That said, I had no problem with their API. They had an easy web checkout link that could be generated that worked fine in an Android WebView for my first implementation. Later at AngelHack SV I used their PHP API to generate invoices for specific prices for goods dynamically and was then still able to send people to their site to finish checkout and get redirected when it completed.
Didn't really see any missing documentation and their site worked fine, responding quite quickly when money was sent to the barcode it showed or the link that could start a wallet app on Android, and their PHP sample code worked trivially. Who knows, maybe they've improved the docs and samples since you used it, though. Or you were trying to hack bitcore, which is a completely different level of difficulty.
We just this past week launched our new REST API, which should be significantly better than our old API: http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/09/18/announcing-the-new-bitpay-... – we spent a long time thinking very carefully about making the developer experience as smooth as possible, but I'm sure there are things we can be doing better. If you've any ideas on how we can improve it, please let me know.
http://blog.bitpay.com/2014/07/01/bitauth-for-decentralized-...
Regarding your AngelHack prize... the same thing happened to me. I'd be more skeptical of AngelHack than Bitpay, a well-funded global company, though: http://www.businessinsider.com/greg-gopman-angelhack-lawsuit...
It's not the first time I've heard of AngelHack not following through.
I'm using their old version, but the errors I get are from the new version. Their library for the language I use is not yet updated. The new docs seem to be better, but I lost faith in them as a developer.
Always feel free to shoot me an email at eric@bitpay.com.
This is how it's been for almost a year now.
Ask yourself: Why use Bitcoin? What is the value proposition for consumers apart from sending money to friends? That's valuable, but it's not multi-billions of dollars worth of valuable. Examine the fundamentals before you jump into a gambler's market.
- Buying things that people would be unwilling to sell to you with existing payment methods due to fraud risks. One legal example: iPhone purchases shipped to Nigeria.
- Buying things electronically where the existing payment methods are too slow or expensive. For example, funding a stock trading account in seconds to an hour instead of 1-2 days or funding an online gambling account (legal for most non-US residents but slow and expensive with credit cards).
- Buying an expensive item from a trusted merchant at a discount commensurate with the reduced transaction cost and zero chargeback risk.
- Paying for contractors or crowd-sourcing efforts in any country in the world with ease.
Use your imagination.
It isn't? Western Union makes $5 billion in revenue every year. PayPal - and a reference to sending money to friends is literally the name of the company - also makes $5 billion in revenue every year.
There is massive value in bitcoin. Payments, asset tracking, international remittances, etc. Take just one of those markets, and just one company—say Western Union and international remittances. That's $8.7B worth of market cap that bitcoin obsoletes.
Sending money to people.
Bitcoin is silly in lots of ways, but what something like it could potentially do is revolutionary. PayPal is worth billions; retail banking is a 12-figure yearly revenue industry. That's a whole lot of money on the table.
Buying steroids, drugs, porn, donating to Wikileaks -- anonymously / bypassing any Visa/Mastercard "embargoes". Fiat makes this quite difficult, Bitcoin solves this problem. Have you ever done an international wire transfer? It can take days. When I pay people with Bitcoin it takes at most minutes. If you actually start using it you'll probably stop asking this question. It is extremely useful at this point in time to many people.
> The way it works is, they buy in order to jump the price. Then other people buy and continue the momentum upwards. Then, in a few days, they sell, and thus capitalize on everyone else's belief.
Funny I also trade equities and what you're describing perfectly fits what happens there.
you have chosen a very convenient timespan over which to survey recent events.
i've been holding BTC since 2011. 2014 looks just like 2012 did.
For the buyer, security. (akin to a one-time use CC number)
For values of "rocketing" approaching "down 6% on the week, 13% on the month"
[1] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10z...
Perhaps you do understand, but it makes you feel good to say something nasty about bitcoin. And that feeling is more important to you than honest discussion.
From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property...:
Today’s IRS guidance will provide certainty for Bitcoin investors, along with income-tax liability that wasn’t specified before. Purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with Bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of gross income for the coffee shop.
“It’s challenging if you have to think about capital gains before you buy a cup of coffee,” he said.
As the bloomberg article states, if I have to factor in my my capital gains tax liability with each purchase of an ebook or mp3, then that is a royal pain and would lessen my desire to use bitcoin for everyday purchases.
It seems to me that perhaps Paypal just see's the IRS guidelines as a non-factor for consumers who will largely just ignore the guidance similar to how consumers are technically supposed to pay state sales tax on online purchases.
HMRC initially tried to treat Bitcoin in the same way as gift vouchers, not currencies, which meant that different rules applied (particularly in relation to VAT). However they now apparently treat is as a currency which in theory means the above exemptions are open to people to claim.
There are issues with this though. Firstly, in the legislation "bank account" is not explicitly defined so it's unclear exactly which forms of wallet might qualify for that exemption, if any. Secondly, the exemption for physical currency doesn't include personal use of a foreign currency within the UK.
So it's still pretty unclear whether you'll be subject to CGT or not.
Imagine if they had that kind of need on cash or even electronic bank transactions.
No way in hell that theyd even be able to look at all the data they'd receive at tax time.
That's amazing! And me thinking PayPal was all about our money!
Bitpay and Coinbase* offer only two advantages over PayPal - slightly cheaper transactions, and the ability to transact in Bitcoin. Due to the merchant account requirements of each you lose anonymous transactions, so for example Silk Road could never use one of these services. So it strikes me as extremely odd that these guys would be partnering with Paypal, basically giving away their advantage, if there wasn't something bigger in it for them down the road.
* not sure about Gocoin as I haven't looked at its merchant account offering.
