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Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

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Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stablecoins are more stable than BTC and ETH, so they have quite a bit more utility than one might think, given your comment.

Nope, what are they backed by? Nothing other than 'attestations' and 'trust me bro'. Tether is a fraudulent ponzi, USDC is not stable and is backed by meaningless attestations, Luna is, well gone all the way to the floor. Even if we take USDC on ETH there exists the uncontrollable volatile gas fee tax which is pointless for micropayments. 'Stablecoins' (or 'stabletokens' are inherently fraudulent and dead on arrival…

What is USD “backed by”? It’s not gold and it’s not any USG promise to pay.

Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable. I agree with most of what you say, but that doesn’t actually refute my point that stablecoins are, in fact, more stable than most cryptocurrencies. They are more than stable enough to use for a payment aggregation layer for a few days.

I even agree with you about Tether being a fraud; I still use USDT every day (with that knowledge) because it is, well, stable. One day it won’t be, but most days, it is.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, what are they backed by? Nothing other than 'attestations' and 'trust me bro'. Tether is a fraudulent ponzi, USDC is not stable and is backed by meaningless attestations, Luna is, well gone all the way to the floor. Even if we take USDC on ETH there exists the uncontrollable volatile gas fee tax which is pointless for micropayments. 'Stablecoins' (or 'stabletokens' are inherently fraudulent and dead on arrival…

What is USD “backed by”? It’s not gold and it’s not any USG promise to pay. Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable. I agree with most of what you say, but that doesn’t actually refute my point that stablecoins are, in fact, more stable than most cryptocurrencies. They are more than stable enough to use for a payment aggregation layer for a few days. I even agree with you about Tether being a fra…

At least we know it was backed by _something_, fiat is the worst system except all the others.

Yet USD is legal tender for US taxes and there is a shared interest in using USD rather than some risky unknown potemkin token like 'stablecoins', which nobody accepts or wants.

And you cannot pay US taxes with your stablecoins, so there's that.

> Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable...

So then we will get a LUNA situation of being backed by 'algorithms' then everyone is screwed when the token inevitably goes to zero.

Recommended Reading:

https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/stablecoins.html

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#23
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stablecoins are more stable than BTC and ETH, so they have quite a bit more utility than one might think, given your comment.

Nope, what are they backed by? Nothing other than 'attestations' and 'trust me bro'. Tether is a fraudulent ponzi, USDC is not stable and is backed by meaningless attestations, Luna is, well gone all the way to the floor. Even if we take USDC on ETH there exists the uncontrollable volatile gas fee tax which is pointless for micropayments. 'Stablecoins' (or 'stabletokens' are inherently fraudulent and dead on arrival…

Very little gas fees on L2 and it's settled to Ethereum. Tether is a scam, but USDC is pretty well backed and regulated.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#24
post #9

To a first approximation your experience is why micropayments have never taken hold… They seem as much like a great idea here in 2023 as they did in 1994 when I first read about the idea. I had just started using the internet. Micropayments are infeasible because financial infrastructure has non-trivial costs. The costs are non-trivial because there the highest incentives to steal money and thus systems need hardened…

whatever happened to flattr?

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#25

The usual solution is to just do a stored value system; give people a wallet in your system that they can top off in $20 increments, then the actual microtransactions are just a database write.

But that is also a terrible system for a user. I try to avoid any app that does this.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#26
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is USD “backed by”? It’s not gold and it’s not any USG promise to pay. Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable. I agree with most of what you say, but that doesn’t actually refute my point that stablecoins are, in fact, more stable than most cryptocurrencies. They are more than stable enough to use for a payment aggregation layer for a few days. I even agree with you about Tether being a fra…

At least we know it was backed by _something_, fiat is the worst system except all the others. Yet USD is legal tender for US taxes and there is a shared interest in using USD rather than some risky unknown potemkin token like 'stablecoins', which nobody accepts or wants. And you cannot pay US taxes with your stablecoins, so there's that. > Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable... So then we wi…

> rather than some risky unknown potemkin token like 'stablecoins', which nobody accepts or wants.

I know many, many people in many countries who accept stablecoins as cash-equivalent. I think perhaps you underestimate the market.

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#27

The usual solution is to just do a stored value system; give people a wallet in your system that they can top off in $20 increments, then the actual microtransactions are just a database write.

But that is also a terrible system for a user. I try to avoid any app that does this.

curious do you find other systems? Because as OP says it s still not feasible to do microtransactions on the web

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, what are they backed by? Nothing other than 'attestations' and 'trust me bro'. Tether is a fraudulent ponzi, USDC is not stable and is backed by meaningless attestations, Luna is, well gone all the way to the floor. Even if we take USDC on ETH there exists the uncontrollable volatile gas fee tax which is pointless for micropayments. 'Stablecoins' (or 'stabletokens' are inherently fraudulent and dead on arrival…

What is USD “backed by”? It’s not gold and it’s not any USG promise to pay. Stablecoins don’t need to be backed by anything to be stable. I agree with most of what you say, but that doesn’t actually refute my point that stablecoins are, in fact, more stable than most cryptocurrencies. They are more than stable enough to use for a payment aggregation layer for a few days. I even agree with you about Tether being a fra…

Stable coins are pegged to $ so they need to be backed by it (or other assets denominated in $) pretty much be definition

Re: Ash HN: Best Micropayment Processor?

#29

The usual solution is to just do a stored value system; give people a wallet in your system that they can top off in $20 increments, then the actual microtransactions are just a database write.

But that is also a terrible system for a user. I try to avoid any app that does this.

In theory I agree, meaning I'm the same way.

In practice I don't believe it's true though, as there are very popular (outside the US) payments systems like Satispay the are exactly like that.

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