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Ending Bitcoin Support

stripe.com

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Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#221

Post by Mithorium »

doomslice wrote: post #156
Mithorium wrote: post #22

Stellar isn't a direct replacement per-se, it's fast and has near zero transaction fees, but the lumens themselves were not intended to be used as a medium of transaction, only to have a token amount to pay the miniscule fees with. To use the stellar network as intended, there needs to be an anchor that issues USD/EUR/whatever tokens on the stellar network, and then have stripe accept those tokens (issued by anchors…

Even if XLM was not intended to be used for direct payments, is there anything that actually prevents it from being used for it? From everything I see, it actually seems like a pretty good candidate for actual spending.

Well, if people decide to use it that way nobody can stop them. In my opinion, that would be an inefficient way of using the network, since if you pay with XLM today you need to first buy some, taking a loss on the conversion since you have to go through either eth or btc, then the payee needs to sell it (again with another intermediate currency) to get the money to pay their operating costs, and they'll likely charge a processing fee for that, and at that point you may as well be using a credit card.

On the other hand, if you use it like intended by getting USD stellar tokens from an anchor, and paying with those, the merchant can more or less accept them at face value (if they trust the anchor to give them USD for the token)

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#222

Post by makomk »

marshray wrote: post #137
eropple wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also replace it with money, which one can readily and easily, through systems with well-understood protocols that are agreed upon by participants in those systems, exchange for goods and services. (Even the Lightning Network people don't think you should use it with money. Not that that's likely to be a problem, what with it being for Bitcoin and all. Stripe also doesn't support any other commodities as me…

In fact, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle futures contract is deliverable, whereas the Bitcoin contract is settled in US dollars. I.e., the biggest US commodities exchange literally considers live cattle to be more practical to deliver than Bitcoin. To me this suggests Bitcoin is not actually a good medium of exchange. http://www.cmegroup.com/rulebook/CME/II/100/101/101.pdf https://www.cmegroup.com/conflue…

It might actually be the other way around. If you want Bitcoins in (say) six month's time, you can just go out and buy Bitcoins now, so it doesn't make much sense to have Bitcoin futures contracts except as a means of speculation on the price and that doesn't benefit from actual delivery. This isn't nearly so easy or practical if you want a certain number of live beef cattle of a certain quality in six months or a year. (Matt Levine talked about this in his Bloomberg column, as I recall.)

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#223

Post by desireco42 »

EnFinlay wrote: post #164
nulagrithom wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What future does an asset have if people don't actually buy stuff with it? I look at it (maybe naively) like a solid gold bar. You're not going to walk in to a convenience store and pay with a bar of solid gold; you might flee the country with one though. Beyond that, I totally agree with your read on the post. Linking the pull request[0] was especially backhanded. It feels like there's some underlying frustration…

Reading your comment finally made it click to me why cryptocurrencies (specifically Bitcoin) are distinct from a gold bar or other non-currency stores of value. A gold bar is going to remain a gold bar forever, people's perception of its value will change even though the supply will remain mostly steady, but it will stay a gold bar no matter what. Bitcoin may change in value based on perception, it's supply will rema…

I think you are not taking into account 'internet time' ie. 2-3 years is huge time span. No one can predict what will happen in that time.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#224

Post by Goladus »

moduspol wrote: post #208
Goladus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of assets have value without people buying things with them. Gold, houses, stocks, etc. That value is predicated on the notion that they're worth something to the holder apart from their market price. Gold can be used for jewelry and electronics manufacturing. In that sense it is a natural resource. Stocks are shares in a company that runs a business or multiple businesses that could be profitable. Companies h…

Bitcoin absolutely can still be exchanged, and (in many cases) far more easily and cheaper than gold. It can also be stored and secured much cheaper, and even large amounts can be easily taken across borders. That is real value, even if transaction fees are high, and even if you don't directly buy things with it.

Yes, gold is a very special case. Gold also has a very, very long history of being used as a global currency, which lends far more confidence in it than is probably warranted.

Bitcoin has not even 10 years of history as a currency, and most of that time the system was propped up by an inflation mechanism that will soon cease to exist (and is already mostly ineffective), and the rest has been fueled by speculative mania. Compared to gold, it is utterly unproven for the role.

There is no reason to think that Bitcoin is in any real position to replace gold in its role as a "store of value."

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#225

Post by ceejayoz »

andybak wrote: post #102
0xcafecafe wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold as a metal has an inherent value though. If not only for jewelry, it also has important uses in electronics. The value associated with bitcoin seems purely sentimental.

> Gold as a metal has an inherent value though. The price of gold isn't really related to it's use in electronics however. > The value associated with bitcoin seems purely sentimental. Scarcity is a factor. Admittedly not all things that are scarce are valuable but it's a necessary precondition. There are other examples of items that lack inherent utility but have value and they too are often used to store wealth: ar…

The scarcity argument would be great if Bitcoin Cash didn't exist to disprove it.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#226

Post by sowbug »

bradleyjg wrote: post #78
opportune wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or lead

Lead is useful. Even gold is somewhat useful. Bitcoin is an asset that’s neither productive (stocks, bonds, land) nor useful (oil, wheat, lead). That’s quite unusual.

Its utility is as a medium of exchange whose transactions are faster and cheaper than any other scarce asset.*

*Rewrite in past tense or read circa 2015.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#227

Post by undoware »

A lot of the chatter in this post is about the underlying value of Bitcoin (and blockchain currency generally) as an asset class. I keep telling folks: yes, it absolutely does have value apart from sentiment; holding a blockchain currency gives you access to all the infrastructure built on that product -- regardless of whether that infrastructure is for exchange, or storage, or smart contracts, or whatever.

It follows that the worth of a specific blockchain currency is tied to the usefulness and -- to be brutally honest -- the coolness of the underlying technology.

This is why you should short BTC (and even ETH). Both are proof-of-work, both consume massive amounts of power, and both are increasingly useless for transacting. Eventually, the slow deprecation of Bitcoin as a means of transaction will make the underlying infrastructure (appear) worthless, and at that inflection point, it becomes worthless as an asset class as well, as it will no longer be a stable store of value.

So take all your winnings from the Bitcoin lottery and plough them into something that actually has legs.

When my 'sell' threshold hits (I currently hold ETH), I'm buying the shit out of, e.g., Cardano, and Stellar Lumens. And if the blockade by the old guard ever cracks, TenX -- connected to a payment card -- will be sex on legs. (Ok currencies can have neither sex nor legs but you get my drift.)

I am explicitly buying as an investment in the technology. Believe in functional coding and smart contracts? You could do a hell of a lot worse. Mutatis mutandis, Stellar Lumens; different virtues, but also impressive.

I can see both technologies going forward, and I believe in both of them. Can't say the same for Bitcoin anymore.

Finally, talking about infrastructure, also evaluate who the infrastructure is for, and how good it is at serving them. It probably makes sense to hold some Monero right now, as, like it or not, the traditional guarantor of value for Bitcoin is its utility in doing shady stuff. Privacycoins meet the needs of Bitcoin's original audience better than Bitcoin ever did.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#229

Post by mikeash »

masklinn wrote: post #184
emodendroket wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, people could also stop thinking gold is worth much. Maybe a modern-day alchemist finally figures out the formula. I don't know. Probably far less likely than the Bitcoin scenarios though.

> To be fair, people could also stop thinking gold is worth much. They've already noted that: > people's perception of its value will change But as they say, a gold bar will remain a gold bar, until and unless it is actively destroyed. Not so for bitcoins, which only remain so as long as they're actively maintained (not just individual coins but the mining networks which allows the creation of new transactions)

I’m not entirely convinced, although I’m partway there. When you “have” a Bitcoin, that means you have the private key to a wallet which the blockchain says has such-and-such amount in it. You can have that even if the miners all disappear. You can still use it to sign transactions, although they won’t get confirmed. You can even confirm them by mining a new block yourself with your transactions in it. (If all the miners are gone, the difficulty has hopefully dropped precipitously. And if not, you could always fork it to have a lower difficulty, since the only thing that stops forks currently is network consensus.)

This doesn’t sound super useful, but it sounds about as useful as a bar of gold in a world where nobody considers gold to be valuable.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#230

Post by beaker52 »

It's nice to see they're still interested in payment-oriented tech in this area, such as Lightning and OmiseGO.

Another one to watch out for is RaiBlocks. Currently has a functioning net, featuring instant, fee-less transactions.

The thing that's really impressing me about RaiBlocks is the community that's around it - so much community dev effort going into payment adapters and services. People are already accepting Web payments with it.

I am holding some, so maybe I've drunk the kool aid but I really feel like it's something worth keeping an eye on or looking into if you're interested in the practical crypto-payments space. There's an active reddit you can find with Google if you're genuinely interested in more info.

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