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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

#511

Post by koonsolo »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #472
koonsolo wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nano has 0 fees and 1< second transactions. What is your argument against that?

Sounds great. Why not just use the nano technology to let me move around the USD in my bank account? Why do we have to invent an all new currency for these technologies to use? There is no good reason, other than to make early adopters wealthy, which they would like very much. What's stopping the US government from taking nano and creating a USD-backed version?

Exactly. So where is it? I've been using the internet since 1997. Banks had the chance to make it. I read here all the time "a single database would be a better solution". So where is the single database? Where is the instant money transfer? Where is the free money transfer over country borders?

My wife lived in US for a while, she is now in EU. She still has some bank account there with a few thousand dollars on it. She can't transfer it to EU (some limitation of that account), she can only get cheques, or ask for some credit card. I told her to see how to purchase crypto with that card, and then transfer the money like that. It's fucking 2021, are you serious?????

So yeah, if you expect banks to come up with a system that can compete with current gen crypto, good luck to you.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#512

Post by solosoyokaze »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #502
solosoyokaze wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It would be prohibitively expensive for the government to track down every blockchain transaction IRL to find the identity behind the wallet (if even possible). This cost rises with adoption. 2. Different crypto currencies have different roles. If you want to avoid traceability altogether, use zCash.

You don't need to track down every transaction. You just need to flag the fraudulent/stolen/illegal coins on the blockchain and require exchanges to confiscate those coins as they come through the system. Blockchain is a public ledger of every Bitcoin transaction ever. It's trivial to track these things. It's trivial to identify downstream coins from upstream illegal activity. Far easier than with traditional currenc…

The exchanges are becoming decentralized. Not just exchanges but other financial services, including the ability to earn interest. There are also other coins that are less traceable than BTC. It's only going to get more difficult for governments to track crypto, not less.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#513

Post by sgeisler »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #440
jkepler wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What historical period are you referring to? If you look at the first 200 years of US history, for example, there was plenty of real world growth on spite of slow price deflation. Gold and silver jointly backed the banking system until the Federal reserve started the current USD system in 1913. In much of the rest of the world, the 40 years prior to WW1 were largely characterized by economic growth, while on an inter…

The pre ww1 world was probably too different from today to draw lessons applicable today and in any case there were recessions every few years back then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit... Gold tied assets hoarding caused the great depression.

Probably an unpopular opinion on a VC site, but to some degree recessions are good and needed to weed out underperforming and utterly useless companies to free up resources. The lack of such and bail-outs/rescuing attempts by governments to "save jobs" [1] have delayed necessary restructuring for way too long. Also, if recessions are the norm rather than the exception I'd expect people and companies to be more prepared (e.g. by being less leveraged, keeping more savings), so that the actual event isn't as bad on a personal level and it's just about capital reallocation.

[1] an especially bullshitty argument, since ideally we'd want to get rid of jobs that don't add (enough) value to make the economy more efficient. I think the wasted human resources and ingenuity are the greatest tragedy.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#514

Post by codebolt »

heterodoxxed wrote: post #337
codebolt wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any real value analysis of Bitcoin that doesn't take Tether into account isn't worth much. As long as the whole crypto market is built around a currency issued by an unregulated and unaudited company with a mile-long list of past controversies, any unbiased take on the future of Bitcoin has to allow for a significant downside risk.

Tether is a real Michael Burry moment for me. They claim to have 30 billion in reserves right now and are "printing" a billion tethers at a time. Yet nobody can confirm their reserves and the company itself is absurdly opaque. Either there is an incredible amount of criminal fraud behind this or... this is perfectly reasonable? Except nobody can really explain or confirm why.

Yes, but as long as nothing is stopping them from simply minting out of thin air, I wouldn't bet against their ability to keep pushing the prices up.

Daily volumes of tether trades are consistently a high multiple of the total supply. (Today it's 130bln vs 30bln.) So I don't know if it's safe to even trust that number.

As per Steins law, anything that cannot go on forever must eventually stop. Question is how long?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#515

Post by globular-toast »

ascar wrote: post #231
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can show up at a bank and demand your balance in central bank money aka cash. The equivalent for Bitcoin would be that Paypal has to send your balance to you on the blockchain. But they do not do that. They will pay you in dollars. How much dollars? However much they like.

> You can show up at a bank and demand your balance in central bank money aka cash. If everyone would try to do that the system would collapse. The system is built upon the assumption that the vast majority of people don't do that.

When people do do that, it's called a bank run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run

This happened to Northern Rock in the UK in 2007. The bank failed and was nationalised as a result.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#516

Post by anonisko »

u678u wrote: post #205
krisdol wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No if you have millions or billions basic wire transfers are instant and cheap. It is more interesting for if you have a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, where a $10-$50 fee is significant. Or you want to bypass regulations or bureaucracy eg send money to a friend in Argentina or Lebanon which have currency controls.

https://twitter.com/JackMallers/status/1346867753253220356

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#517

Post by Spivak »

imtringued wrote: post #481
ardy42 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strong currencies are not the solution to poor governance. Good governance and democracy makes a country and its currency strong. Not vice versa. That's a good point. Too many people propose individualist solutions to social problems, and all their "solution" would do is make the social problem worse. I think that stems often stems from an overzealous faith in free markets, which leads to a distorted idea that indi…

Markets only exist within the context of a political system. They are just a tool to reach a certain policy outcome. The idea of using the free market to replace poor governance is laughable. It's the opposite. You have to set the right policies and incentives and only then will the free market show its true beauty. Markets fail or succeed because of improper or proper governance. It's like a genetic/ML algorithm tha…

Thank you! Sure fine at some base level there is still technically market in a purely anarcho-capitalist system but that doesn't suddenly imply that the markets we have aren't essentially a pseudo-central planning systems that actually work.

A market is useless if it doesn't actually allocate goods and labor efficiently and in the way people want.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#518

Post by koonsolo »

xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #353
koonsolo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from Elon Musk: "If PayPal had executed the plan that I wanted to execute on, I think it would probably be the most valuable company in the world".

Which plan was that? The one Musk was fired for pushing, i.e. getting them to switch all their infrastructure to Microsoft Windows ? Elon Musk is best ignored.

On which system you run has very little to do with how successful you can get your company.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#519

Post by [deleted] »

arcticbull wrote: post #176
whobar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#520

Post by cacarr »

Alupis wrote: post #356
whatshisface wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's use as a way of bypassing currency controls is one of the best arguments against it, because governments, already prone to suspicion towards anything that might upset their monetary policy, will have no quarter towards anything that upsets their laws.

That, and folks like Elon Musk perpetrating blatant Pump 'n Dump Schemes[1]. Eventually it'll be regulated after a bunch of opportunistic "investors" get hosed - which ironically, will make the dump even worse. [1] https://www.valuethemarkets.com/2021/02/09/if-dogecoin-is-a-...

The dump doesn't seem to have happened yet, though. DOGE has stabilized at about $.07, down from ~$.08.
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