Bitcoin as the ONLY payment option, lol what?

[ogpaper]

If one wants to be a bitcoin investor then he should invest knowing that the drop can happen.

You fail to realize that we DON'T want to be Bitcoin investors... We just want to be paid our due commission, that's it. Don't want to be paid in Bitcoins, oil futures, potatoes or hugs...

Not to mention that at this time 99% of the Bitcoin market is speculators and money launderers, and I'd rather not be associated with this market altogether.

[Sherlock]

Well I just heard from guys doing bitcoin that anybody associated with gambling is a scammer.

Who are you that you say "we". Speak for yourself, because using Royal we is the basic foul of discussions. And if we speak about you and only you: you have no other way than to quit with bp or to be even short time investor/speculator.

99% of the Bitcoin market is speculators and money launderers

: I think you forgot about children molesters. You do not know anything, sir. Not just about bitcoin, but also about economy, speculations and good forum behavior. I am gladly adding you to my ignore list. All I wanted here was to advise. Obviously I was trying to help to people who want just to transfer money as quick as possible, but also to people who maybe do not want to do that like Vrindavan. Because both approaches have sense. Now go and ask the moneylaunderers, because speculators are done with you.

[ogpaper]

All I wanted here was to advise.

I have no problem with your advice, I have problem with your Bitcoin preaching and your offenses towards anyone who is not on board with this scam.

Who are you that you say "we". Speak for yourself, because using Royal we is the basic foul of discussions. And if we speak about you and only you: you have no other way than to quit with bp or to be even short time investor/speculator.

Well, I can count at least one other person in this thread that doesn't want to be paid in Bitcoins. When two or more people, it's proper to use "we".

You do not know anything, sir. Not just about bitcoin, but also about economy, speculations and good forum behavior. I am gladly adding you to my ignore list.

This is me caring about it ->

[slotplayer]

Well if any wants to buy out my 80 BP players send me a pm.

[MMM]

Good page where you can compare all currencies, rates and liquidities is this one: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/

Well, i found out that to my currency the average daily volume is 20 bitcoins lol.

[TheGooner]

And we are at 400 BTC per month in our country ... around 13 BTC a day for our local currency.
Let's just say our monthly payments would heavily influence that - selling at market is not an option - it could take weeks to get a price.

I even looked at the EUR offers at one major site and realised that the bid/ask depth is tiny.
If I simply "sold at market" for a typical months payment then I could drop the bitcoin price by 2-3 EUR each month.

So all this mucking about to transfer into a major currency first .. losing on that ... and then still get forex charges?
It's not a business ready solution yet.

[Sherlock]

EUR market is significantly lower with liquidity than USD, but I had no problem repeatedly to turn 90K EUR~100KUSD (daily limit of deposits for tierIV verifikation) at Kraken into BTC in like 2 hours. And I was not just buying. It would be done in few minutes for buyer with maybe 0.25% worse price. I was a seller to get a little bit better price. So low 6 figures are not a problem at kraken. I know that everyone here is taking at least million per month from bp, but even that is not a problem at more exchanges together.

Remember: each day is 3600 btc=1.5M mined and this money goes directly to exchanges, because the miners put almost everything back into electricity. Then there you have many speculators holding leveraged positions. The market depth at main markets is good. I never moved price or something like that I am used when I bet max at Pinnacle.

[gaffg]

Many affiliates we talked to will reduce exposure over this and hoping they will rethink their decision.

[yeahfree]

i'm open to bitcoin, but i'm worried that it will be frowned upon whenever the tax might check my books. bitcoin gets a lot of negative publicity in the news, and is being connected to drugs, weapons, money laundering, etc. of course it can be used for more things, i understand that. of course you can also buy guns with usd/eur etc, i get that.
the whole thing just is, also with being related to gambling already it will be frowned upon, add bitcoin to it and i'm afraid that this will only multiply how people are going to look at things. now if somebody would check the administration, you would have to explain more things that are not the most common business, gambling & bitcoin, plus an income that will probably be a lot higher than average

[yeahfree]

the bitcoin that you would like to keep for instance, how would you put that in your administration. do you take the exchange rate from the moment you receive them, and create an invoice to that rate in your own currency?

[Sherlock]

Yes, this is one valid complaint from the family of complaints (e.g. dealing with all banks will not be easy as well, because laws changed and the policemen are now banks). Bp outsourced their questionable gambling affiliate business to affiliates. What I see is not that just that we would be associated with guns and drugs, but that they might look closer and we would be associated with gambling. There are countries, where gambling is on the same level with drugs and it is not just USA (where I believe the moneylaundering of 5dimes was simply sending money from and to bookie). Switzerland is another such a country for example and sadly.

For certain countries like Russia, it is up to the affiliate to create some proxy entity (e.g. offshore company), that would cash out the money in btc friendly jurisdiction and then pull the money via other way. I guess there are a few people here that wanted to go offshore, now this is another reason. Not that any offshore bank will open an account and will happily accept bitcoins from bitcoin exchange. It is good to create the position with banks while it goes.

It is not a fault of bp and I am just a messenger saying that, but the world's capitalism is falling apart. The regulation of economies and money transfers created the bitcoin (that of course is so far not as good as good old cash transactions). Without regulation, bitcoin would still be a geek's toy. We have to live with that and not everyone will battle through. For people who can spend all Bitcoins with debit cards + direct bitcoin expenses, it is a nice bonus (if they are not completely crazy and they do not want to report the bitcoin debit card transactions to the tax advisor). People who make large sums of money and live in countries with restrictions of business which go more or less with restriction of bitcoin, should move the biz out. It may not be Panama, it can be even EU like Malta. I heard there are even bitcoin friendly banks that work with some exchanges I think the world's biggest affiliate resided there too.

[Sherlock]

the bitcoin that you would like to keep for instance, how would you put that in your administration. do you take the exchange rate from the moment you receive them, and create an invoice to that rate in your own currency?

I do not do accounting, but the exchanges should provide you the list (even .csv) where you see the rate. It is usually not that you convert all btc at one price. For example if you sell 1 BTC, there will be the best offer for 450 USD, but only 0.2 BTC, then 0.3 will be at 449.9 and 0.5 will be at 449.89. All trades are then shown in your account forever (at least in all exchanges I saw).

[Sherlock]

to TheGooner: there is also an option called Dark Pool within the exchange; it is some kind of hidden deals, I think from 50 BTC up; it has usually lower exchange fees and is for larger trades OTC

Honestly I do not know how it works, I guess it may save a little bit ofmoney but maybe a lot of time. I myself would like to know how it works.

[TheGooner]

there is also an option called Dark Pool within the exchange; it is some kind of hidden deals, I think from 50 BTC up; it has usually lower exchange fees and is for larger trades OTC

Thanks Sherlock - appreciate the heads-up.

You see what I really need is to find someone like Sherlock who knows the ins and outs of the BTC scene.

To be able to sit down for a 3 hour block face-to-face and together set up a series of accounts - hot / cold / online / exchange, and approved processes that will be "bullet-proof" - passing on the knowledge in a practical manner - so when it comes to moving the money around there is a level of proficiency.

With all the hype and scaremongering out there (and yes - if I examine Sherlock's posts in here and previous threads they cause scares too) it seems that while the basic process for less than 1 BTC is fine - when it comes to moving more then suddenly we need extra addresses / accounts / methods.

Even BettingPartners are stating that they are limiting movements to 40K per address (why? risk!) so we need to generate multiple addresses per month for their end - which raises the question how should I release the BTC to the exchange, how to move the money into my account. How to phase the process?

What other steps need to be taken - there is no guide. Just hearsay and innuendo that "you need to be careful".

I do not want errors that cost 5-figure sums, I do not want to inadvertently expose our funds to risk of hacking, if it occurs then everyone says "your fault" but NONE of this is based on obvious prior knowledge of other computing trends, so as a novice mistakes can be made.

Given I will have to make 20-30 large BTC movements every year through a dark pool (or normal) - what is the real risk? and how long is it likely to be until I'm 40K out of pocket? If you put yourself into my shoes - then you will see why I do not see this forced and rushed process that apparently contains elements of risk as an improvement on the existing secure banking funds movement.

Prudent risk management would say do not move large amounts in a risky fashion - stick to a proven system - and slowly grow the BTC process.

IF BettingPartners said they'd underwrite the "risk" for the first year then ( repay lost / stolen funds) - HEY-HO I'd give it a go - but this seems to be a step backwards no care no responsibility.

What I don't understand is that if the bitcoin portion all so straight forward - why doesn't Betting Partners do this bitcoin mucking about for us - simply organise the bitcoin movement and exchange to currency - and then make the currency payout go to our account ?

THAT would be a replacement of the existing system.

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the whole thing just is, also with being related to gambling already it will be frowned upon, add bitcoin to it and i'm afraid that this will only multiply how people are going to look at things. now if somebody would check the administration, you would have to explain more things that are not the most common business, gambling & bitcoin, plus an income that will probably be a lot higher than average

Indeed - this is the other issue that I will have to battle with banks, accountants and of course Inland Revenue (tax).
I can talk to my accountant, I can argue with my bank ... but nobody comes out well when dealing with a tax audit ...

[Sherlock]

3 hours you say...
I, together with my gf, spent maybe few thousands of hours with research. You can count as bitcoin research also my otherwise useless 6 years at econoical universities. It was a huge bet from my side, I am sure it has a huge value. I knew that bitcoin will be part of gambling (not just the pure bitcoin gambling), but my investment went beyond that, so proper research was done. It is the same job as with affiliates and with the countries where I am buying property. First theory, then tasting, then full throttle. I was writing here about Bitcoin before, hoping that maybe someone will start testing it and the inevitable change will not be that abrupt. So what you get here is just a summary with high density. Many things I am writing are not accurate, but I am trying to do my best to understand it.

My advise is really to take it slowly. The important thing is to decide upfront, if you are willing to use online wallet or your own. I wrote it before, if you want to keep the bitcoins in your wallet only short time and especially if it will be just small amounts, then the risk associated with online wallets is very small. But if the balances you are receiving are be really large and you will not move all money out of the wallet to btc debit card/exchange etc.immediatelly, you should go with desktop or hardware wallet.

Anyone who chooses online wallet should read the story of Mt. Gox. Yes it was a long time ago (few years), but with online wallet you always depend on other people. Your private keys (access) are not only in your hands. Whatever they say, any protection or insurance, can be always bullshit. 1 year ago was hacked even bitstamp (one of the biggest exchanges).

After you decide if it will be an online wallet or software wallet, then it is easy.

If you choose an online wallet then make a test wallet, try to exchange a little bit of USD to BTC, move it from exchange to your test wallet, move it to other bitcoin addresses and try to move it back to exchange like you will do it after bp or other affiliate will send you btc. Learn about the security and what to do if you lose access to the wallet. This part should be much easier than with software wallet.

If you decide to go with software wallet, you can install the test wallet to your computer and do exactly the same. Exchange or buy some fraction of bitcoin, send it to your wallet. See how it works (there are few pitfalls, I recall my confusion with so called "change", which means that once you send part of btc out from one address, the rest is NOT staying at the address, but new address called change is created and there is the rest of the bitcoins). Send it back to exchange and convert back to fiat.

But then you have to set up that wallet and its copies to clean computer(s), disc(s), CD(s). The more copies you have at different locations, the more you are protected against hardware failure. But the more copies you have the higher probability is that someone will get to it.

So with software wallet the security is up to you. If you lose the software wallet (and copies), you lost the bitcoins, there is no way to get them back. That is the scary part. But there are at least 2 ways how to minimize that risk further. Aside from the fact that you should use strong password on the wallet(s), you should also encrypt the flash or the disc, where the wallet is.
#1 You can store the wallet in a way that you just export the addresses and private keys into small .txt file for example - this is enough information to get all your bitcoins back anytime even with different wallet; but those are the raw bitcoins, so whoever sees that has your bitcoins, so really strong encryption is necessary
#2 You can ask the wallet to create so called seed, which is are some random words and only knowledge of them can create the wallet with your bitcoins - this has two advantages: If someone sees a seed, he probably does not know what is it good for. And: The seed is nondigital. Can be written on piece of paper etc. It is just 12 words or so.

If we assume that an affiliate will receive big money each month and he will move the balance to exchanges always before receiving the next payment, he should have a dedicated and encrypted clean computer (can be some really old but with brand new OS and clean harddisk) with the software wallet or hardware wallet and he should have at least 2 seeds, when at least one of them will be at different location (like security box in a bank or just ask parents to store a piece of paper in their house). The computer will stay in your house, will be used only for the bitcoin transactions. If not being used for accessing the wallet, it will be shut down and disconnected from internet. For sure do not trade bitcoins at exchange from that computer. Trade from your normal device. So it is not a real cold wallet. But I suggest the software wallet for bigger movers also because of bigger privacy (see notes below).

If the affiliate wants to hold the bitcoins, he should have more backups and more security.

So the risk that something will go wrong is really small. People are scared that the disk will fail, but if you use more mediums, more locations, you check the wallet sometimes and you keep btc in wallet only for a short time, the risk is really small. Yes it is scary, but it is just a setup in the head.

There are other more problematic areas, just 2 offhand:

- If you do not tell anyone about Bitcoins, you have some accident and something with brain like memory loss, you lost them; if you die and do not tell anyone, your family and generations after you can just sadly watch the bitcoins in blockchain, but they will never be able to use them

- If someone knows you have bitcoins, it is dangerous; he only needs to know your private keys or get password to your wallet. The risk of ransoms, ambush, kidnapping etc. is high. If you have a wealth, typically you have money in bank or in shares etc. The potencial criminals know, that even if they come to your house with guns they will not get a lot. Even if they force you to max some wires out and you persuade your banker to release the money, the money will probably not disappear easily. If the bitcoin holder is targetted and he gives up access to wallet or private keys, his bitcoins are probably lost and criminals get them. This may change over the time with blockchain analysis, but the 850K bitcoins lost at Mt.Gox were not found yet, even when everybody can see them. So this is where this thread is scary, because - I do not know why - everybody thinks it is great to have his portal here, not using proxy by the domain etc. Everybody can come to visit posters with highest alexa ranks. People here have money and now will have bitcoins. It is also possible that they will have even more bitcoins in future if gambling goes this way. It is also possible that bitcoin will again appreciate 10x, 100x or 1000x like in the past. It is good to be a billionaire, but certainly not when all the criminal web spiders in future can reach exactly this thread. If bitcoin will not be a failure, it will go very high and there will be such groups.

To sum it up: the greatest dangers of bitcoins come not from the technology itself. It comes from us, from our behavior. We got used to cc protections, chargebacks, if our internetbanking is hacked in fact no disaster comes, there are multiple defenses that states put on their dumb citizens, just to make them even dumber. We are not used to live in a jungle anymore, but the world economy is heading exactly there. It is not just bitcoin/cryptocurrency, but with bitcoins one can really feel the responsibility during the moment of moving the cash around. (FYI if you make a typo in btc address, it will not go to blackhole, the probability your typo will be a valid address is 1 : 4.3 billion; but if you put there a different valid address or you switch the amount and fees, then the bitcoins are gone)

+++++++++++++++++
Why does not bettingpartners make the exchange on your behalf is easy to answer. The bitcoin exchanges are (self)regulated like banks. They actually checked me much more than a bank to tier IV. You go to KYC and AML procedures. And of course after that, you can transfer money only in and out of you own bank account. The same policy applies to them.

Why 40K is max? I think it has something to do with their deal at some exchange and defacto with dark pools. I think the exchange they are using has a service that converts USD to btc at fixed rate up to certain amount and the amount is the 40K. But it is really not a problem to generate more addresses and send it to bp. They will send everything at once. Once you receive the payment, you can just copy+paste the same address of exchange and forward the bitcoins to the exchange.

[eaton2003]

I found several programs have asked me lately to use Bitcoin including 5dimes, betting partners, gtrevenue and commission account. The tide seems sadly to be moving in this direction. I successfully opened a bitcoin wallet linked to an exchange and did my first withdrawal into a bank account without fail. There are tons of bitcoin wallets and exchanges out there. The one I went with was exmo.com as this was recommended to me through some industry experts.

[Sherlock]

I hope it is not just a sad complication. If the stupid US government continues with the war against gambling and with the impotent and inconsistent regulation, we will see an attempt to switch to bitcoin betting/processing. It is obvious it is going this way. Now bitcoin is an option, but soon it will be the only option this way. Then we are back on track before 2006. When I imagine the possibility of deregulated US market, I am getting excited.

5dimes are now halfbtc bookie, because they offer only btc payouts. Numbers of my players are exactly where they have to be. I see withdrawals. People are learning. With bitcoin, the game changed. The harder the offensive against gambling is, the closer we are to systemic change, which should be very profitable for industry.

From the other side: US bookies/casinos should start with special ongoing reload bonuses for people who switch to bitcoin banking. Exactly now.

[Sherlock]

The one I went with was exmo.com as this was recommended to me through some industry experts.

lol
Studying the exmo and they have listed as partners the bloody Raiffeisenbank that closed not just my account, but accounts of many other people, because of transactions to "bitcoin". It was not just problem with RB Austria, but RBs in other countries did it as well.
That means that there is maybe something changing with banking.

[zuutroy]

Jesus it seems like a minefield. Is there an easy way to just convert bitcoin into Skrill?

[Sherlock]

Well, that is the real minefield. If you mess with BTC <-> Skrill/Neteller/Paypal you may find those ewallets closed and there is very good reason for that and it is the fraud. It was against the TOS and I think it still is (but Neteller is selling btc).

If you insist on BTC -> Skrill, be ready for the higher fees, extreme risk and study hard the reputation of the seller. You should

What was not mentioned here is a legit service called Localbitcoins, which is not an exchange but rather a meetingpoint of buyer and seller of btc. It used to be possible to sell bitcoins there for higher prices, but now I think localbitcoins are close to market rate. When you go to localbitcoins website, the method that each seller offers are listed there. Most ppl sell to bank account only, but here is the list you are looking for https://localbitcoins.com/buy-bitcoi...ookers-skrill/

Again: ewallets transfers would be an interesting theme for bitcoin subforum