
Ending Bitcoin Support - uptown
https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin-support
======
vec
For what it's worth, we just spent two weeks trying and failing to get
Stripe's Bitcoin integration working on our site.

The short version is that Stripe guaranteed a USD <=> BTC exchange rate for an
hour, after which they would automatically cancel the transaction. Given that
most transactions now take well over an hour to be verified on the blockchain,
that means basically every transaction fails.

~~~
koheripbal
I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin. If you have large
value transactions you'd probably choose something with privacy like Monero,
and if you want something cheap and fast, maybe Bitcoin Cash. In both use-
cases, you have a few competing alternatives.

In no circumstance is Bitcoin preferable to one of the mature alternatives.

...and if no one is using it as a transaction medium, then acting as a store
of value is better placed in an actively used coin network.

~~~
bparsons
I think Bitcoin is the AOL of blockchain technology.

It was a first mover, it had huge uptake and valuation, but in a few years (or
perhaps already) someone is going to build a protocol that is capable of
hundreds of thousands of secure transactions a second, and it will make
Bitcoin look archaic.

~~~
stanmancan
There's a few different ones that have made huge jumps forward; RaiBlocks can
apparently do around 7,000tx/s.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Meanwhile, your payment card provider is probably doing that many transactions
per second just in the small city I live in.

~~~
kraftman
[citation needed] A quick google says Visa peaks at 4k txs/sec

~~~
mh-
[0]: _VisaNet handles an average of 150 million transactions every day and is
capable of handling more than 24,000 transactions per second._

[1]: _65,000 Transaction messages per second_

[0] [https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-
tools/...](https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-
tools/retail.html)

[1] [https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/about-
visa/documents/vi...](https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/about-
visa/documents/visa-facts-figures-jan-2017.pdf)

Also, consider there are other networks like MasterCard:

[2]: _MasterCard’s 2012 annual report asserts that its network can handle more
than 160 million transactions per hour with an average network response time
of 130 milliseconds. Operating 24 hours a day every day, MasterCard reports
that its processing systems have consistently maintained availability 99.9
percent of the time._

[2] [https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/consumer-finance-
ins...](https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/consumer-finance-
institute/payment-cards-center/publications/discussion-
papers/2013/d-2013-october-clearing-settlement.pdf)

~~~
deevolution
Id like to also add that there are an order of magnitude more transaction
options provided by cryptocurrencies than there are for fiat payment systems.
Id bet money that, collectively, the cryptocurrency ecosystem is able to
process more transactions per second than all of the leading fiat processors
combined.

~~~
jjeaff
Probably, but only because crypto doesn't scan for fraud and abuse among other
things. Monero is happy to let someone completely empty your life savings.

Cc processors on the other hand are on the hook for fraud, so they are
checking every transaction to make sure it doesn't match certain hueristics
that could indicate theft or fraud.

~~~
deevolution
I'm optimistic crypocurrencies (not all, but some) will achieve global
adoption as a payment option. I think its possible to build a cryptocurrency
that could emulate the fraud / refund detection features of cc processors. If
there isn't one out there, I'm sure it will exist in the future. I certainly
don't see monero being used in my local bodega or as a mainstream currency
because thats not really what monero is trying to achieve.

------
montrose
This reads a bit like the sort of things people say when breaking up so as not
to upset the other person too much. You're a great person, but you're just
more of an asset than a medium of exchange, and what I need in my life right
now is a medium of exchange.

What future does an asset have if people don't actually buy stuff with it?
That is not a purely rhetorical question; cryptocurrencies change things a
lot. But this news is worrying.

~~~
nulagrithom
> What future does an asset have if people don't actually buy stuff with it?

I look at it (maybe naively) like a solid gold bar. You're not going to walk
in to a convenience store and pay with a bar of solid gold; you might flee the
country with one though.

Beyond that, I totally agree with your read on the post. Linking the pull
request[0] was especially backhanded. It feels like there's some underlying
frustration there that was expounded upon using good references and kind
words.

[0]: [https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-
org/bitcoin.org/pull/2010/fil...](https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-
org/bitcoin.org/pull/2010/files)

~~~
0xcafecafe
Gold as a metal has an inherent value though. If not only for jewelry, it also
has important uses in electronics. The value associated with bitcoin seems
purely sentimental.

~~~
marshray
Very little though. If the demand for gold were merely industrial it would not
need to be mined in such quantities as it has throughout history. I would put
jewelry in the 'sentimental' category as well.

Not only is Bitcoin purely sentimental, it represents has huge costs in the
form of raw energy.

Bitcoin's only claim to value is that it is an artifact of an act of ritual
sacrifice. One might imagine a precedent in some system of tokens issued by
some ancient priesthood.

~~~
CPLX
Gold has "real" demand though in jewelry. It's distributed and longstanding
and it has utility. People wear it and use it in real life and value it and
wish to keep it in order to look at it and possess it.

That's as tangible as anything else. Nobody would say that there's no demand
for musical instruments, or baseballs, because they are optional parts of life
that aren't food or shelter.

Gold has intrinsic value in part because people seem to intrinsically like it
for what it actually is, not just it's utility in exchange. That's
fundamentally different.

~~~
nerfhammer
the modifier "intrinsic" doesn't add anything though. "people intrinsically
like" \--> "people like"; "gold is intrinsically valued" \--> "gold is
valued".

"intrinsic" seems to imply an innate persistence despite not being able to
justify such innateness, just empirical persistence. It just implies things
that are arguably not justifiable needlessly. gold has been persistently
valuable. The universe doesn't give it an innate value.

~~~
marshray
'Intrinsic' here means that the property of the object remains even if
people's preferences and culture change. Gold's utility for electronic
applications is a fundamental property of the number of atoms in its nucleus,
whereas there have been cultures that had it readily available yet didn't find
it particularly desirable for jewelry.

~~~
CPLX
That's nonsense. People's long term interest in electronics is far more
unproven and fleeting at this point than their interest in gold.

Seeing as how cultures that considered gold a highly valued item developed
independently in Europe and uncontacted pre-Columbian America, and the
preference remains global today, there's clearly something durable about this
concept.

------
nvk
They should have replaced it with Lightning Network, is amazingly fast and
cheap and works on top of Bitcoin. I'm running a test node, this stuff really
works!

> Lightning is a decentralized network using smart contract functionality in
> the blockchain to enable instant payments across a network of participants.

In case you are curious [https://lightning.network](https://lightning.network)
and another good resource here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7pwna9/lightning_n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7pwna9/lightning_network_megathread/)

~~~
wyldfire
The article does mention it.

> We’re interested in what’s happening with Lightning and other proposals to
> enable faster payments.

Please be careful about promoting LN. It's great tech, yes.

> this stuff really works!

* yes, but please don't actually use it with money yet. [1]

[1] [https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning#project-
status](https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning#project-status)

~~~
nvk
I think they are being over cautious (other implementations are not as
concern), but yes still in testing. There are over 100 nodes, doing a bunch of
transactions no money lost.

~~~
ActsJuvenile
100 nodes for a network worth hundreds of Billions of dollars: that's not over
cautious, that's under cautious.

------
beaker52
It's nice to see they're still interested in payment-oriented tech in this
area, such as Lightning and OmiseGO.

Another one to watch out for is RaiBlocks. Currently has a functioning net,
featuring instant, fee-less transactions.

The thing that's really impressing me about RaiBlocks is the community that's
around it - so much community dev effort going into payment adapters and
services. People are already accepting Web payments with it.

I am holding some, so maybe I've drunk the kool aid but I really feel like
it's something worth keeping an eye on or looking into if you're interested in
the practical crypto-payments space. There's an active reddit you can find
with Google if you're genuinely interested in more info.

~~~
saosebastiao
It looks really promising. Unfortunately, it can only be bought on two
relatively unknown exchanges.

~~~
Kiro
They won the Binance community vote so it will be there soon.

------
sincerely
Another day, another HN title changed without any clear rationale. Was the
original "Stripe ends Bitcoin support" really so bad that it had to be changed
to "Ending Bitcoin Support"?

~~~
mankyd
They have a policy of _always_ changing it to match the title of the linked
article.

Most of the time this is either an improvement or (as in this case) neutral.

I do wish they'd allow a little more editorializing, quite frankly. The linked
title is not _always_ an improvement.

~~~
sincerely
Ah! That's interesting, I didn't realize it was an official policy. Given
that, wouldn't it make sense to generate the post titles from the <title>
element of the link automatically?

~~~
Larrikin
Title changes are still allowed when the title is too long, misleading, or
provides no information about the contents.

------
glesperance
Given that bitcoin isn't a medium of transaction anymore and a store of value
this makes a lot of sense.

Too bad they aren't replacing this with another cryptocurrency at the moment.

~~~
gizmo385
> Given that bitcoin isn't a medium of transaction anymore and a store of
> value this makes a lot of sense.

Can someone bother explaining what this actually means? 3 weeks ago everyone
is hype about how Bitcoin is going to be the future of currency and now that
it's tanking and vendors are dropping it like a hot potato, its no longer a
transactional currency and it's now a "store of value".

~~~
fastball
Bitcoin is currently the crypto equivalent of gold. It's not reasonable to use
it to buy a coffee. However, Bitcoin is _trying_ (but many would argue,
failing) to upgrade the network with something that will allow cheaper/faster
transactions and make it a reasonable currency again. However, (imo) in-
fighting has seriously hampered this. That being the reality, many people hope
that Bitcoin will remain a store of value into the future, even if most people
are using some other crypto for actual day-to-day transactions.

There are "old-school" cryptos with lower transaction fees (Litecoin, Bitcoin
Cash). There is not much reason to use them as an actual currency except for
the fact that they have more inertia than most other projects (and therefore
more things have been built around them). In particular, most places that had
some sort of Bitcoin integration can very easily switch to Bitcoin Cash for
much lower tx fees.

There are many cryptos that are trying to be currency in a permanently
scalable way (IOTA, Ripple, Stellar)

Other cryptos are trying to be cash, i.e. anonymous (Dash, Monero, ZCash).

Most others are either A. intended to be more platform than currency
(Ethereum, NEO, EOS, Tron) or B. too small to mention.

~~~
mamon
No, Bitcoin is the crypto equivalent of Monopoly money: it is unreasonable to
use it for anything but little fun. For real world use cases there are better
solutions, including other cryptocurrencies.

~~~
stevenwoo
There was a recent bit on NPR (Planet Money?) where they interviewed young
people in Seoul - they had so little faith in their ability to earn a living
and save money by working a regular job in Korea they were putting all their
savings into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and hoping to hit the jackpot.
It was alarming.

~~~
hyprCoin
[http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/73...](http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/732768.html)

> Low-income South Koreans are finding it harder and harder to rise to the
> middle or high-income classes through their own efforts and abilities, a
> recent study shows. Just two out of every ten households saw their economic
> status rise through increased income and assets over a three-year period,
> the findings indicate.

Crypto provides an alternative economy where class mobility isn't broken in
the same ways. Youth will continue to flock to it until the local economies
sort themselves out.

~~~
stevenwoo
I wonder if young folks in the same situation in America are doing the same
thing.

------
j_s
Props for hanging in there as long as they did!

Steam is no longer supporting Bitcoin |
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15863182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15863182)
(Dec 2017)

Barely related, but in case you missed it earlier this month:

Website Glitch Let Me Overstock My Coinbase |
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16123496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16123496)

------
thickblockchain
Yeah, but who really cares?

95% of people buy, sell and transfer Bitcoin to do one thing: speculating on
Crypto-Assets. It really doesn't matter if the fees are so high, it's not like
people buy crypto like candy, they buy it like stocks.

Who cares if there's a 30$ fee on a 1000+$ transfer? That's still cheap
compared to other methods of international money transfer. People are
obviously ready to spend that much.

Bitcoin has always been terrible as an everyday currency, even when
transactions were practically free and fast, who wanted to wait 10 minutes to
confirm their purchase of a Grand Latte? Just pay with any of the existing
methods, they work just fine, it's a _solved_ problem. There's probably 1000
cryptocurrencies that could work for that just fine, but nobody really needs
that in the first place.

You gotta realize that Bitcoin is gonna be worth A MILLION dollars or maybe
just one dollar, but then it could go back up to a thousand again! That is the
real value of Bitcoin.

~~~
kbhn
> Who cares if there's a 30$ fee on a 1000+$ transfer?

Because Bitcoin wasn't originally designed for speculating on
cryptocurrencies.

------
Mithorium
Stellar isn't a direct replacement per-se, it's fast and has near zero
transaction fees, but the lumens themselves were not intended to be used as a
medium of transaction, only to have a token amount to pay the miniscule fees
with.

To use the stellar network as intended, there needs to be an anchor that
issues USD/EUR/whatever tokens on the stellar network, and then have stripe
accept those tokens (issued by anchors they trust to convert the tokens back
into real money)

XRB would be another good candidate for low fees, but that one has no fiat
pair to value against, so it's hard to pay a USD invoice with it when the
value is indeterminate.

~~~
doomslice
Even if XLM was not intended to be used for direct payments, is there anything
that actually prevents it from being used for it? From everything I see, it
actually seems like a pretty good candidate for actual spending.

~~~
Mithorium
Well, if people decide to use it that way nobody can stop them. In my opinion,
that would be an inefficient way of using the network, since if you pay with
XLM today you need to first buy some, taking a loss on the conversion since
you have to go through either eth or btc, then the payee needs to sell it
(again with another intermediate currency) to get the money to pay their
operating costs, and they'll likely charge a processing fee for that, and at
that point you may as well be using a credit card.

On the other hand, if you use it like intended by getting USD stellar tokens
from an anchor, and paying with those, the merchant can more or less accept
them at face value (if they trust the anchor to give them USD for the token)

~~~
speeq
ELI5 on the difference between Stellar and Ripple? Why are companies like
Stripe and Kik embracing XLM over XRP?

------
colordrops
I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Bitcoin is capable of
handling high transaction volume with low fees. The BCH fork was created to
support this case. The BTC chain's devs mostly work for Blockstream, who's
business model is to create layer 2 payment solutions, so it's in their
interest to choke off the main chain. And it looks like they are succeeding.

~~~
peterkelly
All BCH did was increase the block size limit from 1mb to 8mb. It solves the
scalability problems in the short term, but will run into exactly the same
issues a year or two from now. Then it'll be 32mb blocks, then 128mb, then
1Gb. An O(n) approach won't work in the long term.

~~~
lawn
Yet nobody quantifies what long term is.

Forgoing a solution that works temporarily, even if only for a year or two,
isn't very bright if the alternative is this. Bitcoin is quickly loosing the
network effect, the only thing it has going for it vs other altcoins.

~~~
hndamien
120 years.

------
swanson
Related to the Coinbase/insider trading noise around BCH a few weeks ago, it
seems strange for Stripe to plug other alt-coins (OMG, Stellar, etc) in the
post as things they view as "promising" and "imagine enabling support for". I
don't think it's illegal nor unethical personally, but it is such a dicey
topic that I'm surprised to see someone writing without a mountain of
disclaimers on an official Stripe communication channel.

~~~
ChristianBundy
FYI, Stripe has been very transparent in the fact that they believe (and have
pumped millions of dollars into) Stellar.

------
undoware
A lot of the chatter in this post is about the underlying value of Bitcoin
(and blockchain currency generally) as an asset class. I keep telling folks:
yes, it absolutely does have value apart from sentiment; holding a blockchain
currency gives you access to all the infrastructure built on that product --
regardless of whether that infrastructure is for exchange, or storage, or
smart contracts, or whatever.

It follows that the worth of a specific blockchain currency is tied to the
usefulness and -- to be brutally honest -- the coolness of the underlying
technology.

This is why you should short BTC (and even ETH). Both are proof-of-work, both
consume massive amounts of power, and both are increasingly useless for
transacting. Eventually, the slow deprecation of Bitcoin as a means of
transaction will make the underlying infrastructure (appear) worthless, and at
that inflection point, it becomes worthless as an asset class as well, as it
will no longer be a stable store of value.

So take all your winnings from the Bitcoin lottery and plough them into
something that actually has legs.

When my 'sell' threshold hits (I currently hold ETH), I'm buying the shit out
of, e.g., Cardano, and Stellar Lumens. And if the blockade by the old guard
ever cracks, TenX -- connected to a payment card -- will be sex on legs. (Ok
currencies can have neither sex nor legs but you get my drift.)

I am explicitly buying as an investment in the technology. Believe in
functional coding and smart contracts? You could do a hell of a lot worse.
Mutatis mutandis, Stellar Lumens; different virtues, but also impressive.

I can see both technologies going forward, and I believe in both of them.
Can't say the same for Bitcoin anymore.

Finally, talking about infrastructure, also evaluate _who_ the infrastructure
is for, and how good it is at serving them. It probably makes sense to hold
some Monero right now, as, like it or not, the traditional guarantor of value
for Bitcoin is its utility in doing shady stuff. Privacycoins meet the needs
of Bitcoin's original audience better than Bitcoin ever did.

~~~
Chirael
Yes, some of the "dark web" marketplaces are starting to accept Monero now in
addition to Bitcoin, for the reason you mentioned. I looked into buying
Stellar but it was surprisingly difficult to buy, and the Stellar Desktop
client was just confusing. I love Stellar conceptually but am not sure it's a
good "investment" (if it was hard for me to buy/use I'm thinking it will be
hard for others, too).

~~~
undoware
Hmmm good points. I'll have to think about that one a bit more. Cardano and
Monero are both friends I would go to the wall for, though :)

------
nadam
If cryptocurrencies really succeed, we will not need a centralized service
like Stripe. Hopefully we will use a 'decentralized Stripe' (as far as I know
the Dash Evolution platform will be sometinhg like that. Maybe that is the
reason that they did not even mention Dash in the article, despite it being
one of the most promising digital Cash system on the market.)

~~~
Casseres
I'd rather not use a coin that requires the use of masternodes - let
everyone's vote be equal and not make it a requirement to be rich in order to
vote.

Also there's no way to prove that a few people don't own a majority of the
masternodes.

With the huge instamine and the creator's refusual to restart the coin, it's
just too sketchy for me to ever trust.

------
mankash666
Ethereum transaction fees are still in cents. They should start supporting it
as a form of payment.

~~~
nebulous1
Actually it's pretty high too these days (not compared to Bitcoin of course)

[https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-
transactionfee...](https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-
transactionfees.html)

~~~
kss238
Since many of ethereums transactions are from smart contract that use lots of
gas, looking at the average transaction fee is misleading. Check
ethgasstation.info for the transaction cost of a simple transaction. $0.08
will get you confirmed in the next block, and $0.02 will get you confirmed in
15 min.

~~~
nebulous1
That's fair, but that is just the cost right now though. The gas price
necessary to get into the next few blocks has varied a lot over the past
couple of months. Ethereum is definitely not immune to transaction cost
difficulties as currently designed.

------
dnprock
Bitcoin isn't like gold. You cannot launder money or evade tax using gold. No
need for trust means no trust. We know what "gold standard" means. You can
guess what "bitcoin standard" would mean. Those who think bitcoin is an asset
storage are delusional.

~~~
cwkoss
> You cannot launder money or evade tax using gold.

What makes you think that?

Trade dirty money for bullion, then trade bullion for cash at a pawn shop -
money laundered.

Buy gold, after it appreciates trade it for a good without reporting the
capital gain - evaded taxes. Or simply accept physical gold in return for
labor without reporting or paying taxes.

------
_pdp_
We have integrated Coinbase recently. Transactions take over a day to get
verified. This is fine because the product is an annual subscription. That
being said, except as an alternative to an international transfer, BTC has not
much e-commerce value from our end.

~~~
Cyberdog
Are you converting straight to USD (or your local currency), or keeping the
BTC?

I know most storefronts that accept crypto do the former, but I can't help but
wonder how much more they could have made if they had done the latter.

~~~
cheez
Easy to say after the fact.

~~~
Cyberdog
Yes, fair enough - hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.

------
mcs_
Love the idea of Stellar. Looks like a smart move from Stripe but will be nice
to see ethereum (when and if POS).

------
bdcravens
We've used the Bitcoin integration since it was in beta (I even got a Stripe
t-shirt for pointing out a small bug) but I don't think we've ever received a
single Bitcoin payment.

The workflow is too jarring (copy and paste a Bitcoin address to make a
payment elsewhere, then come back).

Additionally, refunds are tricky: everything's immediately converted to fiat,
so the customer needs to know they won't (or are extremely unlikely to) get
the same amount of Bitcoin back.

Obviously these issues are true independent of current fee and transaction
time story.

------
sytelus
TLDR;

 _Transaction confirmation times have risen substantially; this, in turn, has
led to an increase in the failure rate of transactions denominated in fiat
currencies. (By the time the transaction is confirmed, fluctuations in Bitcoin
price mean that it’s for the “wrong” amount.) Furthermore, fees have risen a
great deal. For a regular Bitcoin transaction, a fee of tens of U.S. dollars
is common, making Bitcoin transactions about as expensive as bank wires._

------
almost_usual
Seems to be a well written argument for ending their support while still
maintaining a positive cryptocurrency stance. This will still cause many
people to be upset because the state of cryptocurrency right now is a hot
topic and changing quickly. Why didn't they switch to X? What about Y? etc.
All of it requires development work and many of these currencies are still
growing up. Seems like a reasonable approach.

------
faragon
In my opinion, Bitcoin trading is about trading bad money for good money. When
the bubble burst, the good money will be in the pockets of former Bitcoin
"market makers", while the loses will be in the side of the
enthusiasts/idealists/naive.

------
vit05
This is great news and opportunity for OmiseGO, Ethereum and Stellar. Solid
projects with respectful and well know developers team that do not directly
compete against Bitcoin.

------
ivanstame
This is the snowflake that starts everything :)

------
desireco42
Stellar which they mention as alternative would probably suit them way better.
It doesn't have any of the issues that were problem with Bitcoin, but it's
adoption is significantly less.

Litecoin support would be very nice to have, it is kind of obvious step for
transaction processing.

~~~
lavezzi
Would prefer them to be looking into other coins such as Raiblocks.

~~~
desireco42
Yeah Raiblocks is pretty interesting too. I really like what developer had
done.

------
marenkay
Is it just me or did they just cancel BTC support as it fails to provide what
BTC was touted to give to the people?

In turn doesn't this imply mined coins as they are pretty much are useless for
anyone except those having monetary assets in the first place?

------
thrillgore
I can't blame them for doing this. I think the writing is on the wall about
how people really use Bitcoin, and with the glut of ICOs (and many turning
into pump-and-dump scams) reality is catching up with potential.

I still have hopes for Ether.

------
stevewilhelm
> Bitcoin has evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a
> means of exchange.

I would say it has evolved to become an instrument for speculation or a hedge
against a local currency's volatility.

------
pitaj
BCH fees are in the $0.25 range right now. I wonder if they considered BCH.
They could probably pretty easily implement it with their existing BTC
infrastructure.

~~~
lawn
That number is much too high. The average is much higher than for usual
transactions because many wallets are overpaying and very large transactions
with many outputs and inputs are driving it up.

$0.01 transactions (or 1 sat/byte) transactions will confirm in the next
block. This is lower than for Litecoin or Ethereum.

------
confounded
I hope that Stripe consider support for GNU Taler!

[https://gnutaler.org/](https://gnutaler.org/)

~~~
paulrd
That website is a fake website. The real one is taler.net. See the discussion
in the email list:
[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/taler/2018-01/msg00009.htm...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/taler/2018-01/msg00009.html)

~~~
confounded
Wow, that’s pretty serious, thank you for pointing it out!

------
consultSKI
this is a good read for the reasons cited. it made no sense (or cents) for
stripe or anyone else to put bitcoin on top of networks with traditional fees.
i love stripe and hope they continue to allow me operate various businesses
without the need for a traditional bank or processor. can't wait for them to
do an IPO and pay off the VCs so i use them for my firearms clients.

------
blueprint
I don't have any place to criticize at all but this seems pretty short-
sighted. The primary criticism is low tps and fees… but that's exactly what
lightning was invented to solve (edit: as I now see someone else mentioned)…
and it's already working, in testing phase. Isn't it more effort to remove
support then add it back again soon than just to wait a few months? So it
/seems/ either something else is going on or they just didn't know and weren't
told.

~~~
munchbunny
"In testing phase" is probably not good enough for Stripe to roll out to their
customers.

I think what they meant was "we're just not seeing enough usage of Bitcoin
payments to justify the costs of supporting it." Which is perfectly fair.

~~~
bdcravens
In the years we've used the Bitcoin integration, we've never seen a single
Bitcoin payment. Next iteration of our customer portal wouldn't have featured
it, even if Stripe hadn't pulled support.

------
mansilladev
If they'd only listened when I suggested they go with Dogecoin.

Dogeconomics axiom: 1Ð = 1Ð

such finance. many simple. wow.

------
m3kw9
What did you expect? They are in the business of making transactions, bitcoin
isn’t anymore.

------
stanchion
This is good for Bitcoin

~~~
rburhum
how is this good for Bitcoin?

~~~
ceejayoz
It's a long-standing joke about how Bitcoin proponents tend to show up in
comments about bad-news-for-Bitcoin threads to explain how this latest
development is actually _good_ for it.

~~~
rburhum
thks!

------
smnplk
Stripe,please just add support for RaiBlocks.

------
Sonnol53
Beautifully written! I will take note.

------
CryoLogic
IOTA can actually handle great TPS unlike bitcoin. BTC is maybe 10TPS cap
while IOTA is pushing towards 2k TPS which is what Visa can do.

~~~
lawn
Damn lot's of people are pushing their favorite coin.

Here are some reasons IOTA is a shitcoin and cannot ever replace Bitcoin:

1\. No decentralized solution to the double spend problem. The very reason
Bitcoin exists IOTA fails at. 2\. Dev team is so incompetent they tried to
implement their own cryptographic hash function and predictably failed. 3\.
Mass buzzwords: Quantum proof, ternary(!), Internet of Things, instant
transactions, no fees! Everything is _perfect_! 4\. They have no solution to
spam. POW is the only cost to transactions but it's extremely low so dedicated
computers can outspend everyone else. With the way the tangle works this in
practice mean transactions won't be confirmed. 5\. Their network doesn't even
work properly with users trying or hours to get their transaction accepted by
the network.

There are more but I can't be bothered.

------
alexnewman
A little late to the party stripe. Bitcoin has been slow forever. Why now? It
is just about to launch lightning or whatever.

------
gthtjtkt
This is the main reason Litecoin exists. Strange that they decided not to use
it...

~~~
lawn
Litecoin failed to gain the network effect which is so crucial for a currency.
It never had a roadmap other than copying what Bitcoin did. It's not even a
cheap coin to use compared to the alternatives.

There's no reason to use Litecoin over Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum or Monero at
this point.

~~~
gthtjtkt
Litecoin volume has regularly been $1 billion+ per day during the past several
months, and Ethereum has been suffering from the same issues as Bitcoin. LTC's
median transaction fee is literally pennies, you don't think that's cheap?

The fact that you think ETH is more suitable for use as a currency only shows
how little you know about crypto. ETH isn't even meant to be a currency.

------
aaroninsf
The difference between gold and cryptocurrencies is that gold is something
that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it.

Simulated gold is not actual gold, in other words. They are under current
conventions interchangeable, but the context that allows that is contingent.

~~~
oculusthrift
actually if people started not viewing gold as a store of value but just as a
raw material like aluminum it’s price would tank.

~~~
PeterisP
The price of gold could significantly decrease, that's for sure, but even
purely as a material it still would be reasonably valuable, significantly more
valuable than silver. It has a price floor; bitcoin does not.

------
bactrian
Stripe’s entire business is built on credit card transactions. They added half
assed bitcoin support and then killed it.

This makes sense for a company that has every incentive to prolong a move away
from credit cards.

As soon as we switch to a decentralized “currency” stripes business will begin
its decline.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Bitcoin transactions take hours to confirm now, making Bitcoin useless as a
transactional medium. When people are paying 25%, 50%, and more to send
Bitcoin of typical levels of purchase, it's time to get out. Stripe is
honestly a bit late in dropping Bitcoin for transactions.

~~~
solean
I sent ~$5k in btc last night for a $3 fee and it confirmed in around 30
minutes..

~~~
JohnTHaller
Then you got very lucky: [https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-
time](https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time)

------
fpgaminer
It is amazing the number of shallow comments shouting doom and gloom over news
like this and others (Steam, etc). Must be the end of Bitcoin because
transaction fees are too high!

And more generally everyone shouting doom and gloom over high transaction
fees.

Let's stop and think about this critically for once. Transaction fees on
Bitcoin are high. And that's somehow a bad thing?

By that same logic it's bad that Apple can charge so much for their phones.
$800 phones are so ridiculous. No one can buy the phones! And Apple is clearly
a failing business because of it.

It's bad that Tesla is able to charge $70k+ for the Model S. Tesla is a
failing business with no future prospects. The experiment is over. Time to buy
Chevy Volts instead. Everyone sell TSLA because the Model S is too expensive!

The interpretation that high Bitcoin transaction fees is somehow bad and
signals the end of Bitcoin is just so ludicrous when subjected to even an
ounce of critical thinking.

Bitcoin transaction fees are high because Bitcoin transactions are _valuable_.
Because people are willing to pay that much to make a transaction on a network
that secures their transaction in an immutable, public record stored
redundantly on 10,000+ machines.

We should see this as a massive signal that Bitcoin is _successful_. That
demand for its technology grew beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

The fact that Stripe and other payment platforms can no longer use the
technology is disappointing, but for different reasons. So to re-iterate my
point one last time, Bitcoin has succeeded in the same way that Tesla
succeeded. It made a Model S blockchain, and people are clamoring over one
another to get access to it.

Of course, I would be remiss to ignore one valid complaint about high fees.
Bitcoin's goal was to free the masses from the entrenched banking system. Part
of the banking system is making small, every day transactions. In that regard,
Bitcoin has yet to succeed. Going back to my analogy, we can see that Tesla
hasn't succeeded in a similar regard either; we don't see electric cars in the
hands of the average person. But that's not because the technology has failed.
That's because we haven't gotten there yet. It's a long road yet.

We'll get there. The world doesn't change in 9 years. The banking system won't
be overturned in a decade. But we have a beachhead. Bitcoin is just getting
started.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
I'm sorry, but saying Bitcoin succeeded like the Model S succeeded is an
argument that just holds no water to me at all. That makes no sense.

~~~
fpgaminer
Perhaps the explanation of my comparison was clumsy.

Elon Musk's goal with Tesla was to disrupt the entrenched auto and oil
industries, for the betterment of mankind, by spurring a transition to
electric vehicles. [This is not an argument for his altruism one way or the
other, merely a statement of the company's goals.]

Bitcoin's goal was to disrupt the entrenched banking industry, for the
betterment of mankind.

The two goals are thus quite similar, in kind.

My argument is that people saying "Bitcoin is dead because fees are too high"
is like saying "Tesla is dead because their cars are expensive."

Tesla has sold 200k cars at $70k+ a pop. That's an indicator of success, to
me. In the same way that people paying $0.02/byte to be part of the Bitcoin
blockchain is an indicator of success; not an indicator of failure.

The comparison itself is not really important. I chose it merely because Tesla
tends to be a darling among VCs and ... well this is Hacker News.

------
kristianp
Weird, they seemed to time it just as the Bitcoin Lightning Network is
starting to work:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network#History)

[https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-networks-pizza-
day-...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-networks-pizza-day-first-
ever-physical-purchase-on-lightning-network)

------
skywhopper
I'd just like to gripe a bit about the use of "fiat currency" as an antonym of
"cryptocurrency". Bitcoin may not be similar in all respects to typical
government-issued money, but it is far more similar to fiat currency than to
hard currency: its supply is artificially controlled, and Bitcoin itself has
no intrinsic value. Bitcoin is administered by a de facto government in the
form of the miners that run the network. That this government does not have a
direct correlation to a UN-recognized nation-state does not make Bitcoin any
less artificial or more real.

~~~
stephen_g
Bitcoin isn't like real money though. Take the US dollar - whatever happens,
something like 300 million people and tens of millions of companies will still
need to pay taxes in that currency. That's a big baseline demand, before you
even consider the goods and services available in the economy that can be
bought with US dollars.

Whereas everybody trading bitcoin or accepting it as a payment method could
switch to a different cryptocurrency tomorrow...

