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Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants

btctimes.com

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

#331

Post by mlcrypto »

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.

Tether fearmongers can't see the forest for the trees. They see printed tethers and see BTC going up. But they never stop to think maybe they are just keeping up with the federal reserve currency that keeps being printed

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

#332

Post by lmm »

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.

Layers 2 and 3 are not real - most networks today merge their functions in the same devices. (In the OSI model switches are illegal, you can only have hubs and routers).

4 and 7 are ceasing to be real - HTTP2 is both a session protocol and an application protocol, and that's before we even get into things like DoH.

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

#333

Post by gruez »

graeme wrote: post #326
gruez wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Those aren’t audits, those are attestations. The Gemini page says “audit”. But that isn’t what the pdfs say. Read the accountant’s writing very carefully and you’ll see it means they merely examined management’s report and their assertion that at a specific time at 3:44 pm feb 26th they had the money. https://assets.ctfassets.net/jg6lo9a2ukvr/1Qg69anSKlBi3FbFA4...

Practically speaking, what's the difference between an attestations and an audit?

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

#334

Post by smokelegend »

joering2 wrote: post #287
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this mean for exchanges like coinbase? Will they lose out new customers to visa?

Absolutely. Unsure how far Visa execution is but it could derail Coinbase IPO. Coinbase charges enormous amount to buy or sale (convert) my cash to digital coins. Its all digital anyways. If I could eliminate middle man and use cards I already have - including debit cards that Visa oversees, Coinbase would literally lose 99% of wallet holders. I mean only idiot would want to pay more to buy or sell digital currency.…

Great you get convenience for buying bitcoin but I thought one of the selling points of bitcoin was to keep payments and transactions anonymous. I don't want to have to provide ID just to buy/sell bitcoin, I certainly don't want the government to know about my transactions. I appreciate the privacy bitcoin transaction provide, why do people want to jeopardize anonymity for convenience?

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

#335

Post by gruez »

bostonsre wrote: post #324
gruez wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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.

Not too hard to get consensus if you're an authoritarian regime in china. All of the largest miners are in china. https://www.statista.com/statistics/731416/market-share-of-m...

Segwit2x had the miners support, yet it still failed.

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

#336

Post by lmm »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #212
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…

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.

> 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.

Disagree. In the current system it takes an enormous effort for the majority to suppress individually profitable but socially harmful activities (like bribery), but it can be done; many developed countries achieve quite low levels of corruption. Bitcoin makes that a lot harder, by design.

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

#337

Post by boring_twenties »

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.

This is true, and a hassle, but not totally insurmountable. For myself, I handle this with a couple of short scripts.

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

#338

Post by matheusmoreira »

qeternity wrote: post #240
matheusmoreira wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started trading about 2 weeks ago. I researched enough to know I should avoid USDT. I see no reason to doubt BUSD at this time. Are you going to explain what's wrong with the attestation?

An attestation basically says that we’ve verified that your bank says you have $X in your account. Deltec, Tether’s bank, is owned by Tether. So it’s worthless. But attestations tell you nothing about solvency. Let’s say I need to show $1k in my bank account. So I go to a loan shark. I can now get an attestation that I have $1k. It’s true, I do...but I also owe $1k. Attestations are not audits.

Thanks, I understand now. Hopefully Binance and Paxos will start auditing BUSD reserves one day.

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

#339

Post by ChainOfFools »

rawtxapp wrote: post #221
tw600040 wrote: post #175

If BTC does catch up, the current inequality of the world will look like an anthill in comparison to the inequality that BTC will create. I can't imagine the world letting that happen..

You'd be surprised as to how many early holders sold at local maximums. And at the very least, that inequality can't be permanently maintained by printing more of it to give to the wealthy.

hilariously, the people who got their coins stuck in the Mt. Gox hack back in 2014 are likely to end up with some of the biggest gains of anyone in crypto.

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

#340

Post by sebmellen »

throw0101a wrote: post #224
waheoo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're the one messing with reality here. Bitcoin needs to be stable before it can be used widespread for transactions. Visa doing this increases its adoption, increased adoption, even if used in this way will stabilise the currency. That is huge. It's just a required stepping stone.

I ran across the following observation a little while ago: the volatility of one's currency should be less than the volatility of the goods purchased by that currency .

Sounds good, but does it hold true in practice? Should the average price of a dozen eggs be more volatile than $USD? I don’t think that’s the case historically.
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