Amagi Metals Ditching USD for BTC
In a move some will call surprising, bold and possibly stupid, Amagi Metals posted on it’s website HERE that 2016 will be the last year that it will accept the US Dollar! You read that right… the Denver based online dealer in precious metals and coins, announced in blog posted August 20, that they will stop taking US dollars as a payment option for any of it’s products at the end of 2016.
The Buck Stops Here
“Since the dollar was decoupled from gold in 1971, it has lost 97% of its value compared to the yellow metal and 83% of its domestic purchasing power, and the trend shows no signs of stopping. Both investors and foreign governments have begun to lose confidence in the dollar’s future…and so has Amagi Metals. Thus, Amagi has planned that by the end of 2016, the company will no longer accept US dollars or other “fiat” currencies. Instead, Amagi plans to be trading exclusively in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.”
You can read the entire post here.
What I found strange about the post was what the CEO of Amagi Metals, Stephen Macaskill has to say about those customers who want to pay with dollars in 2017. Macaskill says that customers holding dollars or other fiat currency will still be able to do business with Amagi Metals on the company’s e-commerce store. “We will offer customers the ability to convert their fiat money to cryptocurrency on our website. They can then use it for purchases from us. Of course, that will be at the exchange rate at that time, whatever it may be.”
It will be interesting to see what exactly they mean here. Currently, businesses who accept Bitcoin through a payment processor like BitPay or Coinbase, can opt to immediately convert the customers Bitcoin payment into dollars so that the business does not need to take any chances on the volatility of the crypto currency. One may guess at first, that Amagi will simply do the opposite and keep the entire payment in Bitcoin. There is a problem however… these customers will be paying in USD, a currency not accepted by either BitPay or CoinBase. In fact, with a purchase of bitcoin through Coinbase, users must often wait about 4 days until their payment has cleared the bank to buy bitcoin. This is true even if you go to your bank and deposit cash.
Will this start a trend?
I have reached out for an interview with the CEO and I hope to have an update on what exactly Amagi is doing. That said, could this possibly be the start of a trend? With much talk over the dollar and its stability across the world, perhaps by January 1, 2017… the way we feel about the dollar might be totally different than how we feel today.
Jeran Campanella
“Trying to make the world a better place, bit by bit”
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