Accept Bitcoins!

With the rising usership of Bitcoin, and the progressiveness and openness of 3D printing itself, I feel that it would not only be a huge marketing boon to Shapeways as a 3D printing service, but it would also create a newfound convenience for the users themselves. I think that the Bitcoin-using community and the Shapeways-using community have a sizeable overlap and I feel that it would be good for everyone if such methods were implemented.

"Bitcoins" scheme is charged as a Ponsi Scheme.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/24/bitcoin-all eged-ponzi-fraud


Regards

I will never - ever - use bitcoins. The day Shapeways tells me I need to accept them is the day I leave.

I don't understand why you are upset; with all due respect it is evident to me that offering another choice to users' payment options would be a good thing. I wouldn't think anyone would be forced to only pay in Bitcoin, so would you care to explain your rationale?

Just because you believe that Bitcoin is a poor financial choice for someone doesn't mean that it shouldn't be offered as a choice to the community of users who actively use Bitcoin and do not agree with your sentiment. It seems like many don't seem to recognize that there's no disadvantage in simply adding more options to a wider base of people. If you don't like Bitcoins, then you don't have to pay with them. However, it would be convenient for all the Shapeways users who do use Bitcoins to be able to pay for their models with them. It wouldn't affect any users in the slightest.

Once again, I'm not voicing any support for or against Bitcoins, I'm simply saying that the whole service would be greatly improved if it catered to payment methods that a substantial minority in the maker community is interested in and uses.

The only way it could be a TRUE choice is if the SELLER was also given the choice whether to accept payment in Bitfraud... errr... Bitcoins.

There are some governments I wouldn't accept money from... what makes you think a "substantial minority" of folks here would accept a totally artificial currency? From the looks of the poll, that "substantial minority" is... well... ONE.

Kind of interesting how the poll "disappeared"... must not have been running the way someone liked. It was 10-1 against before it was deleted.

Why all the vitriol? I don't see the reason to be so angry. Understandably you may be jaded from experiences on more angry threads, but I want this one to be relatively tame, so don't feel like you have to be overly aggressive.
I think that you are confusing your ideas on the currency itself to what I am suggesting-- you state that bitcoin shouldn't be accepted because it is illegitimate, but it wouldn't affect you if they were, given that there is a community of people who feel quite differently from what you believe. Your rationale that vendors should have choice is all well and good; given that shapeways is interested in improving the experience for customers it males sense that they improve ease of payment from bitcoin users.

As for this thread, I've pulled the poll(no pun intended) because I made a mistake as to how it should run, as it should only be used by Bitcoin users to gauge how many of those who use btc would want something like this. There is not way of determining that status via a simple poll, and I don't want a vocal minority of people who are simply opposed to bitcoin as an idea to put forward potentially inaccurate depictions of the Bitcoin community's opinion.

Again I emphasize that most of the replies seem to me to be mostly opposed to bitcoin as an idea, and though I recognize that you may want bitcoin to ceae to exist, I feel you probably respect that others should have the opportunity to get increased convenience even if your beliefs differ from theirs. I'd be glad to hear more of your opinions on this issue, not on ideas on the values of bitcoin itself.

Thanks!

"Vitriol"???

:laughing:

You must be new to the internet. This discussion hasn't even gotten warm yet.

As for the legitimacy of bitcoins, I don't think they are legitimate. However, it certainly WOULD affect me if they were accepted here. Unless there was a way to opt out of them in any transaction involving my products, then it would be forcing me to accept them. If I COULD opt out, then it would still put Shapeways in what I consider to be an untenable position as a financial exchange, because they would bear the burden of having to make the exchange transaction. It could also endanger their credit ratings, which might be OK for a small outfit that doesn't spend much, but when you're buying $50,000.00 3D printers, the banks don't look kindly on your capital being tied up in play money.

As for why you pulled the poll, I don't buy that for a minute. There was only one positive response on it. It was pretty clear where it was headed.

Really, there's a lesson in there...

My respect for their "convenience" ends where it intersects my wallet. I am simply not prepared to risk dealing in make-believe money of questionable legality. I pay in real money. I expect to be paid in real money.

Real money?? I believe you mean gold and silver, right? :twisted:

Nah. Cowry, though real men prefer Rai stones.

Well, no. Gold and silver are commodities that money represents. (Or at least used to.) Legal tender is a representation of money authorised and supported by the issuing body - usually a government. Having said that, if people are willing to accept pogs as a form of payment, representing a value for goods or services, they are money, legal tender or not. In Canada it is not unknown for people to accept Canadian Tire money as payment. Why, you ask? Bacause Canadian Tire will honour it as payment in lieu of legal tender, thus its value is stable and tied (if indirectly) to real money.

Bitcoins are a fabrication and not widely supported nor tied to any specific currency at a fixed or controlled rate of exchange. I'd far sooner accept Canadian Tire money than a Bitcoin.

Come to think of it... I DEMAND THE RIGHT TO BE PAID FOR SHAPEWAYS MERCHANDISE IN CANADIAN TIRE MONEY!! :laughing:

Oh, I know what legal tender is, I was talking about ''real money''.... the kind of value that 3.000 years of history apply to it.
''Legal tender'', the way you refer to it, is just a form of fiat currency with an average life span of about a century, so it cannot possibly classify as ''real money''. I know this is all just terminology technicalities but let's not get confused about this.

I like how everyone thinks there's such thing as "real" money...


:laughing:

''Real money'' is something that is considered legal tender universally -officially or otherwise- and also has an imbued value bestowed upon it.
Example. A dollar is legal tender almost universally but it has no inherent value on it's own. It's a piece of paper with ink and it takes about 0.1 cents to manufacture each one. That's it's absolute, ''real value'' all things being equal. On the opposite, precious metals are not only legal tender universally but they also have the inherent value of the energy expended to get them off the ground and refined into a commodity. Accordingly, a cigarette is worth more than the dollar (if used as currency) because of it's associated properties as defined above (ask any prison inmate or war zone resident about this).
Now, bitcoin is a different kind of beast. It's not universally accepted but it does have an inherent value (more than the dollar) because it takes energy to ''manufacture'' it. Still not ''real money'' though...

Nothing has inherent value, given everyone assigns different values to things. What's gold and silver but shiny metal from the ground? You postulated that the only "real" value is value in energy, but given that everyone is liable to assign what their values are there's no such thing as "real" money. Money is just a promise of value in the future, and represents an intersection of values people have, along with a semblance of confidence backing it. People think that gold and silver are "real"; the reason gold and silver are considered to be credible is, interestingly, because people simply believe that it is so, and invent all sorts of arguments to back it up. No money is real, because value is arbitrary, and confidence is the only thing that puts one form of currency over another. There's something that's quite fitting in this regard--the Greek word for money, nomisma, interestingly enough is synonymous with "idea" or "imagination".


I think people get so caught up in all the details they just don't look at the base premises. Money is nothing but a promise of value, whether it's gold, bitcoins, dollars, yen, zimbabwe dollars, serbian dinars, or cattle. The kind of currency that exists simply reflects the common values a society holds, and just as how paper money was a reduction in physicality for an improvement in mobility over precious metals, many see bitcoin as the same process of reducing physicality and increasing mobility. When we all begin to understand that we're essentially exchanging a specific piece of data--namely how much value is owed--then it matters less and less how the data is conveyed.

I think whether Bitcoin is "real" or not is beside the point. If there's a community of people who think it's real who will gladly exchange their coins for 3d prints, and there are convenient means for a business to convert that payment (there are) into something they can hold (dollars etc.), then Shapeways should add functionality in for customers.

It appears that many people are getting really upset because they just don't agree with using Bitcoins, and that's fine as long as they don't try and impose that on other people. I'm just casually suggesting that Shapeways add more convenient payment methods for the subset of the community that uses Bitcoins. tKudos to innovo, by the way, for not immediately becoming enraged

Note that I'll probably be relatively inactive, so have a blast while I'm gone!

Scientifically speaking (also philosophically if so inclined) the only thing that has any value -period- is energy. Without it nothing could be accomplished. People have also assumed that energy will indeed be the currency of the future and when paying for something you will be paying in kWh or something of the sort. In that sense ''real'' (and not fiat) value is not arbitrary, it's the outcome of energy being expended (or promised for but that is actually arbitrary).

As I have already explained, while fiat currency is indeed a ''promise of value in the future'' and as such arbitrary and ''fictional'' in a sense, the value of commodities such as gold, is a promise of value of the present, based on the actual energy expended (also 3.000 years of currency confidence and universal acceptance). That is why paper currencies always (ALWAYS) eventually reach zero (0) value at some point of time (average about a century or so), while Gold and Silver have never done so in history. There is nothing ''real'' about the value of a paper note (except in the minds of people) while precious metals and stones are the next best thing to trading pure energy units. Eventually we will get to that.

For a while there was also great confidence in the value of tulips. For a while...
The value of energy is not arbitrary.

While I do agree on the practicality aspect, it's still not ''real money''. Meaning that, it has only value as a conveyor of obligations as long as people accept it as such. Commodities don't care if you accept them or not. The cow will still produce milk (hence it's inherent value of converting energy into consumables) and silver will still be hard to get (energy expended to acquire), will still be medically and electronically important and solar / mobile / computer / car companies will still need it for manufacture.

This is true as long as there is substantial need/usage for it. If not, it's just encumbrance to the system.

I don't really care for bitcoins since I am not a user but if a lot of people want that option for Shapeways then it should be added.
Btw I don't understand why this conversation got heated anyway. :confused

What is all this nonsense being written.

Metals and Commodities are priced on scarcity.

I think introducing UK Pounds as a pricing on Shapeways comes
before an other unitary measure for currency.

If ever there was an arbitrary measure, it is Bitcoins.

What stabilizes a currency based on a "Fiduciary Issue" is the ability to
pay bonds issued in that currency, and any record of defaults by the borrower..

Dealing in Bitcoins is a pot-shot that at a future date it will be convertible.
Pounds, Euros, and US Dollars will always be convertible.

What you don't understand isn't nonsense...

In fact they are not.
They are priced on excavation costs (expended energy) and manipulated availability / scarcity / demand (9 out of 10 p.m. ounces are paper promises - they do not exist physically).

We were actually talking about real money, not fiat paper ''promises''...

Wouldn't you think the word ''always'' is a bit overused/excessive? I bet Ancient Romans in their final days, thought their coins would always be convertible until well... they weren't...
Fact of the matter is that the only ''always convertible'' currency on this planet, to a practically universal scale, was/is/will be gold and silver.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Coins-Ancient-/4733/i.html

Looks pretty "convertible" to me... the exchange rate isn't bad, either.

Oh ya!

https://www.mtgox.com/press_release_20130620.html