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Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

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Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that you are a business that operates in Bitcoin and pays employees in Bitcoin. How does Lightning solve that? It doesn't. Lightning falls apart if the graph has heavily asymmetric connections, and the only solution is to have banks, which is what these crypto enthusiasts want to get rid of in the first place. https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-...

> Imagine that you are a business that operates in Bitcoin and pays employees in Bitcoin. Then you use a single, non-Lightning transaction with an output for each employee, and the fee for that transaction is most likely less than half a percent of the total amount being transferred[1]. [1] Actually just 0.35% ($170 fee / $48k wages) assuming a fee of 520 satoshis/byte, 34 bytes per output, 140 bytes of fixed overhea…

You've ignored how the business got the Bitcoins to begin with. Its customers have to pay the transaction fee to send the Bitcoins to the business. The business's wallet is therefore fragmented, so the number of bytes in its transactions to pay its employees is higher than your estimate.

Or they could pay you via the bank and accept payments through their bank like every other business. Then the transaction fees are negligible. The Lightning network did not help at all in this scenario.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#172
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liquidity to sell to fiat is drying up after many are realizing the valuations for crypto are completely fraudulent. There is an astronomical amount of centralized crypto printing going on that has corrupted the entire crypto ecosystem. Tether just wrote in their legal terms that as a of January 1st tether can't be redeemed or used by Americans even though it backs USD. Corrupt exchanges inflated the prices and i…

This is not true. Liquidity in these markets is steadily increasing. It is easier now to sell large amounts of Bitcoin than it was two years ago, and it was easier then than two years prior.

The liquidity is increasing because of the current gold rush. People who have no business getting into this kind of investment are buying in, thus increasing liquidity. I can no longer count the amount of acquintances who have bought 5-10K USD worth of BTC or Litecoin or Ripple or whatever, without having even a cursory understanding of the mechanics behind it.

These types of investors also panic easily, once the bank run starts, nobody will be buying. In fact, I bet most exchanges will simply close up shop.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#173
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of making it difficult to exit crypto means traditional banking will long-term be on the losing end as people who buy into crypto (even as novelty) won't want to "cash out" due to difficulty while realizing how convoluted the fiat process is when viewed from the outside. They'll find ways to stay in crypto and get things done.

This is false. When you find that you can't sell your tulips for dutch guilder, you don't set up a mirror economy that uses tulips for currency. Instead, you find tulip prices collapsing, and yourself broke. Why would my landlord, who is not vested in crypto, want to exchange goods and services for bitcoins that he can't cash out to pay his contractors, taxes, etc? Nobody wants to be paid in illiquid assets, what on…

I'll take your crypto as payment though. And so will other people. Maybe not everyone, but as long as enough people do to make it a currency it has value.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#174

A few thoughts from a CEO in this space: 1. There are very few issuing banks for crypto fiat debit cards. Internationally there has been 1 WaveCrest; which as of a few months ago decided to discontinue support. 2. Even when a bank will sponsor a crypto fiat debit card into one of the payment networks, the company offering the card will face constant pressure from their own bankers. 3. This happening is from my perspe…

1) Think from their perspective. They have very little upside for integrating with cryptocurrency platforms. It adds nothing to the bottom line. If anything, it subtracts from their bottom line, due to the added compliance work required to prevent crypto money launderers. 2) Stop saying crypto is decentralized. The vast majority of cryptocurrencies are mined by a small minority, and most participants have zero say in…

1. It's YOUR money and property. May as well have government prevent you from wearing gloves because there is extra work to make sure you do not use gloves in a crime.

2. It is decentralized. Anyone is free to trade, free to mine, free to fork. No papers needed

Sounds like someone is a bit upset they didn't spend a few $100 or few $1000 when BTC/BCH/ETH was cheap.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#175
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of making it difficult to exit crypto means traditional banking will long-term be on the losing end as people who buy into crypto (even as novelty) won't want to "cash out" due to difficulty while realizing how convoluted the fiat process is when viewed from the outside. They'll find ways to stay in crypto and get things done.

This is false. When you find that you can't sell your tulips for dutch guilder, you don't set up a mirror economy that uses tulips for currency. Instead, you find tulip prices collapsing, and yourself broke. Why would my landlord, who is not vested in crypto, want to exchange goods and services for bitcoins that he can't cash out to pay his contractors, taxes, etc? Nobody wants to be paid in illiquid assets, what on…

As a landlord myself (obviously you are not by your comments) I offer accepting BCH or ETH for payment.

I buy more and more stuff online with BCH and then convert back to fiat when I need to use local currency here at merchants that are not yet supporting BCH.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#177
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I tried it and you're right RaiBlocks is a game changer. Instant transaction and zero fee? Hows the security though?

Can you make the fact you're a shill any more obvious?

Are you kidding, last time I played with crypto the confirmations took like an hour - I didn't really bother using it any more.

I don't know how XRB makes it so fast but I'm calling it right now - whoever has the fastest transaction speed will become the first global currency.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#178
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> traditional banking will long-term be on the losing end as people who buy into crypto (even as novelty) won't want to "cash out" due to difficulty There is context for this. China and Venezuela's capital controls are why everyone wants to hold renminbi and bolivars.

They want to hold renminbi and bolivars because it is necessary in order to pay taxes.

My comment was facetious. Both countries’ currencies are plagued with flight problems.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#179

A few thoughts from a CEO in this space: 1. There are very few issuing banks for crypto fiat debit cards. Internationally there has been 1 WaveCrest; which as of a few months ago decided to discontinue support. 2. Even when a bank will sponsor a crypto fiat debit card into one of the payment networks, the company offering the card will face constant pressure from their own bankers. 3. This happening is from my perspe…

As someone who's been transfering quite a lot of money through various banks and into crypto I'd imaging the biggest issue is the money laundering type regulations. For transfers much over $20k normal banks want documentation where it came from and all your normal transactions can be viewed by the government for tax enforcement purposes. Once you're in crypto that's all out the window - I've been trading on Kucoin which is kind of based in HK or China but no one quite knows where, doesn't keep much in the way of records, if you were transfering crypto out for drugs or tax purposes no one would know. So I can see how Visa would be worried about being party to that kind of thing and then fined or prosecuted for it.

By the way re "no good way in" I've found coinmate.io pretty good once you get the money to them but it has to come from a bank account in your own name and those can be funny about letting you transfer to them. Also it's kind of slow - once your money arrives you have to wait a day or so for a human to process it.

Re: Bitcoin Visa debit cards are cancelled

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you make the fact you're a shill any more obvious?

Are you kidding, last time I played with crypto the confirmations took like an hour - I didn't really bother using it any more. I don't know how XRB makes it so fast but I'm calling it right now - whoever has the fastest transaction speed will become the first global currency.

Have fun with PayPal and Visa then. Some people just don't get it.
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