I will also address some of the negative worries that have been brought up about bitcoin and why they really are not relevant to the type of business we do.
1. Bitcoins Are Not Widely Accepted- this does not matter, our customers typically buy them and send them straight to us so that may be an issue for me to worry about but there is no reason our customers should worry about them not being accepted in other places unless they buy them to use them in other places.
2. Wallets Can Be Lost- your always supposed to save your wallet to a flash drive anyway, if this ever did happen it would purely be the consumers fault, It is far more likely that you will lose the physical wallet in your back pocket than for you to lose your btc wallet either way. On top of that it's recommended to use a new wallet for each transaction and to spread them out between many wallets because wallets and address's are free, you can limit that risk to pretty much nothing buy using a few wallets.
3. Bitcoin Valuation Fluctuates- Bitcoin value fluctuates a little bit but not so much that it ever has made a big difference, it could happen but it's just another could possibly some day situation, as of now Its not a big deal and we will always make up for the customers loss in this situation, its mostly irrelevant because customers almost always buy their bitcoins and send them to me the same day they receive them.
4. No Buyer Protection- (When goods are bought using Bitcoins, and the seller doesn’t send the promised goods, nothing can be done to reverse the transaction) absolutely no different than the payment forms we have been using like western union with a fake name, there is barely any buyer protection in this business, that is what we have this forum for.
, 5. Risk of Unknown Technical Flaws- (The Bitcoin system could contain unexploited flaws) That is pure speculation, the btc economy has been inspected by the greatest economists and tech experts in the world, some for it and some against it but no major exploitable flaws have been found up to this point, it could be argued that it is stronger than the fiat economy we use in the u.s. if we use the disasters caused by credit default swaps, the housing bubble, tech bubble and Ponzi schemes. None of those things are possible in the btc economy because inflation isn't controlled by a central regulatory system like the federal reserve does in our economy. When they want to lower interest rates they print more money, raise them print less, That would be a reasonable system if it was not influenced by politics and public opinion but it is which in my opinion makes the fiat economy weaker than the bitcoin economy. The btc economy has no politics and can't be biased by public opinion in any other way than buying, selling and the confidence or lack there of that causes you to decide which to do.
6. Built in Deflation- This is true, Once all the 21 million bitcoins that can exist in circulation do exist in circulation it COULD cause a wide spread deflation and devaluation in the currency. This will happen in 2040 So I do recommend you be careful with your bitcoins in 2035 or somewhere around there
7- no physical form-(Since Bitcoins do not have a physical form, it cannot be used in physical stores) Unless your planning on paying your gym dealer with bitcoin, this does not matter at all.
8- (Since there is no central authority governing Bitcoins, no one can guarantee its minimum valuation. If a large group of merchants decide to “dump” Bitcoins and leave the system, its valuation will decrease greatly) Something very similar could happen if china decided to dump all of it's u.s. debt at one time but either way it's another possibly could happen one day situation which does not matter to us since our customers buy and sell them very quickly, None of us are trying to use our bitcoin wallets as a savings acct, we are talking about it as a short term currency.
9- One more I hear often is that bitcoin is used for illicit purposes so it must be under government surveillance. That is just speculation, the narcs in the bushes, paranoid way of thinking, anyone who does real research and understands fog and tumblers will understand that you can make it all but untraceable, although you can never make them private exactly you can make them anonymous if your serious about what your doing. It has the added benefit of your face never being on a camera and you have no nosy cashier to deal with. Also as far as them being used for illicit goods, all currencies are, Bitcoins are more widely used in the EU, they even have btc atm's there.
As you can see, none of the usual btc worries are at all relevant to us, these disadvantages are for people planning on using it for primary currency, for savings, Really it's mostly intended for large scale bitcoin investors and it's filled with could maybe possibly happen one day situations. In my experience The only people who ever have anything bad to say about using btc for payment are those who have never tried to use bitcoin for payment or sometimes those who can't figure out how to use bitcoin at all.
1. Bitcoins Are Not Widely Accepted- this does not matter, our customers typically buy them and send them straight to us so that may be an issue for me to worry about but there is no reason our customers should worry about them not being accepted in other places unless they buy them to use them in other places.
2. Wallets Can Be Lost- your always supposed to save your wallet to a flash drive anyway, if this ever did happen it would purely be the consumers fault, It is far more likely that you will lose the physical wallet in your back pocket than for you to lose your btc wallet either way. On top of that it's recommended to use a new wallet for each transaction and to spread them out between many wallets because wallets and address's are free, you can limit that risk to pretty much nothing buy using a few wallets.
3. Bitcoin Valuation Fluctuates- Bitcoin value fluctuates a little bit but not so much that it ever has made a big difference, it could happen but it's just another could possibly some day situation, as of now Its not a big deal and we will always make up for the customers loss in this situation, its mostly irrelevant because customers almost always buy their bitcoins and send them to me the same day they receive them.
4. No Buyer Protection- (When goods are bought using Bitcoins, and the seller doesn’t send the promised goods, nothing can be done to reverse the transaction) absolutely no different than the payment forms we have been using like western union with a fake name, there is barely any buyer protection in this business, that is what we have this forum for.
, 5. Risk of Unknown Technical Flaws- (The Bitcoin system could contain unexploited flaws) That is pure speculation, the btc economy has been inspected by the greatest economists and tech experts in the world, some for it and some against it but no major exploitable flaws have been found up to this point, it could be argued that it is stronger than the fiat economy we use in the u.s. if we use the disasters caused by credit default swaps, the housing bubble, tech bubble and Ponzi schemes. None of those things are possible in the btc economy because inflation isn't controlled by a central regulatory system like the federal reserve does in our economy. When they want to lower interest rates they print more money, raise them print less, That would be a reasonable system if it was not influenced by politics and public opinion but it is which in my opinion makes the fiat economy weaker than the bitcoin economy. The btc economy has no politics and can't be biased by public opinion in any other way than buying, selling and the confidence or lack there of that causes you to decide which to do.
6. Built in Deflation- This is true, Once all the 21 million bitcoins that can exist in circulation do exist in circulation it COULD cause a wide spread deflation and devaluation in the currency. This will happen in 2040 So I do recommend you be careful with your bitcoins in 2035 or somewhere around there
7- no physical form-(Since Bitcoins do not have a physical form, it cannot be used in physical stores) Unless your planning on paying your gym dealer with bitcoin, this does not matter at all.
8- (Since there is no central authority governing Bitcoins, no one can guarantee its minimum valuation. If a large group of merchants decide to “dump” Bitcoins and leave the system, its valuation will decrease greatly) Something very similar could happen if china decided to dump all of it's u.s. debt at one time but either way it's another possibly could happen one day situation which does not matter to us since our customers buy and sell them very quickly, None of us are trying to use our bitcoin wallets as a savings acct, we are talking about it as a short term currency.
9- One more I hear often is that bitcoin is used for illicit purposes so it must be under government surveillance. That is just speculation, the narcs in the bushes, paranoid way of thinking, anyone who does real research and understands fog and tumblers will understand that you can make it all but untraceable, although you can never make them private exactly you can make them anonymous if your serious about what your doing. It has the added benefit of your face never being on a camera and you have no nosy cashier to deal with. Also as far as them being used for illicit goods, all currencies are, Bitcoins are more widely used in the EU, they even have btc atm's there.
As you can see, none of the usual btc worries are at all relevant to us, these disadvantages are for people planning on using it for primary currency, for savings, Really it's mostly intended for large scale bitcoin investors and it's filled with could maybe possibly happen one day situations. In my experience The only people who ever have anything bad to say about using btc for payment are those who have never tried to use bitcoin for payment or sometimes those who can't figure out how to use bitcoin at all.
