now let's compare that with what I did to get bitcoins in btc-e account:

* register on btc-e

* select deposit via interkassa

* go to cash terminal nearby, deposit UAH

* so I got USD on btc-e account and can buy BTC with it

So it actually takes less time than dealing with bank cards/PayPal, and isn't expensive (there is, maybe, 2% fee for deposits).

fwr• 14 years ago

Wow, an entire article based on a vague non-promising comment. Internet journalism at its best.

vinayan3• 14 years ago

I don't see much of a downside as long as Reddit gives a price quote in bit coins and convert it the main currency Reddit uses, probably USD. The main problem for main-stream business using Bitcoin I think is the volatility. Losing money because the currency fluctuates around 10% every 30 days is horrible.

kirian• 14 years ago

There are services (e.g. Bitpay) which remove the currency risk for the seller. The seller can set their price in US $ or whatever and receive the payment in that currency while the purchaser has the option to pay in bitcoins at the going rate at the time.

blhack• 14 years ago

This really sounded more like Yishan was just acknowledging that he personally knew what bitcoin was. Notice that he didn't "distinguish" his comment as an Admin?

Generally when an admin is speaking "as an admin" they turn their username red, and get a letter A next to it.

Like this: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/12v8y3/now_is_the_time...

SquareWheel• 14 years ago

I've seen admins/mods respond from authority without distinguishing their comment. I wouldn't read into that too much (though I also wouldn't read into the original comment that much either).

StavrosK3• 14 years ago

I usually distinguish my comments when speaking as a mod, but it's just so it catches the eye and looks official more. I sometimes forget, not distinguishing doesn't mean much.

ohashi• 14 years ago

The statement itself seemed pretty innocuous. It feels like more hype than anything else.

nowarninglabel• 14 years ago

Yes, this is the same issue we had at Kiva when I and another engineer said we were going to explore accepting Bitcoin. I provided a lot of caveats but there were already two blog posts about it out on the interwebs the next day.

As I noted in the thread where Yishan mentions looking into Bitcoin, there are a lot of barriers to entry, barriers that we were not able to overcome at Kiva (at least for now). Maybe as a for-profit entity they will have better luck though as they have more options open to them, I'd just caution people about getting their hopes up.

TylerE• 14 years ago

The Bitcoin "community" really is it's own worst enemy.

rm999• 14 years ago

These promises are incredibly vague, the most specific thing I saw was in another thread: "Alternative payment features are in the works" (http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/12v8y3/now_is_the_time...).

Does reddit have the manpower to deal with a non-mainstrem payment system like bitcoin?

javert2• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure the manpower to deal with this would be like... a (reasonably small) fraction of one man.

jamoes• 14 years ago

The manpower to support bitcoin payments is minimal. A single engineer could integrate with a bitcoin payment provider such as Bitpay (or Walletbit or Mt. Gox Merchant) in less than a day. These bitcoin payment providers have APIs that are very similar to Paypal and Google Checkout. After the initial setup, ongoing support would likely be minimal. These payment providers also offer to convert BTC to USD (or many other currencies) at the current market price. So, your company doesn't even have to deal in bitcoins.

Bottom line: if you're already accepting Paypal, accepting Bitcoin as well is easy.

StavrosK3• 14 years ago

This is an odd coincidence, one of the Dead Man's Switch subscribers asked me if I supported Bitcoin, and I ended up adding a MtGox button on the site (it's pretty nifty, it even autoconverts to whatever currency you want and supports IPN):

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/pricing/

I've been warming up to Bitcoin, the same subscriber clued me into https://blockchain.info/ and it looks pretty good. The only thing I'm worried about is that Bitcoin isn't very stable, but I don't really care since MtGox autoconverts all payments. There's no downside in accepting it, as far as I can see.

Plus, I can just keep them as Bitcoins and pay right away with very low fees.

EDIT: I also decided to dabble in a bit of MtGox trading with my newly-acquired 4 BTC, so I sold high and bought higher. It... didn't go very well.

sgornick• 14 years ago

"Autosell" is the term Mt. Gox uses as the name for the parameter in the shopping button API to sell immediately once the transaction has confirmed.

But that's the thing. Merchants are worried about the downside risk, and basically ignore that there is an upside gain possible as well. Sure, the merchant shouldn't be speculating with revenues that go to employee's salaries and inventory purchases, but if there's 10% profit, keeping 10% of revenues without converting that to USDs might be beneficial.

BitPay is a merchant processor that lets the merchant specify what percent of revenue to convert and remainder of bitcoins are paid out without conversion.

StavrosK3• 14 years ago

Eh, if I want to gamble, I'll go to a casino. I pay my employees in Euros, that's what I want revenue in. I even want it exchanged from dollars, so I get X Euros every time.

The autosell feature means I can add Bitcoin as a payment method with no hassle, I'm enjoying it greatly.

jonknee• 14 years ago

I'd love to be a fly on the wall with the upcoming Reddit / Conde Nast accountant meeting.

ceejayoz2• 14 years ago

The legal meeting's going to be even better.

icebraining2• 14 years ago

Condé Nast isn't their parent company anymore, they moved up to Advance Publications (the parent company of CN).

http://blog.reddit.com/2011/09/independence.html

macspoofing• 14 years ago

Reddit is not profitable? It feels like the difference between profitability and non-profitability is an extra ad on each page.

TillE• 14 years ago

And who's going to buy those ads? Reddit is far from prime real estate, and the demographics seem to be shifting towards younger and younger teens.

SnydenBitchy• 14 years ago

Who on earth would want to advertise on reddit, given the site’s thoroughly unpleasant audience, the notoriety of which has been growing by the month?

Reddit might be able to court the same sponsors (porn sites and such) that sustain the likes of 4chan, as long as said sponsors are willing to associate themselves with a far more misogynist, racist, child porn-defending audience. But this would likely inspire a revolt among redditors, who hold themselves in laughably high self-regard.

lucb1e3• 14 years ago

I find Reddit having a fine audience. Not as good as Hackernews or Stackexchange or so (where good content is a little more valued than on the average forum), but certainly better than the real stinkholes of the internet. Even 9gag has ads.

jrockway• 14 years ago

I think the contributors to racist, misogynist, and child porn-defending subreddits are only a tiny minority of Reddit's users. Most of the popular subreddits are fairly benign (AskReddit, IAMA, etc.)

Interestingly, all your recent comments seem to be about how you dislike Reddit. Consumption of a chill pill may be in order.

zevyoura• 14 years ago

As long as you can limit which subreddits your ads are shown on, which I'm 99% sure is already possible, this wouldn't be a real issue for the vast majority of advertisers.

mibbitier• 14 years ago

Reddit demographic is extremely anti-advertising, and poor. Not exactly an extremely easy group to monetize.

amorphid• 14 years ago

As a recruiter I've advertised my open jobs a few times on Reddit. The results were surprisingly good and cost effective.

michaelbuckbee• 14 years ago

Agreed, I think the big issue is that not enough people know about the self-serve (and subreddit targeting) options available.

Also worth noting, Duck Duck Go had a very positive experience with Reddit Ads:

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-...

evoorhees• 14 years ago

I'll buy a Reddit gold subscription if I can pay in Bitcoin. Who uses Paypal anymore??

lucb1e3• 14 years ago

Many people use Paypal and I think it works fine. But yes, I'd be more likely to buy Reddit Gold in Bitcoin too!

alenam• 14 years ago

coinbase.com (YC company) is like Paypal for Bitcoin.

wnight• 14 years ago

Sure, it works. Until they decide to suspend your account.

Most people don't know paypal's history and many of the rest simply assume disaster will never happen to them.

peepee• 14 years ago

I would also buy a reddit gold subscription with Bitcoin.

narrator2• 14 years ago

How about an optional bitcoin miner running in the background while using reddit using webgl (so it can make use of the GPU) that accumulates bitcoin. As the user browses around reddit it will be active, slowly generating bitcoins as part of a pool. When the user has accumulated enough for reddit gold, it automatically buys it for them. Maybe it would take two years or so to accumulate a bitcoin to buy reddit gold but that's at least turning users into money.

Am I an idiot or did I just discover an alternative to the ad supported model for free content sites?

ferroh4• 14 years ago

If ASICs are shipped in the next couple of months, then very soon GPU mining will do as little as CPU mining does today.

mylittlepony• 14 years ago

This already exists, but it uses the CPU: http://www.bitcoinplus.com/miner/embeddable

I tried it for one of my websites and it made the user experience intolerable, and didn't even make a dime.

zzleeper• 14 years ago

Are there any privacy concerns with bitcoin? For instance, suppose I know the day someone got reddit gold. Could I then check the bitcoin transaction database (eg: bitcoin block explorer) to extract the ip of the users that created the account that day, and link this account to other transactions and try to pin down the individual?

This is just a far-fetched scenario, but I'm wondering what would change when money stopped being so anonimous as it is now..

haldean• 14 years ago

You would be able to find their wallet address, but good practice is to use a different wallet address for each person you send payments to. The blockchain doesn't keep track of IP addresses to preserve anonymity.

Reddit Considering Accepting Bitcoin

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