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by ddtaylor 2730 days ago
> Completely relying on any third party

What other options are there that exist where a regular person could still make a payment?

2 comments

you are kind of asking for it... :) Bitcoin
That excludes the regular person part.
...how do you get bitcoin without some kind of a third party?
How do you get money without some kind of third party?

What's positive is that there is no monopoly with regards to who can be that third party.

Sell a good/service and receive payment in Bitcoin
That's not really a practical way to acquire bitcoin since there is very little economic activity in the cryptocurrency world besides trading various cryptocurrencies. I know this first-hand since the e-commerce startup I work for brings in roughly 300k USD in sales monthly, with bitcoin sales never having exceeded $80.00 USD worth of value and often none at all.
May I ask where you work? And also, why bitcoin? It's a slow cryptocurrency right?! Do you make users to wait for confirmation(about 30-40 mins)? You could experiment with fast Altcoins and convert to Bitcoin eventually.
I'd prefer not to attract any attention from my postings to my employer, but it's a small shop, nothing noteworthy.

> why bitcoin? It's a slow cryptocurrency right?! Do you make users to wait for confirmation(about 30-40 mins)?

Those decisions are outside of my responsibilities, but we use bitpay to accept bitcoin payments so it all works in real time. I suppose bitcoin was selected because it's the most popular coin so it is most likely to service customer needs, but I believe bitpay allows you to accept a few cryptocurrency options.

> You could experiment with fast Altcoins and convert to Bitcoin eventually.

IMO, there's no reason to bother doing so since experience has demonstrated that nobody really uses cryptocurrency to buy typical retail goods.

you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC.

at this point, might as well trade in casino chips.

(see gnu taller for a less cassino-like alternative to payments)

this third party is not linked to where you want to send them. anybody can get BTC from fiat conversion and send it wherever they want without censorship. That's what we are talking about right?
yes, not linked to the destination of the funds, but still very much required.
The 3rd parties that convert your USD to BTC aren't censoring people, whereas PayPal is.

So that is a significant difference. Apparently PayPal is censoring way more people than the average crypto exchange.

> you still need a 3rd party to realistically convert USD into BTC.

Can't the same be said of credit cards?

Good, old fashioned, non-electronic money orders and cashier's checks, perhaps? Granted, you're still relying on a bank but I can't imagine any bank refusing them for a person without refusing all that person's business entirely.
No sympathy for site in question, but cashiers checks and money orders aren’t particularly low-friction for website users/online shoppers.