Why? Nobody's going to spend the transaction fee, currently about $US16, to buy a coffee. For big items maybe?
I don't initiate a wire transfer when I buy a coffee. I use my bank card.
Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
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Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#42I have very little long term faith in BTC at this point. It is effectively centralized, has limited capacity, outrageous fees when the network is busy, and then there are growing concerns over environmental impact...but I'm still holding on to my stash as the growing institutional momentum over the last year or so seems like it might have a significant positive influence on price, before BTC is eventually abandoned.…
100% agree with you on all points. As a valid replacement for currency, it is inherently flawed. As an investment? A very solid choice. Many seem to have difficulties differentiating between the the two distinct concepts, myself included.
> As an investment? A very solid choice.
What’s the thesis?
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#43Why? Nobody's going to spend the transaction fee, currently about $US16, to buy a coffee. For big items maybe?
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Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#44Why is everybody betting on bitcoin for payments when there are faster and more stable alternatives in the crypto space? I’m thinking that this is more about a proof of concept to get into the space.
Because they want to be at the bottom of the pyramid scheme and now that it's gained enough mainstream media attention it doesn't even cost ridicule.
If it is in fact a pyramid scheme, wouldn't they want to be on the top rather than the bottom?
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% agree with you on all points. As a valid replacement for currency, it is inherently flawed. As an investment? A very solid choice. Many seem to have difficulties differentiating between the the two distinct concepts, myself included.
> As an investment? A very solid choice. What’s the thesis?
Because it's still magic to retail investors, and as long as they don't see behind the curtain, they'll keep coming along in droves and inadvertently propping it up + pushing it higher.
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
None are as stable as Bitcoin. There are some that are faster right now because no one uses them, but are likely to fail if they get any serious adoption. Ethereum is the only sensible alternative to Bitcoin but Ethereum has major scalability issues and much less infrastructure compared to Bitcoin to alleviate those issues.
How would USDC fail?
USDC uses Ethereum so it has all the scaling issues Ethereum has.
That said Ethereum would be a reasonable alternative, but in terms of stability and performance, Bitcoin is far ahead of Ethereum currently. Maybe Ethereum 2.0 with sharding and staking solves those scalability issues and at that time it will be the best choice, but right now there are too many unknowns.
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% agree with you on all points. As a valid replacement for currency, it is inherently flawed. As an investment? A very solid choice. Many seem to have difficulties differentiating between the the two distinct concepts, myself included.
> As an investment? A very solid choice. What’s the thesis?
Institutional and retail investors are just starting to pile on and there will be potentially massive gains to be had in the near to mid term before the bottom falls out.
Long term? Probably not smart.
Safe to get in now? Debatable, pretty high risk.
But if you have a bunch of coins laying around and you're willing to gamble a bit longer...
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#48Bitcoin is an asset that tends to appreciate. Why would I use it as payment? Lastly, is it considered legal tender? What is the meaning of legal tender if one can use Bitcoin everywhere usd is accepted?
its just liquidity
there is tremendous value for me in being able to barter transaction with an asset that someone can immediately sell for what they want
I've been illiquid sometimes due to some combination of card networks accepted and when I say "eh, what about Bitcoin" because I have some dust in a wallet on my phone, I'm completely serious while the merchant spirals into their ignorance and cognitive dissonance nervously laughing and regurgitating some headline they saw 7 years ago
other people just take it like "yeah sure"
its just like get over it are we exchanging equivalent value or are you mentally incapable for this century
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#49I have very little long term faith in BTC at this point. It is effectively centralized, has limited capacity, outrageous fees when the network is busy, and then there are growing concerns over environmental impact...but I'm still holding on to my stash as the growing institutional momentum over the last year or so seems like it might have a significant positive influence on price, before BTC is eventually abandoned.…
100% agree with you on all points. As a valid replacement for currency, it is inherently flawed. As an investment? A very solid choice. Many seem to have difficulties differentiating between the the two distinct concepts, myself included.
And what is Bitcoin value without it being used as a currency?
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just on-chain layer 1 transactions that are somewhat expensive. The lightning network solves this and works great, can do thousands of transactions per second and has close to 0 fees. Feels like magic to use it :)
It's magic until you realize you need to spend $15 to get off chain to buy a coffee. And then you realize you aren't ready to commit a bunch of cash to a speculative currency (or investment) so that you can buy coffee. Also, you will need to file taxes for your coffee if your bitcoin goes up after you bought it. Fun!
The idea is to never go off-chain, so no need to close your channel(s). And aren't you already committing cash if you're "in" bitcoin?
The tax filing doesn't sound so bad in the long run. I'm sure someone will write some nifty tool to extract whatever payments you've done.