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Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

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

#291

Post by realradicalwash »

tiborsaas wrote: post #257
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.

if transactions were done in btc, each transaction would amass the typical fees - which are pretty high at the moment.

converting btc to fiat to pay your visa card bill at the end of the month would be one transaction per month.

that's a huge difference.

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

#292

Post by briefcomment »

Priem19 wrote: post #214
matheusmoreira wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's used for corrupt purposes, it's not really any worse than the current system. The subversiveness of cryptocurrency is a feature. Governments are as corrupt as can be. They screw up the economy and make ordinary citizens pay for it by raising taxes while refusing to touch billionaires. Maybe it'd be a good thing if they went bankrupt for once.

I think you seriously underestimate how ugly society would get if the government went bankrupt, and how quickly bitcoin would be rendered useless. Moreover, if governments are corrupt on fiat, they'll be corrupt on bitcoin as well.

Bitcoin is just an asset that has some interesting traits, that make it more attractive to some people vs. other assets. Other assets will still exist. Other monies will probably exist too - they’ll have some benefits over Bitcoin in some use cases.

I don’t see why governments wouldn’t tax Bitcoin income and transactions the same way as fiat income and transactions. Me paying someone a hundred dollar bill is even less taxable than Bitcoin.

Obviously everything will sound dystopian if you take it to the extreme.

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

#293

Post by Aunche »

67868018 wrote: post #179

The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…

If you actually wanted to store value you would buy gold. You can't store value in Bitcoin because it has no inherent value. It's a distributed ledger on the internet. If I hoard 100% of the world's gold bullion, there's a good chance that people would want to buy it from me at a price similar to today's spot. If I hoard 100% of bitcoins, it loses all of its value. Moreover, if hyperinflation does occur, there's a good chance you'll face power and internet outages, which makes Bitcoin useless because you can't access it.

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

#294

Post by FridgeSeal »

Priem19 wrote: post #213
Priem19 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also expect a ton of movement to crypto when wealth taxes get implemented to fix economies. They'll use it to hide assets, guaranteed. Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely. Disregarding all of bitcoin's shortcomings, a financial instrument that brings out the worst in people—greed—won't change the world for the better. https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html . I used time-travel to uncover thre…

By which I mean to say: the greedy rich wanting to preserve or increase their wealth at all costs is what got us into this mess. Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency pyramid scheme is going to do bugger all to improve that. No amount of wealth or technology will turn vice into virtue because: “If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.” —George Carlin Prosperity boils down to g…

To add to this, crypto communities _appear_ (I’d be pleased to be wrong here if anyone has examples) to be filled with people who are absolutely opposed to any kind of economic governance, if it’s not “let the magic hand of the market decide” they’re seemingly not interested.

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

#295

Post by nonameiguess »

67868018 wrote: post #179

The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…

This is an amazingly cynical take. I mean, I wish you all the luck in the world in your attempt to get rich, but you're making a bet that the global economy is going to collapse, in part aided by a pandemic, and rather than doing anything to help, the world's wealthy are going to opt out of using their wealth to help anyone in favor of hoarding bit patterns on hard drives in their dragon caves. I don't think I want to live in a world where the rich are inventing new ways of evading taxes as their countries collapse from ecological disaster, especially when those ways of evading taxes are contributing to ecological disaster.

This seems destined to go about as well as all the Spanish and Portuguese who plundered the New World for centuries in their attempts to hoard real gold as their empire faded into the dustbin of history and mercantilism and then capitalism took over and the world realized actual wealth involved making useful things, not holding onto deflationary fixed supply assets for dear life.

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

#296

Post by gruez »

peteretep wrote: post #283
67868018 wrote: post #179

The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…

As Ethereum has shown the immutable part is up to developer whim. The “hard limit” is literally a config value.

...assuming you can get consensus. That's harder than you think. On ethereum it might be easy because the creator is still around, but on bitcoin it's very hard. See the whole segwit2x controversy.

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

#297

Post by briefcomment »

rednerrus wrote: post #222
67868018 wrote: post #179

The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…

What is the value add? How does it store value? How do you get your money (in large volume), into or out of BTC with a transaction associated with you or your company? It's not even a good anonymous store of wealth anymore. It can't handle transaction volume at any kind of reasonable scale. It also doesn't have an order book deep enough to facilitate large transactions in the market. You'll have to figure out a deal…

The value add is marginal, but people will choose something that’s a little bit better if it exists.

That value add is that it’s scarce, and its scarcity is unlikely to be tampered with. This means people don’t have to jump through hoops to keep up with inflation. That’s it.

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

#298

Post by gruez »

qeternity wrote: post #220
matheusmoreira wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The token backing BTC, Tether, is founded by con artists and was just revealed to not have had the backing they claim. USDT doesn't back BTC. It's just a stable coin people use. There are other coins tracking the dollar. Binance created their own BUSD and it seems to be as legit as it gets with frequent audits of reserves and everything. There's also USDC. BTC is actually backed by the eletricity used to power the…

For a crowd that constantly parrot “DYOR”...you should really DYOR. No stablecoin has even been audited. Zero. None. Most perform attestations, which doesn’t even come close to an audit. Tether does neither.

>No stablecoin has even been audited. Zero. None.

https://www.gemini.com/dollar

scroll down to the bottom. there were monthly audits dating back to sept 2018.

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

#299

Post by FridgeSeal »

pjc50 wrote: post #161
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.

I've reached the doubly-cynical conclusion: the critics are right, but it will probably keep climbing in value in the medium term. Actual on-chain transaction volume will remain dwarfed by on-exchange volume. Tether will get clobbered in the next few years. This ought to affect the bitcoin price, but won't.

I think it will continue to increase in value for while, as it continues to plumb the depths of “people who haven’t bought in yet”, but that’s eventually going to cap out, and eventually they’re going to run out of coins to mine, and people will catch on and the value (and interest in it) will fall through the floor.

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

#300

Post by graeme »

3np wrote: post #268
graeme wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 70% of transactions are in USDT, and bitcoin’s price rise has followed increases in Tether tokens. It would appear the price surge has been backed by USDT because currently the bitcoin market accepts USDT as equal to USD, despite evidence USDT is not backed. Bitcoin itself is powered by the miners, but the fiat value of bitcoin is backed by USDT. If there was doubt about the peg you’d see a run.

> About 70% of transactions are in USDT Source? Because this is very far from any data I have.

What data sources have you got?

You can see here Tether’s 24 hour volume actually surpasses bitcoin. It’s used in ETH trading and elsewhere which is why its volume is larger.

https://www.coindesk.com/price/tether

https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin

For the 70% figure I’d have to dig a bit to fully check current volume. It’s been widely repeated in articles, they use data which check flows through exchanges.

Binance may have a bit less USDT than before?

https://coinlib.io/exchange/binance

https://coinlib.io/exchange/bit-z

https://coinlib.io/exchange/hitbtc

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