

Buy Newegg gear using Bitcoin - randall
http://bitspend.com/

======
phamilton
Here's my theory (from right field) on where the free lunch is coming from:

Bitspend is a hosting company that has invested a lot of extra rack space into
mining equipment. They see the giant bubble brewing and have realized that
bitcoin needs some legs to stand on. If bitcoin survives, Bitspend's mining
operation makes a huge profit. If it crashes, they lose a lot. So giving
people an easy way to use bitcoin as an actual currency rather than a
speculative investment has a huge long term benefit for them.

Whether my theory is true or not, I think many other heavy mining operations
would benefit through similar services. If there are any other big miners out
there, I hope you see the value you can add to your investment by doing things
like bitspend.

~~~
Astrohacker
It's not a free lunch. They can sell the bitcoins on the market if they need
USD.

~~~
cdr
Only so long as the market doesn't crash.

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trotsky
Say I'm in the US, but I have an overseas website hosting a browser exploit
kit that pushes a trojan to non NATO type countries that steals their bitcoin
wallet and mails it to me. I then spend those bitcoins with a US service like
this and get a US company to ship goods to a US address. Let's even say the US
service knows I'm shady but doesn't care as long as my bitcoins show.

Who of any of us are breaking laws? My understanding of US standards is that
hacking foreigners on foreign lands generally doesn't constitute a crime, and
most jurisdictions don't seem to treat virtual goods like wow gold as actual
theft.

Seems like a rocky and lawless world out there for crypto currencies,
especially with so many russians / eastern europeans involved in bitcoin.

I have trouble believing I'd get very far calling up the FBI to report a
bitcoin theft.

~~~
jrockway
I have trouble believing that you'd get very far calling up the FBI to report
that someone hit you on the head with a hammer for the purpose of stealing the
$100 cash in your wallet.

Basically, petty crimes are not important. Especially to the FBI. Whether
Bitcoin or USD, they don't care.

(Relevant internet meme: honey badger.)

~~~
joev
They apparently care about a missing hockey puck.

"[The] FBI's Regional Crimes Task Force in Chicago reviewed the Chicago police
sergeant's video and determined with "100-percent certainty" that Miller
picked up the puck."

<http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/nhl/news/story?id=6452071>

------
sdkmvx
It's interesting to see that this guy wants to transfer BTC -> USD in the form
of Newegg shipments, but I have yet to see anyone major accept Bitcoins
directly.

Newegg has something of useful value (like a hard drive). Both BTC and USD
have no useful value in this sense. The actual item 1 USD is simply a piece of
cotton-paper with ink on it. A BTC is a mathematical hash. Nobody major with
useful objects accepts BTCs. They accept USDs.

I would think that most people trading Bitcoins are just trading it. The price
goes up and up because everyone is just buying and buying so they can sell
before it goes back down. At some point, enough people are going to randomly
decide they're done and sell at the same time, and the transfer price will go
all the way to (near) zero. I haven't seen many people actively trying to make
a real economy out of it. That's why I have no confidence in Bitcoin.

~~~
bitspend
Accepting BTC directly would really be ideal from large vendors. But one very
interesting thing about our service is the worldwide shipping. Newegg makes it
very difficult to buy with a non-US (or non-Canadian) credit card. They won't
ship outside the US or Canada either. So it really opens up the market to
other people. Things like this are exactly what we at bitspend want bitcoin to
be successful in. Opening up new markets.

~~~
stock_toaster
I would imagine there is more to accepting international orders (and shipping
there) than simply 'using non-US credit cards'. Things like tariffs, export
restrictions, taxes (both source and destination company), international
corporate status, fraud, etc.

In light this, I find bitcoin espoused as 'opening up new markets' a bit of an
odd statement.

~~~
malandrew
For individual orders by the end user, there really isn't that much more. Most
of the additional costs such as import duties are typically the responsibility
of the receiver.

------
drhodes
How are you guys mitigating the volitility. Arbitrage? Seems to me with +- 10
USD in one day, if an order comes in during a top when the quote from newegg
is for $20K and suddenly the exchange tanks you'll be stuck with a heavy loss.
Of course, it works the other way too...

~~~
bitspend
Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into
USD. If a customer sends bitcoin and wants to cancel before the order is
placed, then there is no problem. We will just refund them. Customer always
comes first.

~~~
Steko
"Volatility is not a real big issue because we can quickly move bitcoin into
USD."

This is true today I guess. When everyone is trying to sell bitcoins it might
not be so easy.

------
mmaunder
Damn this is getting interesting. I'm a HUGE fan of bitcoin but I'm too
chickenshit to accept payment for our business. (chickenshit being a summary
for issues relating to IRS, fraud, currency stability, deflationary risk, etc)

When the IRS throws their hat into the ring it's going to get serious, both in
terms of positive PR for bitcoin and risk. That will happen once there's a
full service economy in the currency i.e. ability to reliably: earn, spend,
exchange, borrow, lend and save. 99% of this activity will be off the IRS
radar and thus will be off their books.

~~~
veb
The IRS taxes... money, right? Does it tax virtual currency? Sorry, I'm not
sure. My line of thought was perhaps there's something written where it states
that only the official currency is taxed.

I agree with you though, the whole Bitcoin thing is getting _very_
interesting.

P.S. would the down-voters explain? It's not like I know everything about tax
law, I was simply asking a question. :)

~~~
prodigal_erik
No matter how you get paid, the IRS wants the same share of fair market value:
<http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html>. I can't think of a reason they'd
treat bitcoin differently than foreign money.

~~~
IgorPartola
Because BTC is wothless. Or rather that is what you could try to claim. If I
mine a bunch of BTC and then pay you with it, I have not assigned any value to
it. And if you never convert it to USD, you do not assign value to it either.
When you fill out your tax forms, what would you put for its value? Moreover
the IRS has no standard way to measure it. They cannot use Mt Gox any more
than they can use Craig's list. The BTC is way too small and fluctuates too
much to be accurately measured unless USD is involved somewhere.

I am not a lawyer or a CPA and the above is just a theory, not advice.

~~~
maxerickson
If I give you 1 bitcoin and you give me a donut, we've agreed that 1 bitcoin
is worth a donut.

(it is similar to the situation with barter, in the U.S. it is taxable and the
IRS will expect you to put a dollar value on the income and be able to defend
the valuations you use)

~~~
IgorPartola
Huh, I did not know that.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter#Tax_implications>.

~~~
parfe
I believe that is why coupons say they are worth $0.0001

Guy wins free donuts and is issued a $237 tax bill.

[http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Astros...](http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Astros-
fan-learns-there-8217-s-no-such-thing-as?urn=mlb-wp3695)

------
ineedtosleep
Considering how much people are charging in BTC for goods and services
currently and the difficulty of earning BTC, I'd rather spend real currency.

Note that I didn't check the Newegg BTC prices. I'm only applying what I've
seen so far and expecting nothing different from bitspend/Newegg.

~~~
simplestuff
This is perfect for me as someone who does not live in the US. I live in Peru,
don't have access to real electronics, cannot order from newegg without a US
credit card / US address. If this site really does mail forwarding, then it
would be awesome for me.

I just wish they also did clothes, books, maybe amazon.com or something.

~~~
testcock1
You can use BTCBuy to buy amazon gift cards with bitcoin, just redeem the code
on your amazon.com account, and you can buy it whatever you like.

~~~
simplestuff
BTCBuy won't ship to me though. Amazon only ships a very small number of
products to Peru. Electronics and clothes not included.

------
webXL
Why wouldn't this work for any store or currency? Or is this just a creative
way to go long on bitcoin?

~~~
bitspend
Exactly right. We may add more currencies in the future and additional stores
asap. Suggestions appreciated :)

~~~
binzup
in addition of you adding more stores. why dont you create a pay pal button
type thing that allows developers to accept bitcoins.

click HERE to buy in dollars. and HERE to buy in bitcoins

~~~
StavrosK
This is unrelated, but why are some people's usernames green?

~~~
roel_v
New/low karma accounts.

~~~
StavrosK
Hah, I get it, it's because they're green. Good one, and thanks for the
explanation.

------
jnburham
How do we know it's not a scam?

~~~
simplestuff
I made an order through them tonight. I was worried too, so I made the order
through "Clearcoin," which is a bitcoin escrow service (created by the
founders of bitcoin from my understanding). So, one way to know to know it is
not a scam is to use an escrow service (always a good policy, actually).

------
DiabloD3
Interesting, but is he willing to cover lost items or shipping to insane
countries?

~~~
bitspend
Actually insurance may be a option in the very near future. We are working on
adding many new features!

------
adrianwaj
ideas:

\- make bitspend a place for users to buy bitcoins

\- make bitspend a place for users to cash out bitcoins

\- build a reputation and move into ebay and amazon payments (can you become
some type of power buyer or affiliate)

\- collect testimonials

\- provide a bookmarklet or plugin so users can browse the shopping sites
transparently but pay on bitspend

\- a person could have an item they want to buy for say $30, instead of paying
with bitcoins, they pay $100, and then get $70 change in bitcoins

~~~
lallysingh
You've gotta be real careful:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Crime_and_fraud>

~~~
adrianwaj
From a purely economic standpoint, is it always in someone's interest to be
fraudulent? You might get away with $x if fraudulent and 3 x $x if not. If
you're selling rice and cookies at a supermarket and a mafia boss wants to buy
them, what are you going to do, turn him away?

------
dimitrip
I am not in the US. Can I order products from this site and receive stuff from
new egg in my home country (Russia)? Can I order from amazon if it is cheaper
than newegg?

------
baconface
Seems like another good technique for mining bitcoins.

------
jes5199
It's still really, really hard to obtain bitcoins. And until that changes,
what good does it do to be able to spend them?

~~~
regularfry
I can't say I'd noticed. Admittedly it's not trivial, in that I don't know of
anywhere you can just show up with a credit card and buy a bitcoin, but it's
hardly rocket surgery to fund a MtGox account.

~~~
ahi
It's taken me the better part of a week to fund a MtGox account. 10 minutes to
send bitcoin around the world. 5 days to complete a damn USD money transfer.

~~~
regularfry
Urgh. In which case, you have my sympathies. It certainly wasn't that much of
a hassle for me. Stick with it, I could certainly believe that MtGox is under
a certain amount of strain right now.

That being said, they aren't the only option: other exchanges are cropping up,
and bitcoin-otc is also available.

------
phamilton
I wonder if they have to charge sales tax... (located in CA)

~~~
bitspend
No sales tax. We're located in Utah :)

~~~
eekfuh
Good to know there are other Utahns using bitcoin than just me :D

~~~
buster
Good question.. i don't know either.. But looking at the green users, it seems
that green means "new user"? They were created in the last hours...

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briandear
Yet another Bitcoin story. How nice.

