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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

#811

Post by globular-toast »

seibelj wrote: post #330
Sargos wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is still trying to grasp Bitcoin so I feel like Ethereum is going to take another few years to even begin productive discussions.

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…

> All of my friends and family I convinced to buy and hold have been texting me how I changed their lives.

Because they're enjoying life without private banks? Or because they've realised gains from the bubble? If you "understand Bitcoin" as you claim, you must realise the latter cannot go on forever.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#812

Post by RobertoG »

intenex wrote: post #778
vishnugupta wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as a country cannot print usd itself, this is a fast shortcut to unemployment, hunger, etc... We don’t even need to make up hypothetical examples. We have a live one in Greece. The Greek citizens went through this exact ordeal for the exact reason you stated. They couldn’t print EUR and the ECB wouldn’t extent monetary support to Greek government.

Wait - so why are other countries like Germany in the EU fine despite also not being able to arbitrarily issue their own national fiat currency?

They are not. Germany is a net exporter, obviously not all the countries can be net exporter at the same time.

You can't have a stable monetary union without a fiscal capacity. The inevitable debt crisis in the Euro-zone are stopped by the ECB buying debt in the secondary markets.

The hypocrisy of the system is obvious to however takes the time to see how it works.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#813

Post by RobertoG »

variaga wrote: post #583
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.

TIL Zimbabwe, Ecuador, El Salvador, Palau, East Timor and the British Virgin Islands are all "basically US colonies". What about countries that don't use the dollar as currency directly, but keep a fixed exchange rate to the dollar - they would be paying the unseen tax of inflation too, right? With a fixed exchange rate if the dollar value falls, so will the value of their currency. So that would mean Hong Kong, Cuba…

Andorra is definitely a EU colony, or more precisely, a France/Spain colony used for fiscal evasion.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#814

Post by dalmo3 »

fredsir wrote: post #776
rustybelt wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I dumb? How does something lose over 100% of it's value?

Isn't it 250% loss in buying value? So because of inflation everything now cost 2,5x what it did. Usually your paycheck can afford 100 apples but after inflation your paycheck can only afford 40.

If you had money for 100 apples, and now you only have money for 40 apples, you're down 60%, not 250%.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#815

Post by fakedang »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #806
adrianN wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for very narrow use cases I don't see how the rules you can enforce in a digital space like a blockchain network help when you don't have a stable meatspace system of law. A bitcoin transaction can be mathematically as bullet proof as you want, but that doesn't help make your meatspace assets any more bullet proof.

It doesn't take much law to make cryptocurrency secure for a person to hold: just protection from home invasion and torture. It can work quite well in otherwise highly dysfunctional societies. Other forms of property ownership are much more fragile, and require a much more sophisticated legal system.

Will that be enough? AFAIK, every country's government (or some warlord) has a monopoly on violence and the law. If they wanted to, they could easily just draft a law mandating crypto to be stored in particular forms else can't be used/traded. Or they could simply invade your home on some bullshit pretext and seize all of your crypto. Both instances have happened before (and have been posted on HN too) and I've seen both of them in both autocracies and Western democracies.

Imo, there's nothing better to secure your assets better than some form of monopoly on the law, or a monopoly on violence, or even better a combination of the two. This is also why billionaire classes simply consider crypto a wealth store asset and not a secure store of assets.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#816

Post by vntok »

edgyquant wrote: post #724
vntok wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way of looking at it: that incentivizes better investments.

Not really. If you can earn risk free appreciation on a currency the smart thing to do is not spend it. This incentivizes hoarding money, not making smarter investments.

Nope, you are therefore incentivized to spend that money in objects or services that will bring in more value to you than the risk-free "interest" or gains brought by the mere deflation. Ergo, smarter investments.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#817

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

tw04 wrote: post #384
tgraves83 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that paying for things directly with bitcoin doesn't make sense. However, that doesn't mean bitcoin doesn't have a use case as a global settlement network and volatility isn't what's important, it's liquidity, which bitcoin has far more of then any other cryptocurrency. For an example of this take a look at something like Strike Global using bitcoin's lightning network. https://jimmymow.medium.com/announcing-…

>it's liquidity, which bitcoin has far more of then any other cryptocurrency. "Far more of than any other cryptocurrency" is kind of a moot point. Does "bitcoin" (the people converting it to cash) have enough reserves in any real currency to cover even 10% of its value? There's no federal government backing it, and as best I can tell nothing to prevent the proverbial "run on the bank". I still struggle to see how bit…

> "bitcoin"

What does using quotes mean? Why not just write Bitcoin?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#818

Post by eek04_ »

boogies wrote: post #667
gbear605 wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A market doesn’t work in countries without a strong government, since for a market to work, there needs to be faith that the other party isn’t going to break the rules of the market. If you’re trying to sell your goods and someone comes in with a gun, then you have to hope that either you have a gun or can call police. If you have to resort to using a gun, then that leads to huge costs and lots of dead people.

> If you have to resort to using a gun, then that leads to huge costs and lots of dead people. Is that more true for you using a gun than it is for police using a gun?

Yes. Police is regulated and has a lot of conventions (laws) and resources that enforce those conventions. Ultimately, it goes back to a fairly well-resourced court of law, which is willing to take a fairly high cost to make a decision, as a shared cost paid through taxes.

With individuals making those decisions, the decisions will be made at much lower cost, and this will result in lower quality of decisions.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#819

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

lxgr wrote: post #489
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!

Predictable inflation is a form of stability.

"I would choose a volatile 200% increase over a year than a stable predictable 10% decrease." Michael J. Saylor

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#820

Post by lxgr »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #819
lxgr wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictable inflation is a form of stability.

"I would choose a volatile 200% increase over a year than a stable predictable 10% decrease." Michael J. Saylor

Is this for an investment or a currency? There's a reason there is both.
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