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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

#621

Post by imtringued »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #336
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

This is why you would speculatively buy Bitcoin and hold it long before that happened, at a time when people are happy to accept your fiat currency for Bitcoin. People learning from experience in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, North Korea, would probably feel glad to put some fraction of savings into crypto just in case, knowing that the interim volatility risk of it sitting in crypto is a worthwhile price to pay to have a res…

Ok, now lets say you did the Bitcoin thing and your assets are safe. You are still suffering from poor governance and Bitcoin isn't going to change that one bit.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#622

Post by omegaworks »

arcticbull wrote: post #606
reedjosh wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say everyone in an unstable economy were paid in usd. Then that country would be paying the unseen tax of inflation as the US banking system prints more and more USD. Said country would basically be a US colony.

This happens in many countries already, the inflation tax of the US banking system is 2% and not an issue. That does not make Panama or Hong Kong US colonies.

It makes them economically dependent. Explicit rather than implicit client states of the US. Colonies in all but name.

When President Arnulfo Arias tried exercising his nation's right to issue sovereign currency, he was deposed in a US-backed coup on October 2, 1941.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#623

Post by imtringued »

sgeisler wrote: post #513
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prepar…

High interest rates weed out underperforming companies. That's exactly what inflation is for. The reality is that CPI inflation is still dead and the fed is irresponsibly following a 0% interest rate strategy that will never work out.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#624

Post by ball_of_lint »

nexthash wrote: post #586
waprin wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think cryptocurrency was a solution in search of a problem, but the Robinhood fiasco has made me think otherwise. I find their clearing house explanation woefully insufficient in details, and open to the possiblity of being technically the truth but misleading (for example, they gave mass margin to lots of new accounts so they technically lacked collateral, but if they stopped new signups then cleared cash…

Call me back when crypto is being used for anything normal - buying groceries, homes, pay checks, etc rather than trading and speculation. As of now, if my job attempts to pay me in DogeCoin I will quit and file a complaint with the NLRB. The thing is, no matter how much you think the current financial system is crooked, there is always a way to settle disputes through courts and regulators. The worst financial hiccu…

Dogecoin is designed to have massive amounts of inflation and would never be seriously considered.

Bitcoin is being used for normal things. Want to buy a Tesla?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#625

Post by reedjosh »

arcticbull wrote: post #606
reedjosh wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say everyone in an unstable economy were paid in usd. Then that country would be paying the unseen tax of inflation as the US banking system prints more and more USD. Said country would basically be a US colony.

This happens in many countries already, the inflation tax of the US banking system is 2% and not an issue. That does not make Panama or Hong Kong US colonies.

That 2% number depends upon whether you trust the people inflating the USD to tell you what the inflation rate is.

Feel free to call shadowstats crazy, but nothing in it is false. It's just another perspective. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#626

Post by imtringued »

nemo44x wrote: post #129
agentdrtran wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Once its value stabilizes, its use in day to day transactions will grow." and how will it grow when it's a fixed amount of currency with a fixed amount of transactions per second?

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…

>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.

The last time this happened we got Bitcoin Cash.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#627

Post by Geee »

dkersten wrote: post #494
deevolution wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you possibly back up the claim that the USD is stable? My grandparents were able to buy several acres of land and build a house for 80k in the 1970s. Doing the same today costs 500k+!!! It's completely outrageous. Ths USD is far from stable and anyone who thinks so is either insanely privileged or ignorant!

Because the cappuccino will continue to cost them $4 tomorrow, next week and next month. Sure, its value changes and a cappuccino may even cost a different amount sometime in the future, but its easy to know the value of the money you have because the exchange rate between dollars and items in the shop doesn't change so much. Contrast that with bitcoin, where the value often changes by many, many cappuccino's in a si…

You can choose to become poor slowly or to get rich slowly. The short-term volatility doesn't matter in the long run.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#628

Post by heidar »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #490
seibelj wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN should have been on the cutting edge of crypto, given its “hacker” supposed ethos, but a large group of no-coiners couldn’t understand it and have posted the same tired arguments ad nauseum for years. There are a lot of people on HN who love and support crypto but the arguments are exhausting and you get nothing but downvotes. All of my friends and family I convinced to buy and hold have been texting me how I chan…

Bitcoin was all over the news a decade ago. The reason it's not popular is that the early narrative wasn't "too the moon!" The narrative was that Bitcoin was the currency of the future and that we'd all be using Bitcoin for transactions. Anyone who actually used Bitcoin at the time could see how there was no chance of it taking off as a payment mechanism. That's still true today, especially with $8+ transaction fees.…

Given what you're commenting all over this post, it's pretty clear you don't follow developments in the cryptocurrency space much.

Bitcoin is stale, there's no development or innovation happening. It has become a store of value only. The only possible solution that could change that is the Lightning network or other Layer 2 protocols.

There are plenty of other coins however that are doing super exciting innovation. Bitcoin Cash and Nano are some examples. They're actually solving problems and moving the technology forward. And they're being adopted as payment methods as a result.

It makes me incredibly sad to see how many people (especially on HN) have no idea about that, and have adopted an anti-crypto stance like it's some ideological war, constantly citing the same old tired arguments.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#629

Post by reedjosh »

ajmurmann wrote: post #588
reedjosh wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Markets fail or succeed because of improper or proper governance. I have yet to see proper governance last long enough to be of any note and worse governance tends to quickly flip to favor the powerful.

Hong Kong and Singapore might be great examples

TBH, I'm ignorant of these countries' regulatory systems. You may be right. What makes them good examples?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#630

Post by hntrader »

3np wrote: post #211
motohagiography wrote: post #159

Given their volatility and lack of a derivatives market to drive liquidity, I wonder what the banking capitalization requirements for crypto-currencies will be. I can see the argument of "it's just another currency for exchange, how is this hard," but the difference today is it's super high volatility, without a rescue facility, and given bitcoin's public ledger of every bad person who has ever owned it, it is arguab…

CME has derivates. As do several other exchanges. Some argue that the derivates are actually part of driving price movements these days, but it's not the consensus yet. Interesting take, BTW - I don't see it as impossible. There's some possibility this is the greatest trojan horse ever (unless it was just inevitable just like the internet was).

Derivatives are typically leading crypto spot markets (although recently it flipped for a while) It's been that way for a few years. I'm talking Bitmex, Binance derivatives, not CME.
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