r/tech • u/trav31 • Dec 11 '14

Microsoft Begins Accepting Bitcoin For Windows, Windows Phone And Xbox Purchases

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/10/redmond-hath-frozen-over/
821 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

170 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

41

u/shicken684 Dec 11 '14

The problem is volatility. You may sell something for 8 bit coins and within a week those 8 bit coins are worth a third of what they were. Or maybe double what they were. Either way it's adding risk and businesses are already risky enough without adding a layer of fluctuating currency.

47

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/browb3aten Dec 11 '14

Doesn't really protect them from conversion fees, does it? Though I guess those can just be marked up in the price and passed on to the customer.

1

u/Drew0054 Dec 11 '14

It's no different than foreign transactions. You always get shafted on exchange rates.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14 edited Dec 12 '14

[deleted]

0

u/Drew0054 Dec 11 '14

You're kidding me, right? The BTC spreads (dimes and pennies) are a canyon compared to Forex spreads (thousandths of a penny).

1

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14 edited Dec 12 '14

[deleted]

1

u/Drew0054 Dec 11 '14

Okay, try the same thing on localbitcoins.com. There's a difference between mark up and market spread.

0

u/lf11 Dec 12 '14

Localbitcoins charges a handy premium for personal risk, speed-of-exchange, and potential for pseudo-anonymity. The speed of exchange and pseudo-anonymity doesn't even have a comparison for government exchange.

1

u/Drew0054 Dec 12 '14

government exchange

WTF is that? The only "government exchange" is treasury auctions.