Shopify accepts Bitcoin

http://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-fulfilment/t/bitcoin-135352

by rasengan • 13 years ago

218 121 13 years ago

ecommerce.shopify.com

achalkley3• 13 years ago

This is really forward thinking Shopify! Great news.

ewang1• 13 years ago

Well, there's little risk to Shopify in allowing bitcoins to be used. Any risk is still on the seller.

achalkley3• 13 years ago

Risk in what way?

kineticfocus• 13 years ago

It's an interesting company... (HR vid 'Draw the Owl') https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwSe2imUyvg

AlexanderDhoore• 13 years ago

The CEO looks high as a kite.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

Will be interesting to see if Shopify (or anyone in general ecommerce) ever reports on the popularity of Bitcoin as a payment method considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries.

jzwinck• 13 years ago

No reason to use Bitcoin to purpose legal items? How about not having to divulge your credit card or bank account details to sellers? This exact same problem is apparently important enough that even the established players are trying to solve it, with things like one-time use credit card numbers and third-party authentication pages.

MichaelApproved• 13 years ago

A bit off topic but is anyone trying to work subscription payments with bitcoin? Is that even possible without something like a prefunded account?

RickHull• 13 years ago

considering there is no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries.

This is quite asinine. I assume you've never tried to purchase an item in country A from merchant A' accepting currency A'', while you are in country B using bank B' with an account denominated in B''. The hurdles, generally, are numerous and diverse. Any lack of hurdles is quite exceptional, and completely dependent upon international agreements between nations, banks, and any number of permutations thereof.

Instead, you could simply transact in BTC.

pallandt• 13 years ago

While I agree that it shouldn't be automatically assumed that someone who has bitcoins to spend will use them for illegal purposes, I'm curious as to what specific hurdles you encountered as mentioned in your post?

In my country at least, if you want to purchase something online and in a different currency than your account and CC's denomination, the conversion is done automatically for you at checkout, at whatever the bank has set for the rate, usually a fair one. Works like this regardless of what store you buy from, could be in the U.S, Europe or somewhere else on the globe.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

Credit cards work well in the situation you describe (if I understand it correctly).

itsnotvalid• 13 years ago

Considering that many of the coins are simply generated with electrify calculating hashes (proof for work done) out of nowhere, and a portion of it being generated by hijacking computers and many wallets getting stolen and became unrecoverable, there are still rooms for improvement (which Bitcoin itself couldn't solve unfortunately.) And there is no near instant payment which makes it quite hard for micropayments (sorry haven't followed much lately, does that getting improved?)

jerguismi• 13 years ago

Another example: currently there is about 30% arbitrage opportunity between BTCChina and bitstamp. That is, there has been more than $100 difference in the price of Bitcoin between those markets.

If you know how to move money quickly between those locations, you can make lots of money. It isn't easy problem, because otherwise the arbitrage opportunity wouldn't exist.

jval• 13 years ago

Right, because rather than copping the automatic forex charge that most cards do for you, it is easier to open an account on coinbase, make a bank transfer that converts your USD into bitcoin (at a frozen rate mind you, that could either double or halve in value in a matter of weeks), and then transact in bitcoin?

Not sure I'm following.

All of the rampant downvoting on this thread and blinkered discussion regarding Bitcoin really bothers me.. it sounds like /r/bitcoin has taken over HN.

Don't get me wrong, I believe bitcoin is the future of payments. I have absolutely no doubt that in the coming years it will become a global payments infrastructure that will destroy the idea of an international money transfer and change global e-commerce and payments forever. But the idea that it is already there is totally misguided. OP is right. There is no sense at all to use BTC to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries.

Wilya• 13 years ago

I've encountered hurdles like that, but most of the time, they aren't strictly due to billing issues, and more likely due to intentional restrictions coming from the seller. As soon as you have a credit card, pretty much all payment processors will happily accept to process your payment, wherever you are in the world.

I've had quite a few bad experiences trying to purchase internationally (if your billing address and your shipping address are in different countries, you're in for trouble), but I don't think BTC solves any of those. BTC doesn't solve the shipping part, and BTC doesn't solve the fact that some stuff isn't internationally available (for example, music/movies/TV shows).

antonios• 13 years ago

...no sense at all to use Bitcoins to purchase legal items in the vast majority of countries

I'm speechless.

hdevalence• 13 years ago

Bitcoins can't be used to extinguish the tax obligations that arise from legal sales.

ceol2• 13 years ago

If someone holding an opposing view to you leaves you speechless, it generally means you are indoctrinated in your belief and should reevaluate it.

tommoor• 13 years ago

I would have thought zero fees would be reason enough, 2-3% extra on every transaction from a merchant point of view is very appealing

crassus5• 13 years ago

It's a pure international currency. That's useful for customers without USD access.

ceol2• 13 years ago

You made the BTC-zealots angry. Be careful; most of them have nothing to lose.

Get it?

kristopher• 13 years ago

For those who had a hard time finding the official information, I will repost it here:

  Brian Alkerton
  Shopify Employee
  
  Hey Everyone,
  
  Just a quick update on this: our Bitpay integration is feature-complete and can be added to your store now.
  Due to the fact that it's a very new feature and not something we're ready to roll out to all stores just yet,
  you will need to contact me to have it enabled, and I may want to follow up with you for your feedback once
  you've been using it for a while, but it works. When active, Bitpay will appear as a credit card processor
  in the Checkout page of your shop admin - enter your access key and you'll be all set to go.

  One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way as the other credit card processors on Shopify,
  meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors.
  PayPal Express Checkout can be used as a secondary option with Bitpay in the same way it can be used with all
  other gateways.

  To activate, email me your shop URL at brian@shopify.com and I'll do my best to get everyone up and running promptly!

krrrh2• 13 years ago

  One caveat: at this time, Bitpay functions in the same way 
  as the other credit card processors on Shopify,
  meaning that you can't use Bitpay in conjunction with 
  Authorize.net, Stripe, or other credit card processors.

This is so half-assed, and frankly sort of typical in terms of the strange limitations that Shopify saddles you with (similar to how it took them 5 years to fix their database so you could modify a shipping address as a merchant). Sure, it would be fun to have a button that allows a customer to pay with bitcoin if they want to or are able to, but how many merchants would forgo credit card processing in favor of bitcoin? This "feature" is link-bait, and nothing more at this time.

atmosx12• 13 years ago

BitCoin can be better viewed as gold. If you would use gold to buy something then you will use BTC (illegal markets apart of course).

But peercoin could stand a chance to become a sort of online trading currency because of it's inflationary[1] policy. Something BitCoin should also have in order to become a widely accepted currency instead of a hoarding mechanism that gives the early adopters huge advantage over anyone else.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPCoin#Steady_inflation

[1] http://ppcoin.org/

negamax• 13 years ago

Gold is inflationary. There's infinite amount of that on asteroids and other planets. Bitcoin is totally an asset. It will probably have far wider usage than currency.

atmosx12• 13 years ago

I wrote a 30+ words comment, but to make it shorter:

* The nature of BitCoin could make it from an asset worth 350 USD to 0 USD overnight.

* Gold has been there for centuries.

I won't even comment on the asteroid thing.

pakitan4• 13 years ago

Inflationary currency makes sense from economics point of view, if you can force it onto people, as governments do. No one will hold inflationary currency voluntarily, if they can choose a deflationary one, all else being equal.

atmosx12• 13 years ago

Sure, but no one will spend a non-inflationary currency when he can spend an inflationary one.

wuschel• 13 years ago

I am sorry - this is something I do not understand. Where is the problem in deflation? You can always pay in fractions of a bitcoins, e.g. nanobitcoins, picobitcoins, etc.

There is not really an agreement in the ivory towers that a limited amount of currency is a bad thing per se.

Could someone explain this to me?

nhaehnle• 13 years ago

I don't know which ivory towers you frequent and what you mean by "limited", but the idea that the money supply should be flexible has been pretty well established after some failed experiments in the 1970s and 80s.

As for the inflation / deflation thing: I'm pretty sure we all agree that the faster the relative prices of things can change to reflect changes in the underlying reality, the better.

A priori, it seems that these relative adjustments should be independent from the average adjustment and hence the overall price level.

However, economic actors tend to resist a nominal decrease of income much more than a real decrease of income. You may not think that this is rational, but you have to work with the reality that you have.

This means that inflation is beneficial, because it allows real decreases of income without nominal decreases of income, and this means that real income can decrease more easily, which is what you need for relative prices to adjust reasonably quickly.

crassus5• 13 years ago

I like the mining design of Peer Coin much better. I worry that bitcoin mining will become too centralized/unprofitable due to declining block rewards. I'd feel more comfortable using a coin with a continuous small inflation tax paid to miners (say, 1% a year), than a coin that depends on fees becoming higher/more popular in the future.

Besides, I hate fees in my coin, it hurts microtransaction applications.

josephagoss• 13 years ago

Peercoin lets those who have the ability to leaves funds untouched for 30 days accrue this interest. Peercoin was designed to enable the early adopters that can simply sit on their coins.

In the real world most poor people cannot let any amount of coin remain unmoved for 30 days, so Peercoin in a privilege based coin and SunnyKing the creator intended this.

A simple change = Allow all coins no matter age accrue interest. Sunny is a rich millionaire and does not care about the wealth divide his coin will cause if it took off.

makomk2• 13 years ago

The last time I looked at Peercoin, it also appeared to be designed so that people with more coins in effect accrued a higher rate of interest on them due to a subtle quirk of the inflation algorithm. That may have been fixed since then though.

jwmoz• 13 years ago

To the moon!

shloime• 13 years ago

Stores want bitcoin as a secondary method of payment, not a first...

knodi• 13 years ago

Bitcoins are better not spent these days as they seem to increase in value almost 10%-20% daily.

d4vlx2• 13 years ago

To me that means that it's time to start selling. There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast, it seems like speculation to me. I'm not one of the Bitcoin haters either, I've been heavily involved the last 6 months, I just don't see any major reason for this spike other than the usual speculative arguments.

If Bitcoin shouldn't be spent then what use are they?

oleganza7• 13 years ago

One way to start selling a bit of your stash is to actually spend some part of it. No hassle with exchanges, no fees and no tax implications.

Historically, people were more willing to "cash out" by spending coins during boom periods: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popu...

panarky2• 13 years ago

Yes, it's speculative.

Yes, there's no intrinsic value.

Yes, the exchange rate could fall by 90%, or expand by 10,000%.

It's also true that Bitcoin has survived and thrived far longer than experts predicted. Acceptance is increasing rapidly, and globally.

Pretty cool how all of these things can be true at the same time.

rmc3• 13 years ago

There is no fundamental reason why Bitcoin is rising so fast

Sure there is. The goal of BitCoin is to be as popular as USD and EUR. There are maximum of 21,000,000 bitcoin. Imagine owning 1/21,000,000th of all the USD!

wcummings3• 13 years ago

It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it. I prefer Bitcoin for online purchases, if a vendor accepts it, I'll use it. Purchases aren't tracked, or being sucked up by some SIGINT program, no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right) and I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.

panarky2• 13 years ago

I've also had good experiences using Bitcoin for online transactions. Fast, cross-border, nearly free. But I assume the transactions are getting analyzed by any number of government and corporate entities.

There's a lot to be learned from the public blockchain, especially if any transaction in the chain can be linked to your identity (such as sending/receiving with exchanges or online wallets).

I assume that authorities have access to your identity at exchanges and online wallets, can link your identity to addresses used for deposits and withdrawals, to IP addresses you use, and from there to historical and future transactions.

wcummings3• 13 years ago

Pseudo-anonymity is still loads better than a CC transaction from my point of view, but your point is taken.

Of course, you can always buy Bitcoin with cash (:

JohnTHaller• 13 years ago

Well, except for the fact that all bitcoin purchases are very publicly tracked for everyone to view.

vbuterin• 13 years ago

http://blockchain.info/wallet/send-shared

crassus5• 13 years ago

hopefully not for much longer[1]

[1] http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bitcoin-dark-wallet

nikolak• 13 years ago

It's obvious to me that many of the Bitcoin critics in this thread have never actually used it.

I've used it, not much though - maybe $100 worth of bitcoins.

Purchases aren't tracked

List of transactions from your wallet is visible to anyone.

being sucked up by some SIGINT program

As far as you know, but I wouldn't be surprised if your transactions are "sucked up" by some SIGINT program. Or maybe they aren't because there are websites that enable anyone to easily view transactions.

no fees (even in exchanging, if you do it right)

I'd love to hear more about this. How can you buy bitcoin online without fees? Meeting with someone and buying them in person kinda defeats the purpose, you could go out and buy the items you want with cash - there are no fees for that either. And is the effort really worth the small transaction fees? Not to mention that by the time you get back home from cash-purchase the price may have gone down and you can't even buy the item you wanted now.

I don't have to give my CC # to the vendor.

That one is true.

Also, when paying with bitcoin you (in most cases) don't have absolutely any customer protection.

ramblerman• 13 years ago

List of transactions from your wallet is visible to anyone.

With the important side note, that nobody needs to know it is your wallet. You can create as many wallets as you want if you care about privacy.

I'm not suggesting this would put you completely in the clear from NSA/professional hacker level audits, but it is miles away from doing a query in a database "Where CC=..."

knotty66• 13 years ago

Every story I Hear from Shopify seems good. Thanks Tobias and the rest of you guys. And thanks for open sourcing so much. Especially Liquid templates and Batman.js.

kmook• 13 years ago

I am starting to see services like this http://www.freesafeip.com/bitcoin

which is a more generic version of another similar service http://pizzaforcoins.com/

It may be a matter of time before any site can accept bitcoins indirectly if people started using these services.

QuasiAlon2• 13 years ago

Is this a bigger thing for Bitcoin or for Shopify. One the one hand, another sign of bitcoin being integrated into mainstream sites. On the other hand, quite possibly Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins (assuming they have a profit margin). imho and everything :)

walden422• 13 years ago

Shopify might be looking for ways to obtain discounted bitcoins

They're using BitPay's service to instantly convert to fiat, so they're not getting any bitcoins.

QuasiAlon2• 13 years ago

Interesting. Thank you very much for your comment.

SkyMarshal• 13 years ago

If any shopify folks still reading this, have you had any issues with your bank refusing to do business with merchants that accept bitcoin? Been hearing that new bitcoin companies are having problems along these lines, due to increasing FDIC scrutiny.

Shopify accepts Bitcoin

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