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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

#181

Post by fouldiplomacy »

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…

"unstable, volatile, frantically manipulated currency" -- this is often the case with any news, not just "pump and dump" schemes. Take the Chinese CNY. The CCP have been undervaluing it for years for the purpose of attracting business.

the USD is very much subject to social media and traditional news manipulation. When the US decides it wants a stimulus package or other types of debt, it drives down the dollar's value. Granted the US is good about making payments to creditors, i.e bonds, it is not immune to fluctuation.

It is sad but the way of the dollar is slipping and the global demand currency. It is slowly being replaced by the CNY and other market demands.

Lastly, the Treasury does not control the dollar. It the Foreign exchange markets. (https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/who-determines-the-val...)

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#182

Post by paulpan »

cbradford wrote: post #3

I thought the whole idea of Bitcoin was to get out of the financial system that Mastercard is a central piece of.

Right, I view this announcement as a ploy by Mastercard to stay relevant and probably appease their investors.

One of the key selling points of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is removing the middleman from transactions. Arguably miners in the proof of work consensus are a middleman but not as much as the 2.5-3.5% charged by the likes of Visa and Mastercard.

The other one, as OP mentioned, is permissionless or decentralization - the freedom from the whims of governments and traditional banking systems. I don't see how Mastercard can straddle between the two without some deception.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#183

Post by arcticbull »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #131
lottin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since bitcoin doesn't produce income and it's not backed by anything there is no way to tell whether it's 'underpriced'.

It’s ironic that the best bull case for Bitcoin is that maybe it’s so devoid of actual use cases that no one can tell if it’s overpriced relative to its (lack of) utility.

Remember that in the near term the block reward is fixed in BTC and variable in electricity costs. The more expensive BTC, the more power is wasted mining. The BTC has to be sold off as its mined and paid to electric companies. To sustain this selling, more new money has to come in as a function of price to retain stability.

At current price and block reward, Tesla's investment of $1.5B pays only 6 weeks of electric bills.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#184

Post by agumonkey »

maeln wrote: post #113
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And let's not forget that bitcoin can process on average less than 7 transactions per seconds. That's incredibly slow. It can be used for anything irl as long as this fundamental problem is not fixed. Nobody will spend 10+ minutes in front of the cashier waiting for the transaction to be confirmed. Most cryptocurrencies are plagued by the same issue. Everyone and their mother still come out with their own cryptocurre…

I have a feeling that traditional cc system are slower than the time user waits for confirmation. Isn't it buffer based like disk io ? the bank has a buffer to accept any card that is legit (for small transactions) and the rare time a problem occurs they deal with it on the side ?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#185

Post by fennecfoxen »

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…

Opinion: NYSE:GLD and NYSE:IAU are better at being "digital gold" than a blockchain thing ever will be.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#186

Post by dna_polymerase »

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.

Also people don't expect the dollar to become more valuable anytime soon, so spending it doesn't effect seller's remorse a day later, which happens to everyone spending ETH or BTC these days.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#187

Post by JumpCrisscross »

temp8964 wrote: post #180
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> What if cryptocurrencies do not have the inflation problem?

Then it is rational to hold, not spend, them. Deflationary currencies don’t function. (They can be stores of value.)

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#188

Post by arcticbull »

anm89 wrote: post #106
steeve wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it stabilize when it has a fixed amount of BTC?

No currencies are "stable" inflationary, deflationary or neutral. Stabilize means that volatility reduces, not ceases to exist.

Yes there are, thanks to positive control from central banks. That's the point of central banks. Provide and maintain stability through the active expansion and contraction of supply against an index.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#189

Post by liquidify »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #168
function_seven wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy a BTC for $30,000, then later decide to sell it for $47,000, Paypal will lose $17,000 if they didn't actually have a BTC somewhere in their vault. This is the same idea as bucket shop operations that "trade" stocks with their clients without actually processing trades on any exchange. When prices are rising, with new buyers available, then a bucket shop can do just fine for themselves. As soon as they have m…

If no one can transfer bitcoin out of the PayPal system then the only way for you to sell it for $47,000 is to find someone else on PayPal willing to buy it for that amount (or actually a bit more because of the spread). So PayPal don't lose anything. Admittedly this doesn't sound right to me, but it's what the parent commenters seem to be saying.

It doesn't work like this. If paypal's customers decide to cash out as a whole, then that means there is a net sell. There won't be enough buyers in paypal to cover the sells. They would need to expose themselves to another market by buying / selling actual bitcoin to be able to float like you describe.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#190

Post by systemvoltage »

krisdol wrote: post #175
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…

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 t…

That’s the thing. By the time the transfer takes place, BTC exchange rate is now 7% off. How convenient is the transfer mechanism when the underlying is a speculative instrument?

Until BTC exchange rate gets stable or gets pegged do the ground, it’s gonna float around in the air of extreme volatility and manipulation - pretty risky adventure to transfer large sums of money.

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