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MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

reuters.com

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Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#41

Post by tehlike »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17
tehlike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine basically put it this way: bitcoin can't become medium of exchange before it becomes medium of value. You can read this as: if you are holding btc, it's in your best interest to hold more without selling.

If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Bitcoin’s deflationary nature discourages spending and selling, by definition. The high transaction costs discourage it even further.

Bitcoin is not used for medium of exchang, at scale, that's the point.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#42

Post by superkuh »

grishka wrote: post #18

So how would they ruin it with KYC/AML this time?

No, no. KYC/AML ruins actual means of getting Bitcoin. This ploy for siphoning off money by Mastercard is perhaps the one thing in reality that is not good for Bitcoin intrinsically. No need for KYC here.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#43

Post by exdsq »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #25
vortico wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is only good for large transactions, but there are 1000000 cryptocurrencies that solve this problem such as BCH, USDT, and LTC. Use one of them.

Honestly, why? My credit card pays me 2% to use it. If there’s a problem with my transaction, I click some buttons and the card company reversed the charges. If I lose my card, I call them up and get another one overnight without losing all my money. Why would I give all of that up, pay exchange fees on both ends of a transaction, pay transaction fees (however small), and wait longer for my transactions to clear?

I regularly invoice internationally. I can get a crypto payment through with a small transaction fee (a few cent for $20k) which clears in ~5 minutes, or I can get a payment that takes several days to clear with a larger fee. Crypto works perfectly for me!

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#44

Post by PragmaticPulp »

T0Bi wrote: post #26
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Bitcoin’s deflationary nature discourages spending and selling, by definition. The high transaction costs discourage it even further.

How is bitcoin deflationary when it (currently) has a fixed inflation?

Contrary to the pop-culture definition, inflation isn’t purely driven by fiscal policy or money supply. Supply and demand (aka cost-push inflation and demand-pull inflation) are the main drivers. Fiscal policy modulates these factors, but inflation existed long before fiscal intervention.

Bitcoin adoption is a deflationary process because an increasing number of people are competing over a fixed (ultimately) supply of Bitcoin.

If more people want Bitcoin, the price goes up. Why do more people want Bitcoin? Because the price goes up. The cycle reverses when the price starts going down.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#45

Post by koboll »

T0Bi wrote: post #26
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Bitcoin’s deflationary nature discourages spending and selling, by definition. The high transaction costs discourage it even further.

How is bitcoin deflationary when it (currently) has a fixed inflation?

If bitcoin is a currency, then the prices of things in bitcoin have fallen over time. What cost 40,000 BTC a decade ago now costs 1 BTC.

But bitcoin is more of an asset than a currency, so speaking of it in terms of inflation / deflation leads to oddities, like this.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#46

Post by PragmaticPulp »

tehlike wrote: post #41
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Bitcoin’s deflationary nature discourages spending and selling, by definition. The high transaction costs discourage it even further.

Bitcoin is not used for medium of exchang, at scale, that's the point.

So your point is that Bitcoin isn’t a medium of exchange?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#47

Post by PragmaticPulp »

koboll wrote: post #45
T0Bi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is bitcoin deflationary when it (currently) has a fixed inflation?

If bitcoin is a currency, then the prices of things in bitcoin have fallen over time. What cost 40,000 BTC a decade ago now costs 1 BTC. But bitcoin is more of an asset than a currency, so speaking of it in terms of inflation / deflation leads to oddities, like this.

> But bitcoin is more of an asset than a currency, so speaking of it in terms of inflation / deflation leads to oddities, like this.

Assets inflate and deflate. It’s not an oddity.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#48

Post by soheil »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29
soheil wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spending cryptocurrency would result in selling that cryptocurrency, which would drive the price down. That’s not what cryptocurrency investors actually want. Is this necessarily true? If you have a merchant that accepts cryptocurrency why would that drive down the price? (e.g. Tesla [1]) [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/tesla-buys-1point5-billion-i...

What do you vendors do with any of the money you pay them? They spend it on paying employees and buying raw materials. It’s getting spent (sold) one way or another. Tesla is no exception.

It requires a network-effect for it to work, if more and more vendors accept crypto then how is that fundamentally different that fiat currency to buy raw materials and pay employees with?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#49

Post by PretzelPirate »

ValentineC wrote: post #24
PretzelPirate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in the minority in that I’d like to be able to spend my cryptocurrency in a way that: 1. The card handles also selling some off for taxes every transaction and put that in an interest-accruing account. 2. The card tracked my capital gains for each transaction for easy reporting on taxes. 3. The card provider will help manage fees - I’d rather bulk deposit funds to a layer2 and have fee-less payments over having t…

> I’d prefer if it wasn’t MasterCard since I use Visa cards, but I can’t complain too much. I'm curious: is this because your preferred bank mainly issues Visa cards, or are there things about MasterCard that you don't like?

My bank mainly issues Visa cards. I’ve had multiple cards throughout my life, and I’ve never had a master card before.

I’d like to just add this feature to my existing cards that I already have set up for payments.

Completely off topic:

What I really want in life is:

1. If I could have a virtual credit card that could act as a proxy card and would let me use different cards based on the items I was purchasing (ex: if I’m getting gas, one of my credit cards may give better rewards)

2. A virtual mailing address that would resolve to my current address when used with any shipping provider. I move every few years and hate mail forwarding and updating my address everywhere.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#50

Post by Mc_Big_G »

liquidify wrote: post #27
sschueller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is outright scam in my view. They never have to hold bitcoin. They may as well sell paypal coin. Robinhood and Revolut do the same thing. If you can't transfer out your bitcoin, you don't have any bitcoin.

They couldn't do that. If they didn't actually have any crypto, in the event of a large scale increase in price combined with a large scale cash out, Paypal would have to eat the difference from buy to sell price. They would lose their shirt. At minimum, Paypal is buying some percentage of the crypto sales in actual crypto to act as a hedge. However, it is more likely they are closer to 1 to 1 backing since they prob…

You're giving Paypal and Robinhood too much credit. It wouldn't surprise anyone if they both consider themselves "too big to fail" and do not have sufficient crypto to cover themselves. It's easy to imagine the meetings where someone "important" says "That will never happen, end of discussion." and then it turns out they they're wrong and they get bailed out (or not).
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