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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

#171

Post by lawn »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12
sschueller wrote: post #5

I don't want mastercard supporting crypto. I want the merchants and payment providers supporting crypto so I do not have to use mastercard and their "rules". If I want to pay for porn or send a donation to wikileaks I do not want mastercard/paypal or anyone else other than the government (if it's legal I should be allowed to pay for it) deciding if that is ok.

Bitcoin transaction fees are currently around $8. My credit card pays me 2% to use it. No one wants to use the Bitcoin blockchain for average transactions. No one is buying Bitcoin as anything other than a speculative investment right now.

We shouldn't forget that there are other cryptos that don't have these ridiculous fees.

Also, your credit card pays you 2% because they extract a larger fee from the merchant, who will raise prices to cover that expense. So you're not really saving money.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#172

Post by BTCOG »

raiyu wrote: post #155
BTCOG wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are all disingenuous actors. They know the point, but they want to flood all of these threads and act clueless. Bitcoin is digital gold, gold's replacement. It's been here for 12 years and yet, all these actors show up in every Bitcoin thread. It's the greatest monetary shift in hundreds of years. ArcticBull below me shows up in EVERY single Bitcoin thread to trash talk Bitcoin. Here's where we are at; s…

Bitcoin is a modern day example of what happens when you have a currency that has deflation instead of inflation at it's core. It becomes actually more expensive to buy anything in the present, as a result, consumers stop purchasing, and as a result economic activity decreases. DigitalGold is also non-sensical, because that is simply designed to track against inflation, to prevent the loss of today's buying power tom…

@ArcticBull - Why would I ever want to make 100% ROI on a rigged stock market when I've made thousands of % in hard money?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#173

Post by uncletammy »

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.

> If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange?

It's not in your best interest to buy and never sell. Current investors are just incredibly short sighted. If bitcoin isn't usable by (and useful to) the majority of the world, it will never get enough investment to serve as a buffer against the drastic price swings caused by speculators.

Smart investors know that simply holding coins isn't enough in the long run. Finding new use cases and encouraging adoption and use is the only way crypto stands a chance.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#174

Post by nemo44x »

zucker42 wrote: post #163
nemo44x wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can divide it over and over. The source code is a living document and transaction speed can be implemented either off chain, in the code base itself, or otherwise. It’s weird to see so many opinions on this website that think BTC is a static thing that can’t or won’t adopt useful pull requests that miners agree are useful. It’s like if it were the mid-90’s and everyone was just as skeptical of e-commerce of the w…

> in the code base itself There was a fierce debate that lead to a hard fork over increasing transaction throughput by raising the block size, so I think it's really not a given that BTC will change to increase transaction speed. Also, one problem people have with Bitcoin is that the idea of every node of the network storing and processing every transaction is fundamentally not scalabe. Sure BTC can change and adapt,…

Right and look at the result - Bitcoin Cash is a failure. This is true democracy. We tested both solutions and the champion still stands.

When there is incentive (if there ever is) then miners will adopt changes that make sense. But you need a true consensus. This built in conservatism is a great feature of BTC.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#175

Post by krisdol »

systemvoltage wrote: post #84
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

These stories usually spur more enthusiasm for buying cryptocurrency, but ironically those buyers aren’t interested in spending cryptocurrency using their MasterCard. They’re hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency from these announcements, driving the price up. Or, more likely, they’re just hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency and not use it in these spending systems. Spending cryptocurrency would result…

What's the point of an unstable, volatile, frantically manipulated currency that is susceptible to social media pump and dump schemes (Elon + Doge)? Currency and its exchange rate needs to be relatively stable for the world to put trust into it. Saying that BTC is stable, but the rest of the world's fiat currency is fluctuating makes no sense. US dollar provides stability and security, I feel confident that a cappucc…

Full disclosure: I own about $11 worth of bitcoin if I round up a bit, so this might be biased.

The most convincing "point" of bitcoin I've heard is to accomodate transfer of large sums of money across borders, quickly, with minimal transaction costs and oversight. Everyone here can afford the fee to transact 8 billion dollars worth of bitcoin. And settlement happens in seconds to a couple minutes. That's appealing to people trying to move millions or billions of dollars around.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#176

Post by arcticbull »

whobar wrote: post #165
janoside wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point, you ask... Here is Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, describing "the point" for an hour: https://www.microstrategy.com/en/bitcoin/videos/bitcoin-macr... It sounds like you've made up your mind about Bitcoin, but I believe you've missed the big picture. The above video, if you watch it with an open mind, will help you to glimpse it. Hint: it's not about cappuccino, it's about living…

Hedge fund managers are never going to publicise an impartial view about anything, especially not something they are heavily invested in. Forming a positive opinion about Bitcoin based on what two hedge fund managers, both bullish on BTC, have to say, seems pretty dumb. Unless fiat is abolished, the price of something in BTC will always be pegged to USD. As USD devalues as a result of inflation, the price of a produc…

Indeed - if your government is crap, you have bigger problems to worry about than your currency. Once you sort out the government you no longer have to worry about your currency. There's no world where simultaneously you have an untrustworthy government and you can bandaid over it with crypto.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#177

Post by stblack »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12
sschueller wrote: post #5

I don't want mastercard supporting crypto. I want the merchants and payment providers supporting crypto so I do not have to use mastercard and their "rules". If I want to pay for porn or send a donation to wikileaks I do not want mastercard/paypal or anyone else other than the government (if it's legal I should be allowed to pay for it) deciding if that is ok.

Bitcoin transaction fees are currently around $8. My credit card pays me 2% to use it. No one wants to use the Bitcoin blockchain for average transactions. No one is buying Bitcoin as anything other than a speculative investment right now.

This is so ignorant. Please raise your game.

Bitcoin transaction fees are set by the sender. At least, that's true if you aren't a nOOb and you control your own wallet.

Transaction fees vary, at this very moment, between 1 satoshi/vbyte to 9,900 satoshi/vbyte. That range is 10^5. See https://mempool.space/

Last week at this time, a tx could be placed in the very next block for 13 sat/vbyte.

But sure, claim it's "$8". But it's better to educate yourself before sprouting off like that.

With Bitcoin you pay the fees you want to pay. If you want fast settlement, you pay more. If you want to pay next to zero, you can do that too.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#178

Post by fennecfoxen »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #125
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a situation where the only local fiat currency is even worse, then the “volatility fee” of cryptocurrency may be well worth the money to decouple yourself from that bad fiat currency risk. Maybe you can purchase things directly with the cryptocurrency, or maybe you just wait until you can drive across the border to a place with more stable fiat currency, sell cryptocurrency for that currency, and buy m…

If someone is in a country with a collapsing local currency, they still have to transfer that money to a Bitcoin exchange before they can transfer the Bitcoin. If the currency is collapsing, who’s going to trade Bitcoin for the collapsing currency? That’s the necessary first step in this process. If I’m just trying to cross the border with Bitcoin in my mind wallet so I can convert it back to cash on the other side,…

> If the currency is collapsing, who’s going to trade Bitcoin for the collapsing currency?

Well, you'd probably find someone wanting to trade Bitcoin for goods, and as part of the transaction, someone else would end up using local currencies to buy those goods.

... Of course, in the general case, you're probably more likely to find someone who wants to trade USD for those goods.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#179

Post by graeme »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #120
systemvoltage wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of an unstable, volatile, frantically manipulated currency that is susceptible to social media pump and dump schemes (Elon + Doge)? Currency and its exchange rate needs to be relatively stable for the world to put trust into it. Saying that BTC is stable, but the rest of the world's fiat currency is fluctuating makes no sense. US dollar provides stability and security, I feel confident that a cappucc…

It's kind of moot w.r.t. MasterCard. They will only accept stablecoins which are generally pegged to usd

Like Tether? They’re currently in the middle of a fraud case alleging they are not at all backed by USD and thus the peg is supported by fiat and liable to fall off.

(I mean this in the dictionary sense of the word fiat that gives meaning to the phrase fiat currency. I don’t mean tether is supported by fiat currency)

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#180

Post by temp8964 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #130
temp8964 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you apply this logic to USD? You either want to hold it or want to use it? Since everybody need to use USD, so nobody should hold USD?

> How do you apply this logic to USD? You either want to hold it or want to use it? Of course it applies. Holding lots of dollars ( e.g. as hard cash or in a checking account) is stupid. That is the purpose and benefit of (mild) inflation: to incentivise consuming or investing them.

What if cryptocurrencies do not have the inflation problem?
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