Posted Jun 26, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC
They're like funbucks, only not fun.
And not even really 'bucks' either because you never know wtf they're worth on any given day.
That's part of the not fun!
Honestly they should stick to their guns, but tell them that they are willing to offer refunds in Doge.
Hmm, what are some other good or useful concepts that bitcoins are not? This is a notfun notgame! That'll cost you 10 notBTC
Well, I guess you also can't burn them in a huge bonfire if no one will take them any more.
Seriously though, they just seem to be a tremendous headache for a small business to deal with, since it's not likely you can use them to pay your employees, service your debts, or pay your suppliers. You just have to convert them back to whatever currency your business normally uses. But unlike a foreign currency, you can't hedge out your currency risk. Given the importance of free cash flow in credit analysis (and in attracting equity investors), it seems like you'd need to have a pretty good reason to accept it.
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Who would have thought that something that can be used as a medium of exchange, store of value, and standard of deferred payment would have utility?
So they're !!FUN!!bucks
I feel like this is a reference to that game with the things, but I don't know what game with which things.
It's a reference to Dwarf Fortress.
The first part of it is a quote is from the game - "Losing is fun!" Players begun literally refer to losing as fun.
The second part of it is how DF refers to objects that are on fire - by surrounding the name of the item with two exclamation marks eg !!Plump Helmet Roast!! or !!Dwarf Fisherman!!.
So, now you have !!FUN!! AKA losing while being on fire AKA the best kind of fun.
Why the hell would a company accept a currency when they don't know what it will be worth when they convert it back to real money? It's changed by like 30% in minutes once.
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Out of curiosity, I checked out their most recent 10-Q filing, which had a section on the risk factors related to Bitcoin in the Manager's Discussion and Analysis. Here's what it had to say:
Our decision to accept and hold bitcoins may subject us to exchange risk and additional tax and regulatory requirements.
In January 2014, we began accepting bitcoins as a form of payment for purchases on our website. Bitcoin is a digital currency that uses cryptography to control the creation and transfer of the currency between individual parties. Bitcoin is not considered legal tender or backed by any government. Since inception in 2009, bitcoins have experienced price volatility, technological glitches and various law enforcement and regulatory interventions.
Since we began accepting bitcoins as a form of payment, less than 1% of customer purchases have been made using the currency. At present we do not accept bitcoin payments directly, but use a third party vendor to accept bitcoin payments on our behalf. That third party vendor then immediately converts the bitcoin payments into U.S. dollars so that we receive payment for the product sold at the sales price in U.S. dollars. We do not hold any significant amount of bitcoins as a result of these transactions.
In the future, we may transact in bitcoins directly or increase our bitcoin holdings. This will subject us to exchange risk which may have an adverse effect on our results. There is also uncertainty regarding the current and future accounting treatment and tax, legal, and regulatory requirements relating to bitcoins or transactions utilizing bitcoins. Such accounting, legal, regulatory, and tax developments or other requirements may adversely affect us.
It should be noted that they also hold $9.7 million in precious metals (which have some of the same characteristics of Bitcoin) and part of the business model is buying the liquidated assets of failed startups. Just speculating here, but there will probably be failed startups that have bitcoins, and so Overstock might wind up buying them and having an arbitrage opportunity (if the recent debacle with the US Marshals auctioning off seized bitcoins is any indication). That's just spitballing though. They're not actually holding bitcoins themselves or directly accepting them as payment.
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Thanks! Didn't mean to take away from the joke - this is just what happens when it's the end of the day and everyone's watching World Cup, but you still have Reuters open.
Answer for overstock.com is their CEO is a wacko libertarian and their financial situation has not been spectacular leading to a steep decline in their trading price over the last year so they're desperate to do everything to turn it around. Unfortunately accepting bitcoin has done nothing to turn around their falling share price as they continue to fall short of financial goals.
Overstock, like most people, are excited about the idea of an international, decentralized, digital currency. As well they should be, such a thing would be a total game changer to the very basics of economics.
Bitcoins are not that. They are the first step in the direction of that, but they are not that. They will probably never be that.
What Overstock is saying is that they support the movement for cryptocurrency, which is a smart move for any online retailer. The practicality of actually accepting bitcoins almost doesn't matter because they'll never represent more than a tiny fraction of a percent of their sales.
With a smaller company like pfSense, though they may want to support cryptocurrency, the logistics play a much larger role in what they can and can not accept as payment.
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This is a really good point. I agree that cryptocurrency may develop into something truly gamechanging - just Bitcoin isn't it, and unfortunately, Bitcoin has accumulated a toxic stew of a subculture around it.
I made a bit of money off the doge bubble and converted them to bitcoin, then bought myself a pair of yellow skinny jeans off of overstock. I felt like I was living in the future.
overstock does not take bitcoin directly
It accepts it through a payment processor who converts most of it to USD. However, a small portion (I believe 1% of profits) is kept in Bitcoin.
1% of profits on Bitcoin orders is kept in Bitcoin.
That is a very, very small percentage of business done in actual Bitcoin.
I think it's safe to say that people who see this are mostly fed up by the narcissistic behaviour of the "spokesman".
The only group that appears narcissistic are the bitcoin crusaders.
Whatever. This is good news for bitcoin.
Also, that PR guy was totally unprofessional. "We won't be accepting bitcoins now, nor do we have any future plans to accept bitcoins. Our apologies to anyone who is inconvenienced by this" and then just stfu would've been a MUCH better response.
Honestly, I didn't have a problem with their response. Look, BTC is just gambling, that's it. It's too unpredictable to use as a currency. Why would I, as a consumer, buy something today when tomorrow my coins could be worth more, effectively increasing the price of the goods? Think about the complications for merchants. They are going to have to have dynamic pricing if they are selling in BTC. Who would want to invest in that kind of infrastructure?
And the other fact is, there isn't enough of a base using BTC that they really matter. The BTC community needs to stop spouting their libertarian bullshit and admit this is just a get rich quick scheme and move on.
it may help to understand that OP was born-n-raised in las vegas, and witnessed many people selling everything they had to get back home to California or Arizona after a weekend bender.
To be fair, there are plenty of large companies that "accept bitcoin" and don't have to worry at all about bitcoin's price. They use systems like BitPay and don't really handle any bitcoin transactions themselves.
Right and I get that, my concern is less on the merchant side than it is on the consumer side. If it were analogous to merchants accepting Visa, MasterCard and Discover but not Amex, I'd say the merchants should probably just accept it as a form of payment that will rarely be used. However, for consumers, it's less advantageous to actually use it as a currency because of the price fluctuations.
If I have a few bitcoins and I want to make a purchase with them, I wouldn't be very quick to use them, especially if I thought the price was going up soon. I'd let them appreciate and then sell at a peak, then make my transaction in cash. Unless something slows down the fluctuations and, oh how I hate to say this, the IRS probably did one of the best things for the currency by treating it as a commodity and not a currency so it encourages people to hold it longer, rather than day trade it. But until you see it's fluctuations level out to what the Euro, Dollar or Pound Sterling do, you won't see many consumers opt to use it as a currency.
You're spot on. There's no consumer advantages to getting in to Bitcoin when it comes to actually using it, and for people who already have it, there are risks with spending it.
Yeah, you would expect a PR person to deliver a message a little bit better.
A major part of PR is to never answer in final terms, like "we'll never do this" or "we'll always do this." If circumstances change down the line, your company will look pretty stupid if they go against what you said previously.
Yeah, I thought most PR people would have phrased it something like "We don't currently have any plans to support bitcoin, but we may change this policy in future based on customer feedback".
I've seen many companies say "we are keeping an eye on Bitcoin." It gets the heavy supporters riled up while not being any kind of promise.
Why wouldn't it be a PR 'win' when the company eventually reverses the position?
"We'll have some people look into it."
BAM. Done. No fallout, no negative PR.
Ctrl-F "good news"
Was not disappoint
Timely reminder that replacing "Bitcoin" with "Magic Beans" is awesome.
so, bitcoins.
that's really still a thing huh
They're desperately trying to keep people buying into it. Pyramid schemes need new blood.
Some excellent stuff in there. "If the US government sells bitcoin, it's OK to accept them" well no shit it's OK to accept them, but the way the transactions are marked makes it really, really stupid to do so unless you want a shit ton of accounting on your hands.
PR guy wasn't very professionnal about the whole thing. There's many ways to answer that question without pissing off bitcoiners... I think, these guys are easy to piss off. Which I don't really get. What percentage of companies accept bitcoins? 0.01%? Why get so worked up when one decides not to accept them?
There's many ways to answer that question without pissing off bitcoiners
Only if the answer is "Yes, we only take Bitcoins."
PR guy?
A PR guy would have been fired.
I don't actually draw a salary.
next question.
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THIS IS SUCH GOOD FUCKING NEWS FOR BITCOIN, YOU ASSHOLE!
Look at all these people just on the cusp of buying an open source firewall....... but oh this thread. :P
Dude knows what is up.
From the brigade thread:
Well duh, it will be nice for other
chumpschampions of bitcoin can spend their coins, but mine are staying safe with me.I've used pfSense for years at my company. It's an awesome, awesome product. I have never once considered a pro license.
Seeing that dude tell them to get bent, I'm gonna work a license into my next budget.