One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.
To me, it just says that we are still in the early days in the grand scheme of things.
Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
111–120 of 530 posts
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't solve anything, it still has to be synced with the chain so that the balance can be useful to anyone else. The average transaction is around $20 USD and has been around this much for a while. Opening and closing second layer channels is even more expensive than an average transaction. There is no universe where 1.5KB/s in transactions makes sense. Any other cryptocurrency works better, ethereum and bitco…
I'm not an expert on lightning network, but couldn't Visa position themselves as a central hub for lightning network transactions, so that most people can open a channel to Visa and they act as the clearing house for keeping all of those channels balanced? I'd never want to send large BTC amounts through visa, but I would trust them enough to facilitate Or heck, maybe consumers don't need an actual channel, just let…
They could, the big difference is they would just be another player on the lightning network payment channel, perhaps a very big player, but not "own the whole layer" kinda big.
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#113Earlier 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?
Bank of America had this[1] to say: “No good reason to own BTC unless you see prices going up. .. it is not tied to inflation, and remains exceptionally volatile, making it impractical as a store of wealth or payments mechanism. As such, the main.. argument for holding Bitcoin is.. sheer price appreciation”
I haven't found a reason in favor of owning btc other than "number go up".
[1] https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/13721290012512215...
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#114Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
This take on Bitcoin -- not backed by anything in the physical or virtual world -- is misinformed. You're correct that coin isn't specifically backed by anything in the sense that you can't trade it in for a an equivalent asset like gold. But neither is the US dollar. BTC's value is backed at least by the billions that have been spent on mining architecture by companies like MARA and RIOT, large mining pools, produce…
The USD is backed by "the full faith and confidence of the US Government" since leaving the gold standard. Bitcoin is backed by collective faith and confidence in the security and utility of the underlying blockchain. The utility of a country, it's people/resources/military/economy/etc, is pretty obvious. What is the utility of the blockchain outside of the value of Bitcoin itself?
For example, "the collective lack of full faith and confidence of the people that the US Government will always act in their best interest"
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's such an anti-pattern for the world to adopt this approach. Sadly most people don't care nor should have to but the decentralization is effectively moot when payment processors like Visa get involved. Sadly, I'm less and less hopeful that crypto will be what the movement conveyed over last 10 years.
Bitcoin disrupts central bank, not payment networks. Lightning [1] as layer 2 on top of Bitcoin adheres to trustless and p2p ideals, and is actually the competition for Visa. [1]: https://lightning.network/ Edit: added link
Lightning, technically speaking, is garbage.
10k transactions per second ETH2 layer 1 + zk roll-ups providing throughout multiplication threatens VISA.
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#117One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.
It’s like slash dot hating the iPod all over again.
“Expensive, less TPS than my SQL server. Meh”
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#118I 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.
Why is it flawed as a currency?
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#119One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.
The anti-BTC sentiment on HN puzzles me. There is no intelligent critique. The doubts that are endlessly repeated here have been addressed in detail, and are available online. Scaling and transaction throughput, energy consumption, state attacks, protocol weakness and lack of backing have all been responded to, to a sufficiently satisfactory degree.
Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
#120Misleading Title. Visa says it will allow for Bitcoin to be converted to fiat, and the fiat can be spent using a Visa Card in the same way debit cards already work. This is already done with the Coinbase card, Gemini card, etc The statement is very vague in terms of who is covering the conversion.
It's such an anti-pattern for the world to adopt this approach. Sadly most people don't care nor should have to but the decentralization is effectively moot when payment processors like Visa get involved. Sadly, I'm less and less hopeful that crypto will be what the movement conveyed over last 10 years.
It's impossible with current bitcoin transaction fees. Monero has a better chance at seeing real usage as currency.