It's not quite the non-fiat singularity just yet: for that to happen, one should be able to buy gold with bitcoin, and bitcoin with gold... but thanks to Apmex, the world's largest online retailer of precious metals, one can now cross out one half of the missing links, because as of yesterday Apmex is now accepting bitcoin.
From the company's statement:
For more than 15 years, APMEX has been an industry leader and along the way has adapted to the growing needs of our customer base. As bitcoin becomes more popular and widely accepted as payment, we are thrilled to welcome the use of this cryptocurrency for buying Gold, Silver and other Precious Metals by integrating BitPay into our website.
With BitPay integration, APMEX customers can now pay using bitcoin and complete their order in seconds. Because bitcoin works like cash for the Internet, customers enjoy a quick process, as the only delay is in the “mining” required of all bitcoin purchases. Additionally, all eligible bitcoin orders will be processed and shipped within one business day of your payment’s clearing and processing with the QuickShip® guarantee (domestic orders only).
Buyers can make purchases with bitcoin at any time, from nearly anywhere, just as with most credit cards. International orders become significantly easier as cryptocurrency like bitcoin is accepted worldwide without conversion. Also, many customers prefer Bitcoin payment because of the anonymity offered by a blockchain purchase.
And best of all, there's an added extra: a 4% discount on your new, shiny yellow metal:
For a limited time, all bitcoin orders are eligible for a 4.0% cash discount, similar to orders paid with check or bank wire. Take advantage of this new payment type and the limited-time introductory pricing offer. Start shopping today!
Oh, and with a whole lot of bitcoin millionaires and billionaires suddenly popping up, guess what countless other struggling online retailers, desperate for the sudden riches of these newly minted, pardon the pun, bitcoinaires will do? Exactly the same, as bitcoin acceptance suddenly becomes the next big thing...
How expected
REAL MONEY buying REAL MONEY.
Haters gonna hate
Tungsten gold sold for tokens of appreciation.
But don't you worry guys, those most hit by the bubble bursting will be the pot head millennials. They're crazy enough to put all the money in bitcoin.
Can't wait to see all the hipsters biting the dust and start selling their asses to make ends meet. There will be a lot of competition for the attention-whores already doing it:
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Bitcoin moves with high volatility (in both direction).
Accepting and holding Bitcoin as payment exposes these companies to enterprise level risk.
In 3 days they will be able to instantly offset the risk of holding Bitcoin with the futures market. Of course, they will need to do the volume of Bitcoin sales to justify the contract size.
What ever idiot sells those btc derivatives...
LONG STRADDLE
All the lovers of their chains of centrally-planned central bank fiat US Dollar Debt Notes, comment here . . . .
You can't offset the risk of BTC with futures either:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-07/banks-issue-last-minute-warning-about-risks-bitcoin-futures-trading-asks-regulator-r
How much will a straddle cost? $10k?
The only way they'll be clearing the options is if they have total control of BTC prices.
Prepare for a massive public fleecing.
when you go a restaurant that accepts pesos or dollars, the restaurant is exposed to currency risk.
but, is that really what apmex is doing?
apmex is smart...are they really just liquidating your bitcoin, and converting it into dollars during the transaction. In which, there is zero exposure to exchange risk.
that's what I'm guessing apmex is doing. If that is really the case, they are merely providing bitcoin liquidation consierge services and they are not really "accepting" bitcoins in exchange for merchandise.
i.e. marketing lingo
Good take. I was about to say I wouldn't want to be the one taking BTC for gold right now, but they might cash out right away, or use it as a short term carry trade.
free market !
Gold, bitchez!
Hurry buy moar gold before the bottom falls out again.
An silver is WAY better then gold, in 2020 u will see hyper-tech will be eatting it like mad.
Tech eats silver like 350 pound american land whales eat (everything). Above ground silver is more scarce than gold. True story. The amount of silver in landfills in micro amounts is astonishing, it will never be recovered.
NEVER is a long time. Generations in the future, if humanity is not exterminated, may be mining our garbage dumps. Or, if everthing on the surface of planet earth is ground-up, melted down, then turned under as it has been in past eons, all things will transform into their original states of being...ready to be mined by the next race of beings from wherever.
NEVER is a long time. Generations in the future, if humanity is not exterminated, may be mining our garbage dumps. Or, if everthing on the surface of planet earth is ground-up, melted down, then turned under as it has been in past eons, all things will transform into their original states of being...ready to be mined by the next race of beings from wherever.
Everything has its time Raffie, even gold. Agree on silver from the industrial use standpoint. Did you know gold has similar uses? And, as an owner of some bitcoin, gold and silver (stocks as well), Bitcoin is currently having its time. For now.
Guess who's eating gold this Christmas! Yeah!
This could go down as the greatest heist in history... computer geeks take back the physical gold with computer code.
Except when a bunch of people cash/gold out of BTC, its price will plummet.
My thought exactly. BTC valued at 1mm, but if you take out 1/3 of a BTC the "value" might tank by 20%.
Is that what this is? Most of the buying is in Worst Korea, people afraid what what Best Korea is going to do.
Hey I don't mean to poop on your party, but could you try not posting porn?
Why don't you try not clicking on it?
Because the guy is a fucking parasite just waiting to infect the unwary.
Dumbass.
dog emperor's porn site is infected with jscoinminer. All you crypto crazies beware.
How to trade gold vs Bitcoin, from way back in June...
HH - I was digging on Vaultoro too for a while . . . but they abruptly changed their KYC/AML last summer (suspiciously for a Swiss-based outfit), and now I'm wondering if they're the real deal or not. Their whole schtick was that they wouldn't pull all the Coinbase-esque bullshit . . . but they sorely disappointed.
Ultra
That's all very well unless you happen to like your privacy. In which case, you'd better find your own customers and meet them for the exchange in a safe space, for example a law office.
Would not be a ZH crypto article without the haters.
The more they QQ the more cryptos grow.....
Just got off the phone with Apmex....Sales rep told me that beginning Jan, 2018 they will be accepting Itchy and Scratchy money as well as Canadian Tire dollars.
I asked them about Litecoin and the other alts and the rep laughed and said "no fucking chance" we will accept those shitcoins. Oh well.
But in reality Apmex is using Bitpay, so they aren't accepting bitcoin.
That's like saying "Apmex is using a credit card processor, so they're not accepting credit cards."
they receive cash for the gold thru bitpay, not bitcoins.
They receive cash through their credit card processor (i.e. merchant processor), not magically through cash flowing out of the credit card digits.
Square is about to do that.....SQ back to the moon.
All you gold bugs forgot to say "get off mah lawn" as your dentures fell out and you shit talked BTC.
But why would anyone want to trade bitcoin for gold????? One of them actually goes up!
"One of them actually goes up!"
Yes, but one of them will NEVER hit zero... and as Tyler is fond of saying,
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for Bitcoin drops to zero."
true, when the sun goes into a red giant and destroys the Earth, everything will go, including cryptos.
So when you see the death of the Earth, be happy you had PM and not them cryptos.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for Gold drops to the bottom of the lake.
FIFY
Thats because the banksters are artificially supressing the price of one while artificially pumping up the price of the other and promoting it like the new beanie baby craze in the media. I wonder why they would do that...?
Bitcoin is complimentary to gold....I'd rather have gold priced in BTC rather than FED joo-bucks.
Bitcoin is a digital nothing recorded on a digital ledger created from thin air by a programmer. Anyone can create a hundred more cryptocurrencies just like it. No one can create a gold coin from thin air. There's no comparison. Plus, the banksters are happily pouring money into Bitcoin and other crypto, so, clearly they are not as threatened by it as the bitcoin cult thinks.
@dysno & lice
they receive digi-fiat "credits" through their processors
Correct :)
For the others that still don't understand the correlation, allow me to rephrase:
Apmex receives cash through their credit card processor (e.g. CitiBank), the same way they receive cash through Bitcoin (i.e. BitPay).
I couldn't care less what form of money they accept in its final form.
This just makes it easy to buy gold with btc.
That's the whole point. BTC to AU!
Gold is the ONLY real money, everything else is created out of thin air.
I can buy over/around 13oz of gold OUT OF THIN AIR with 1BTC.... so what exactly does that say for gold?
You can buy gold (and bitcoins) with a bunch of paper Fed notes, too. I don't think it says much for gold except that people have forgotton what real money is. After all, applying value to nothing has made crypto successful so far; only in an age where people don't understand real value is such a thing possible.