Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants • Hacker News Board

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#251

Post by drak0n1c » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

auc wrote: post #192

SigmundA wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” -Sagan

Columbus also deserved to be laughed at. People in his time period knew the world was round and even had a pretty accurate estimate of its radius, but he (very erroneously) thought it was way smaller. That's why he thought he landed in India.

The point stands though - projects and ideas that may deserve to be laughed given current knowledge can still be the impetus for unintentional paradigm shifts. Whether it be Columbus' voyage, or early forms of blockchain.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#252

Post by Sargos » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

kajumix wrote: post #123

zionic wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning, technically speaking, is garbage. 10k transactions per second ETH2 layer 1 + zk roll-ups providing throughout multiplication threatens VISA.

I will cheer for the success of ETH2 as well. The reason I like Lightning better is because the engineer in me wants to freeze the base layer and do the experimental layers in isolation. Internet infra is all layered for good reason.

Ethereum is also layered. ZK Rollups are later two and not related to the Ethereum devs. It's an isolated engineering later with lots of experimentation going on with optimistic rollups, ZK Rollups, state channels etc.

The problem with Bitcoin is that it's not technically sophisticated enough to support proper L2s which results in poorly engineered solutions like Lightning and centralized solutions like Liquid.

With Bitcoin more work needs to be done on L1 for the ecosystem to support layers above it while Ethereum could freeze development forever and still support flexible, fast, and decentralized layers on top.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#253

Post by nerdponx » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:10 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #85

notyourwork wrote: post #61

Earlier 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.

I mean... what do you expect with a currency with an annualized volatility of 100%. The risk is way too damn high.

What about other currencies? Stellar, Litecoin, Zcash, Monero, all the zillions of Ethereum tokens, and all the various other altcoins out there.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#254

Post by zadler » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

hnrodey wrote: post #203

hnrodey wrote: post #108

One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.

Replying to my own comment because an edit felt like cheating... The entire crypto market goes to infinity or zero. I don't readily know which is more likely; only that I'm betting on infinity.

Crypto is well beyond escape velocity by now. That ship has sailed. It’s a shame that here on HN, people who might be useful in making some estimations of where it might take us are all tied up arguing over whether or not it’a the right solution. People find it distasteful, and energy usage is not the only reason.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#255

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

notyourwork wrote: post #61

purple_ferret wrote: post #57

Misleading 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.

Eth 2.0 has a lot of potential for high transaction thoroughput.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#256

Post by cronix » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

Now that crypto is being more socially accepted, of course Visa and others will want to collect all the data on the products people are purchasing with it, just like they do with our fiat currency.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#257

Post by tiborsaas » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

purple_ferret wrote: post #57

Misleading 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.

> converted to fiat, and the fiat can be spent using a Visa Card

That's an accounting detail most people won't care about. Perception matters more than technicalities.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#258

Post by dbancajas » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:25 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #237

matheusmoreira wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bitcoin’s price rise has followed increases in Tether tokens I understand this as price manipulation by Tether, not as evidence that BTC is backed by it. > currently the bitcoin market accepts USDT as equal to USD, despite evidence USDT is not backed Yeah, it's unfortunate. I don't understand why people won't use BUSD instead. > If there was doubt about the peg you’d see a run. Probably. In my opinion, people shoul…

> Probably. In my opinion, people should exchange USDT for BUSD while it still has value. That way everyone will continue trading normally when all the controversy catches up to Tether. This is sound advice for the individual but it doesn’t work for the market as a whole. I’m arguing Tether is a sham. When too many people try to get out of a sham, it collapses. Currently, 2/3rd of people who try to sell their BTC fin…

> ndependently verify at specific points in time that the entire supply of Paxos Standard tokens is consistent with USD in reserve accounts at U.S. banks held and managed by Paxos.

Where are all the people holding all the USDT? It seems nobody is complaining. I'm bearish on BTC price right now but can't help thinking someone should have already cracked the USDT wide open. Eventually someone (few brokers) will be left holding USDT with no buyers. I can't believe brokers are allowing people to cash out w/o guarantee the stable coins they redeem can are not cashable somewhere.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#259

Post by afc » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

karpierz wrote: post #129

kajumix wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? The answers I've seen so far are: 1. Avoiding Venezuelan hyper-inflation - it is a use-case, but doesn't really apply to the United States for example. 2. Store of value - volatility is way too high and there are much better alternatives (Treasury bonds) 3. Evading capital controls - it is a use-case, but not really applicable to most citiz…

I use it as a store of value.

Because I expect that it will continue to significantly appreciate (it has gone up 10X or more in the last year!), I couldn't care less about its volatility. I expect that as its exponential rise slows down (like all exponential growth, it must come to an end, perhaps after a few more halving cycles), the volatility will decrease accordingly.

You're right that there are other systems to store value, but it doesn't follow that Bitcoin doesn't have value as one. It does for me, today. I've used it (together with some other systems to store value) in a very real sense to store portions of my salary and, months later, consume it, acquiring tangible assets. I couldn't care less about having to convert it to Euros first, that doesn't make it any less useful to me.

Re: Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

#260

Post by 3np » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

quesera wrote: post #193

lupire wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OSI layering model of internet infra is largely a myth, a simplification for students. It's similar to C is called "portable assembly" despite compilers being far more complex in practice.

OSI layers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are very real. Roughly, e.g.: 1:Fiber, 2:Ethernet, 3:Routing, 4:TCP/IP, and 7:HTTP.

Isn’t IP commonly considered L3?