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Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by ForHackernews on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:20PM (#7569028)
10% off in what denomination USD or BTC?
Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by chris-martin on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:27PM (#7569084)
Yes! (Both.)

You'll end up spending an amount of BTC that is equivalent to 90% of the cost of your coffee. So, an example: If you choose the $10 option, and $10 is worth 10mBTC (exchange rate made up to simplify the math), then you'd pay 9mBTC and have $10 available to spend at Starbucks. If you then spend $5 of that at Starbucks, you'll end up receiving a refund of 4.5mBTC (the equivalent of the remaining $5).

Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by mike_hearn on Thursday April 10, 2014 @03:38PM (#7569144)
How is that discount funded though? I mean, who is paying the other 10%?
Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by mhluongo on Thursday April 10, 2014 @05:00PM (#7569665)
Right now? Us.
Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by pbhjpbhj on Thursday April 10, 2014 @08:12PM (#7570502)
So you put USD on Starbucks gift cards, sell the code to be used for a drink and receive the money in BTC. You're amassing BTC from disparate sources but it seems you'd be paying a slight premium, however you wouldn't need to register with any exchange.

You do get a pre-loading bonus of bitcoins to play with and you can use those to generate profits - like 1000 people put $10 worth of BTC on the app, spend $5 on a coffee then you have $5000 in BTC to "play" with, eg to sell on.

This does all look pretty suspect.

Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by mhluongo on Friday April 11, 2014 @01:22AM (#7571339)
We do not trade on any reserves from customers like that. We're not the Gox of gift cards.
Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by mike_hearn on Thursday April 10, 2014 @05:22PM (#7569817)
OK. Thanks for cheap drinks, I guess, but what's in it for you? I mean, how long do you plan to keep this up?
Re:Show HN: 10% off at Starbucks when you buy with Bitcoin by mhluongo on Friday April 11, 2014 @01:28AM (#7571361)
Hm... not sure how long we'll keep it up. The discount is a promotion, but I imagine we'll keep it in some form as marketing for the product. 10% is a nice number, but we'll test it. As pointed out in other comments, it beats Starbucks's own program, which I like.

We can afford the discount by saving money elsewhere. No credit card fees, etc.