A quick translation of the Baidu Jiasule press release:<p>"As a cutting-edge IT guy and a professional webmaster, what else can showcase our difference? The answer is that we have Bitcoin!<p>Bitcoin, as a new electronic and digital currency, is being accepted internationally. It's also used in daily lives. You can use Bitcoin buy a cup of coffee, or easily convert it to cash. But in China, Bitcoin is still a fairly new thing. Today, we have a good news: from today, we are starting to officially accept Bitcoin as a payment method. You can use Bitcoin to buy all Baidu Jiasule services. Baidu Jiasule as an innovator in the Internet industry, is now the first cloud service provider to accept Bitcoin and give everyone a better payment method and experience."
Jiasule is just a little company (service) Baidu acquired August. This decision is probably made by this independent company, not by the main company Baidu. And other services Baidu provide doesn't accept Bitcoin.<p>I couldn't imagine any big company in China will officially accept Bitcoin in the future at all.
Looking at the bitcoin address [1] Baidu posted in the press release, it looks like a whopping 0.00326169 BTC has been deposited into their wallet. I know they just set it up, but I guess I would have expected slightly more activity by now. This makes me wonder if it's more of a PR stunt than anything.<p>I know that Reddit, after months of enabling Bitcoin as a payment option, still only got 3% of their entire revenue in Bitcoin [2]. I like the concept of bitcoin but as of now, it seems like many of these initiatives are launched by businesses to get "tech people" interested and to make news about their business. That's not a terribly bad thing though for bitcoin because businesses are still adopting it. It just would be nice to see Bitcoin used more than 2.5% of the time.<p>[1]: <a href="http://blockchain.info/address/1NtbQKVFxAPc8mmBoWwRzhg7o3EMCBsxNg" rel="nofollow">http://blockchain.info/address/1NtbQKVFxAPc8mmBoWwRzhg7o3EMC...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dkbix/bitcoin_usage_stats_for_reddit_gold_payments_in/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dkbix/bitcoin_usag...</a>
You're supposed to pay to a bitcoin address included in their press release, and then notify them about this. For a major NASDAQ-listed company, this approach seems startlingly half hearted.
Could it be related to yesterday's announcement, and a confirmation that they were talking about Bitcoin?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6550068" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6550068</a>
Given that there was a bitcoin rally led by the Chinese bitcoin exchanges <i>before</i> this news[1] and now this amateurish announcement, it seems like somebody at Baidu Jiasule is doing a pump and dump.<p>[1] <a href="http://imgur.com/jgwRMJo" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/jgwRMJo</a>
I wonder how this will end up playing with the fact that exchanging CNY is heavily restricted. Exchange services all require proof of identity to allow you to trade, and there's quite a few limits on exchange.<p>Some details here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi#Managed_float" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renminbi#Managed_float</a>
But Bitcoin has three major problems. One is if you lose your key you won't be able to access your coins, right? And two, how is tax going work? Third, bitcoin price goes up and down so rapidly. Say the service costs 20BC today but if tomorrow's bitcoin price is $100USD instead of previous $50USD, the consumer will pay more (and vice versa Badiu might lose some money).<p>Correct me please.