[chris-martin]

Yes! (Both.)

You'll end up spending an amount of BTC that is equivalent to 90% of the cost of your coffee. So, an example: If you choose the $10 option, and $10 is worth 10mBTC (exchange rate made up to simplify the math), then you'd pay 9mBTC and have $10 available to spend at Starbucks. If you then spend $5 of that at Starbucks, you'll end up receiving a refund of 4.5mBTC (the equivalent of the remaining $5).

[mike_hearn]

How is that discount funded though? I mean, who is paying the other 10%?

[mhluongo]

Right now? Us.

[pbhjpbhj]

So you put USD on Starbucks gift cards, sell the code to be used for a drink and receive the money in BTC. You're amassing BTC from disparate sources but it seems you'd be paying a slight premium, however you wouldn't need to register with any exchange.

You do get a pre-loading bonus of bitcoins to play with and you can use those to generate profits - like 1000 people put $10 worth of BTC on the app, spend $5 on a coffee then you have $5000 in BTC to "play" with, eg to sell on.

This does all look pretty suspect.

[mhluongo]

We do not trade on any reserves from customers like that. We're not the Gox of gift cards.

[mike_hearn]

OK. Thanks for cheap drinks, I guess, but what's in it for you? I mean, how long do you plan to keep this up?

[mhluongo]

Hm... not sure how long we'll keep it up. The discount is a promotion, but I imagine we'll keep it in some form as marketing for the product. 10% is a nice number, but we'll test it. As pointed out in other comments, it beats Starbucks's own program, which I like.

We can afford the discount by saving money elsewhere. No credit card fees, etc.