Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 910 posts

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#21

Post by soheil »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

These stories usually spur more enthusiasm for buying cryptocurrency, but ironically those buyers aren’t interested in spending cryptocurrency using their MasterCard. They’re hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency from these announcements, driving the price up. Or, more likely, they’re just hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency and not use it in these spending systems. Spending cryptocurrency would result…

> Spending cryptocurrency would result in selling that cryptocurrency, which would drive the price down. That’s not what cryptocurrency investors actually want.

Is this necessarily true? If you have a merchant that accepts cryptocurrency why would that drive down the price? (e.g. Tesla [1])

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/tesla-buys-1point5-billion-i...

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#22

Post by phatfish »

sschueller wrote: post #5

I don't want mastercard supporting crypto. I want the merchants and payment providers supporting crypto so I do not have to use mastercard and their "rules". If I want to pay for porn or send a donation to wikileaks I do not want mastercard/paypal or anyone else other than the government (if it's legal I should be allowed to pay for it) deciding if that is ok.

Hasn't Wikileaks published crypto addresses for a long time? You can send directly to them right now. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a porn site out there taking payment directly though a Bitcoin address too.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#23

Post by loceng »

impostervt wrote: post #20

Unclear what this actually means. Can I pay my credit card bill using crypto? That's a taxable event and a pain in the butt to track. Can I buy stuff from merchants using crypto, and they receive crypto? Useful, but most merchants will want fiat currency, so someone on the chain will have to convert it to dollars, which again would be a taxable event.

I don't get it - you're trying to avoid paying tax into the society that you're using, benefitting from?

Edit to add: Many replies are acting as if it's difficult to automatically, digitally track conversions and taxes, to then pay your taxes? It's a digital "currency" we're talking about here.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#24

Post by ValentineC »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #6
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

These stories usually spur more enthusiasm for buying cryptocurrency, but ironically those buyers aren’t interested in spending cryptocurrency using their MasterCard. They’re hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency from these announcements, driving the price up. Or, more likely, they’re just hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency and not use it in these spending systems. Spending cryptocurrency would result…

I’m in the minority in that I’d like to be able to spend my cryptocurrency in a way that: 1. The card handles also selling some off for taxes every transaction and put that in an interest-accruing account. 2. The card tracked my capital gains for each transaction for easy reporting on taxes. 3. The card provider will help manage fees - I’d rather bulk deposit funds to a layer2 and have fee-less payments over having t…

> I’d prefer if it wasn’t MasterCard since I use Visa cards, but I can’t complain too much.

I'm curious: is this because your preferred bank mainly issues Visa cards, or are there things about MasterCard that you don't like?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#25

Post by PragmaticPulp »

vortico wrote: post #15
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin transaction fees are currently around $8. My credit card pays me 2% to use it. No one wants to use the Bitcoin blockchain for average transactions. No one is buying Bitcoin as anything other than a speculative investment right now.

Bitcoin is only good for large transactions, but there are 1000000 cryptocurrencies that solve this problem such as BCH, USDT, and LTC. Use one of them.

Honestly, why?

My credit card pays me 2% to use it.

If there’s a problem with my transaction, I click some buttons and the card company reversed the charges.

If I lose my card, I call them up and get another one overnight without losing all my money.

Why would I give all of that up, pay exchange fees on both ends of a transaction, pay transaction fees (however small), and wait longer for my transactions to clear?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#26

Post by T0Bi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17
tehlike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine basically put it this way: bitcoin can't become medium of exchange before it becomes medium of value. You can read this as: if you are holding btc, it's in your best interest to hold more without selling.

If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Bitcoin’s deflationary nature discourages spending and selling, by definition. The high transaction costs discourage it even further.

How is bitcoin deflationary when it (currently) has a fixed inflation?

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#27

Post by liquidify »

sschueller wrote: post #10
ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #4

The game Paypal currently plays with Crypto is the closest thing to printing money I have ever seen: Their users can "buy and sell Bitcoin" and pay "no fees". How does Paypal make money? "From the spread". The difference between bid and ask. And who sets the spread? Drumroll ... Paypal! Since you cannot transfer your bitcoins out, when you sell your bitcoins, Paypal pays you whatever they like. So far, Paypal only of…

That is outright scam in my view. They never have to hold bitcoin. They may as well sell paypal coin. Robinhood and Revolut do the same thing. If you can't transfer out your bitcoin, you don't have any bitcoin.

They couldn't do that. If they didn't actually have any crypto, in the event of a large scale increase in price combined with a large scale cash out, Paypal would have to eat the difference from buy to sell price. They would lose their shirt. At minimum, Paypal is buying some percentage of the crypto sales in actual crypto to act as a hedge. However, it is more likely they are closer to 1 to 1 backing since they probably believe that there will be large upward movements in the future and they believe they can make money on both the spreads and the actual bitcoin (assuming they ever care to sell it).

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#28

Post by mindvirus »

loceng wrote: post #23
impostervt wrote: post #20

Unclear what this actually means. Can I pay my credit card bill using crypto? That's a taxable event and a pain in the butt to track. Can I buy stuff from merchants using crypto, and they receive crypto? Useful, but most merchants will want fiat currency, so someone on the chain will have to convert it to dollars, which again would be a taxable event.

I don't get it - you're trying to avoid paying tax into the society that you're using, benefitting from? Edit to add: Many replies are acting as if it's difficult to automatically, digitally track conversions and taxes, to then pay your taxes? It's a digital "currency" we're talking about here.

I think the OP is noting that it makes taxes complicated. Imagine having to track and report every time you went to Starbucks to the IRS, which you would have to if you converted crypto to dollars to buy a coffee.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#29

Post by PragmaticPulp »

soheil wrote: post #21
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

These stories usually spur more enthusiasm for buying cryptocurrency, but ironically those buyers aren’t interested in spending cryptocurrency using their MasterCard. They’re hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency from these announcements, driving the price up. Or, more likely, they’re just hoping other people will buy cryptocurrency and not use it in these spending systems. Spending cryptocurrency would result…

> Spending cryptocurrency would result in selling that cryptocurrency, which would drive the price down. That’s not what cryptocurrency investors actually want. Is this necessarily true? If you have a merchant that accepts cryptocurrency why would that drive down the price? (e.g. Tesla [1]) [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/tesla-buys-1point5-billion-i...

What do you vendors do with any of the money you pay them?

They spend it on paying employees and buying raw materials. It’s getting spent (sold) one way or another.

Tesla is no exception.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#30

Post by impostervt »

loceng wrote: post #23
impostervt wrote: post #20

Unclear what this actually means. Can I pay my credit card bill using crypto? That's a taxable event and a pain in the butt to track. Can I buy stuff from merchants using crypto, and they receive crypto? Useful, but most merchants will want fiat currency, so someone on the chain will have to convert it to dollars, which again would be a taxable event.

I don't get it - you're trying to avoid paying tax into the society that you're using, benefitting from? Edit to add: Many replies are acting as if it's difficult to automatically, digitally track conversions and taxes, to then pay your taxes? It's a digital "currency" we're talking about here.

No, I don't mean sales tax. I mean converting from crypto to fiat, in the US, is treated like capital gains. So you get to pay taxes twice on the event.
Post reply on HN