Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

Post by rauljordan2020 » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

centimeter wrote: post #152

lucb1e wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb out-of-the-loop question: then what's this talk of Ethereum moving to proof of stake? Whenever someone brings up that PoW is bad, people say Ethereum; whenever someone says why PoW, someone says because PoS isn't safe.

There are two problems here: The first is that a lot of ethereum talk is just that; hot air with little substance. The second is that PoS has significantly worse security properties than PoW. The core reason is that "changing your mind" (rolling back the blockchain) is free with PoS, except for possible loss of value of the cryptocurrency, whereas it's extremely expensive with PoW. There are all sorts of band-aids yo…

Post by postalrat » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

afc wrote: post #259

karpierz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by valzam » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

toomuchredbull wrote: post #217

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 have recently started learning about nano coin... have you looked into it? It seems to be what you are talking about but perhaps it is also doomed to failure.

Post by goodoldneon » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #293

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 go…

Post by alexmingoia » Thu, Mar 18, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

iijj wrote: post #122

Maybe I don't understand it correctly, but after having recently done my taxes, it seems to me you'd generate a capital gain or loss that has to be captured on IRS Form 8949 every time such a thing triggered bitcoin to be converted to USD, goods or services. Or is it some nudge-nudge-wink-wink situation where everyone, including the IRS, ignores such a thing unless the sums involved are large.