Should online marketers seriously consider adopting Bitcoins as a payment option?

No offense taken, Bruce. I suggest that you read this article entitled "The European Central Bank report on Bitcoin: you can smell their fear" from the Blogdial blog. It explains very clearly the difference between Bitcoin and fiat currencies. Quite interesting. Google it.

By the way, you must have heard that Wordpress has now started accepting Bitcoins. Others are likely t follow suit.

Oswald please please please do not take offense to what I am about to say - I don't mean it as a personal attack at all... but the reply you just left - is exactly what I was talking about in the end of my first reply.

"Bitcoins is vastly a currency known to be used by conspiracy theorists and those who are afraid the world economy is going to collapse through some evil government dealings."

Yes, the US government declaring Bitcoins illegal is a possibility but in the current scenario with the US dollar on shaky ground and on the verge of collapse, the US govt. has other things on its mind than worrying about some pesky online currency.

I like your analogy about shiny rocks. But isn't that exactly what the US government has been doing all these years? Instead of shiny rocks, they've been printing shiny dollar bills.

Let's wait and see what happens. Interesting times ahead.

Oswald,

You said "in addition to other payment processors like Paypal and Payza."

The problem is bitcoins is NOT an online payment processor at all. an online processesor, processes your money and gives you government backed currency. Bitcoins IS a currency.

Imagine I went out and pollished rocks to be shiny and pretty. I convince 100 stores to start accepting my shiny rocks as payment. Over the course of 5 more years I convince 5000 more places to accept my shiny rocks.

Now the stores th

Bruce & Chuck, there are indications to suggest that as the awareness about Bitcoins gains ground and as mainstream online (and offline) merchants start accepting it, online marketers will eventually adopt it as an alternative in addition to other payment processors like Paypal and Payza. It's just a matter of time. As you may know, the internet is not confined to the US alone - it's worldwide, so Bitcoins will be adopted even in those countries where Paypal doesn't serve.

There's an informativ

Have to agree with Bruce on this one.....
We process 5 to 6 figures month, through Internet transactions and it all comes through a Proved solid system, such as PayPal.
Our customers know the program and feel a sense of security.
Also we love the fact we can talks to PayPal representatives so easily over the phone

No marketers (nor anyone in the US in my opinion) should accept bitcoins. Here is the thing, payza, paypal, and similar types of online payment processors work within the confines of legal currency based on a given countries currency. Having money in paypal is as good as having money in the bank. Having money in the bank is as good as having cash in hand. If you live in the USA that means its all legal US tender. The same is true of credit cards or cellular based currencies. They are all backed

Never heard of bitcoins, I just like to use payza and paypal myself but I'll look into it some more now. Thanks for great post.