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Comment by martindale | Hacker News Reader

BitPay employee here. Around 50% of our merchants actually accept some or all of their settlement in Bitcoin.

It seems like a logical move. If a company wants to place a bet on Bitcoin, accepting it for services is a better way to acquire it than selling fiat currency on exchanges. By keeping profit margin in bitcoins, companies position themselves for a reward, without exposure to volatility risk.

Avoid the risk of purchasing bitcoin (either through mining hardware, or directly on exchanges), but gain the chance of capitalizing on bitcoin.

Posted to /r/bitcoin: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2oypbo/bitpay_empl...

This is interesting. Could you give more detailed information? Volume in BTC vs. volume in $?

This was my first thought as well. They have tons of merchants using them, but I don't think a big percentage are high volume. So it could easily be that 50% of merchants keep some bitcoin, but only 2% of volume is kept that way.

Definitely important. A merchant could be an anti-government bead jewelry maker doing $75 a month, or Microsoft. They each count one.

What's the weighted average of that "some"? I doubt if it's above 10%!

What were you expecting, 100%? This is a new technology. Obviously most people are going to be "cautious" about it.

Think about it for a second.

Now look back at Bitcoin 5 years ago and compare where we are today. You're really not putting things into perspective.

New technology? Docker is a new technology, yet, it's embraced by everybody and in production. Don't give lame excuses, please! Bitcoin is the third-grade speculator's paradise.

I doubt you know how Bitcoin works.

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