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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

#851

Post by loceng »

stblack wrote: post #177
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.

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".…

So would these longer settlement times, at a lower cost, then necessitate using a centralized escrow service to verify trustworthiness?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#852

Post by [deleted] »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #832
arcticbull wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you provide some data instead of conjecture. We generally don’t accept that the government inflation numbers are just plain wrong without substantiation.

Sometimes common sense trumps data. You dont need data to know that the sky is blue. That being said parent did not help himself throwing statements out there without a foundation. Here is what i believe he should have said: CPI for goods fails in the following: Accounting for changes in sizes and quality of certain products (i.e. instead of raising prices vendor will lower quality or amount of product ) Accounting f…

[deleted]

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#853

Post by ardy42 »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #833
fakedang wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In theory, there is nothing an autocratic government can't do to you. But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It's one thing to send armed agents to storm the homes of executives of a large private bank to shake down the bank. It's another to do it against end-users at a scale where it becomes effective…

> But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It's one thing to send armed agents to storm the homes of executives of a large private bank to shake down the bank. It's another to do it against end-users at a scale where it becomes effective.

I don't think the political price is as high as you think, and armed agents don't have to storm the homes of end-users at scale. All they have to do is storm enough homes discourage people by making it clear the risk is real, and everyone internalizes the rules.

If cryptocurrency is contraband, it's the worse kind of contraband because it advertises that you use it to the authorities through easily monitored channels (since you have to connect to identifiable internet services to use it).

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#854

Post by janeroe »

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…

> What's the point of an unstable, volatile, frantically manipulated currency

I don't know, but for some reason people keep using USD. Even though in the long run BTC keeps growing and USD will only lose its value.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#855

Post by TwoHeadedBeast »

lottin wrote: post #552
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…

Please don't fall for the trap of calling actual money fiat as if bitcoin wasn't fiat. If at some point bitcoin becomes money it will be fiat money, as bitcoin is not backed by a commodity. So far bitcoin isn't money because it's not the most liquid asset . In order to buy anything with bitcoins, first you'll have sell them for actual money and use that to buy stuff, hence not money.

Good point, I think they've borrowed the terminology from goldbugs without really understanding it.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#856

Post by CryptoPunk »

simiones wrote: post #839
CryptoPunk wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok, so no one can steal my crypto. But what if they accept my payment, and then they don't give me the items I payed for? Or vice versa - if I'm selling something and I give them the item, but they don't initiate the payment? What if the company I work for isn't transferring the BTC in our contract at the end of the month, because they ran out because their own customers haven't been paying? With a regular currency,…

Commerce generally works quite well, to the point that it works even when there is no legal compulsion to not cheat.

Bad actors are ostracized while good actors build followings, leading to reputation acting as an effective mechanism to find good actors to trade with, and incentivize people to become good actors.

In any case, when people are free to choose between government-recognized currency and non-governmental digital currency, they will choose the one that best suits each circumstance, leading to greater overall utility.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#857

Post by CryptoPunk »

ardy42 wrote: post #853
CryptoPunk wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, there is nothing an autocratic government can't do to you. But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It's one thing to send armed agents to storm the homes of executives of a large private bank to shake down the bank. It's another to do it against end-users at a scale where it becomes effective…

> But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It's one thing to send armed agents to storm the homes of executives of a large private bank to shake down the bank. It's another to do it against end-users at a scale where it becomes effective. I don't think the political price is as high as you think, and arm…

>>All they have to do is storm enough homes discourage people by making it clear the risk is real, and everyone internalizes the rules.

I suspect the scale of enforcement needed to discourage widespread usage would be very large, and incur political and economic costs that are prohibitive. That's corroborated by the fact that the USD circulates widely in countries suffering high inflation, despite it being in the best interest of the elite of these countries for people to only use the national currency.

>>If cryptocurrency is contraband, it's the worse kind of contraband because it advertises that you use it to the authorities through easily monitored channels (since you have to connect to identifiable internet services to use it).

Only if public access to strong encryption is prohibited, and there are economic costs associated with a country doing that.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#858

Post by SuoDuanDao »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #258
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…

Yeah, sure settlement in Bitcoin happens within a few minutes. Getting that converted into usable money is a whole other story, no? I can basically think of two scenario types when you are in need of international, spontaneous money transfer: a) "I just got carjacked in Sierra Leone and need some money for an hotel and a flight home" b) "I have some weird novel business and I would like to pay my contractors in East…

>Go off-grid for two weeks and there is a non trivial chance that some weird shit happened within crypto that is now an obstacle (crash or rally, outlawing, split, ...). That does not happen with US dollars.

That is fair, but it would be more accurate to say 'has not happened with US dollars since 1930'. Currencies collapse is not that unusual an occurrence, my own (German) grandparents live through five separate currency regimes in the same country. Being truly uncorrelated with most other investments can be a real selling point for a hedge like BTC.

Disclosure: I own several cryptocurrencies including BTC which I mentally categorise as 'collectables'.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#859

Post by [deleted] »

ivalm wrote: post #302
octocop wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Define best interest here. I mean saving money and investing it to make more money is also in everyone's best interest, but that is certainly not the case. So why is that?

Investing money in productive enterprise is the thing that is in societal benefit. Investing money in a virtual asset that has no other benefit and massive ecological costs is not a benefit.

[deleted]

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#860

Post by cmoscoso »

MrMan wrote: post #821
nathias wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course monetary policy is good for the guys implementing it, crypto is here for the rest of us. Making monetary policy tied to a currency and immutable is one of the great benefits of crypto, akin to having monetary policies be part of constitution.

You can’t opt out of society without consequences

Do you mean society or big government?
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