MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies • Hacker News Board

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#301

Post by ivalm » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #118

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system for spending Bitcoin would inherently put sell orders in at market price (directly or indirectly). This consumes the highest priced bids and moves the price down. It’s the same story with any currency. Basic foreign exchange concepts.

Smart sellers don't sell everything at the market price as soon as they can, because that would cut through the crust of fair asks into the mantle of waiting opportunists. Instead they spread it out, at a rate the ongoing volume can bear.

If you sell Bitcoin every time you buy bread then you just sell whenever. It will be a large flow of market orders even if there aren’t enough asks.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#302

Post by ivalm » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

octocop wrote: post #274

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If it’s in your best interest to buy and never sell, why would anyone want to use it for exchange? Define best interest here. I mean saving money and investing it to make more money is also in everyone's best interest, but that is certainly not the case. So why is that?

Investing money in productive enterprise is the thing that is in societal benefit. Investing money in a virtual asset that has no other benefit and massive ecological costs is not a benefit.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#303

Post by Triv888 » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

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…

Webull does the same thing... 1% spread in both directions I think (2% total). At least Coinbase are honest and charge a fee and don't claim to be fee-free.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#304

Post by scandox » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

sz4kerto wrote: post #300

cma wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it lose more than 100% of its value?

I'm living in an EU-member country. Our currency has lost half of its value compared to the USD since 2008. How? 'Slowly and steadily.'

I think they mean mathematically how could it lose more than 100%.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#305

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #301

whatshisface wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart sellers don't sell everything at the market price as soon as they can, because that would cut through the crust of fair asks into the mantle of waiting opportunists. Instead they spread it out, at a rate the ongoing volume can bear.

If you sell Bitcoin every time you buy bread then you just sell whenever. It will be a large flow of market orders even if there aren’t enough asks.

You don't sell Bitcoin every time you buy bread, the merchant obtains bitcoin and sells it when they think they should. If nobody is holding Bitcoin, you have to buy it when you buy bread, which means there's a 1:1 balance between buying and selling with each transaction. If everybody is holding bitcoin, then the merchant will not mind waiting a little to offload it, because they know they will do better by taking their time.

I guess you're describing a situation where Bitcoin is used purely as a store of value and never as a medium of exchange. I can agree that a fiat store of value, if never used as a medium of exchange, or even a numeraire, is on very shaky ground.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#306

Post by sktrdie » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

Aliens: look at this species they've come up with this weird concept of "money". Some of them have more & can obtain more resources with it. Because they can't trust each other they need a book-keeping system that uses more resources than they needed in the first place! Quite ironic.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#307

Post by trhway » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #251

centimeter wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPI is a joke of a metric. Very few economists take it seriously.

What metric would you prefer?

my favorite is M3 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MABMM301USM189S

Edit: I thought it was obvious, yet in response to comment below - theoretically to get real inflation one has to adjust the M3 for the growth of the total amount of "stuff" in the economy. As that growth is just 1-2%/year , the M3 shape is visually indistinguishable from the real inflation on any given time period of up to several years.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#308

Post by whobar » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #203

arcticbull wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't shared "the point" just a link to MicroStrategy, a failed software company whose CEO had to pay an $11 million dollar SEC settlement decades ago for cooking the books, making a desperate Hail Mary play buying near the top of a speculative mania in a bid to gain relevancy. MSTR is the new "Long Island Iced Tea" -> "Long Blockchain Inc" rebrand [1] Humorously enough, the same is roughly true of Tesla, a car…

You know, your point about Tesla has given me lots of conflict. What did I miss? Obviously this question came when I sold off my TSLA stock at 500$ thinking — it was overvalued — and then watching it rise to the equivalent of 4,000$. I reached the conclusion it’s no longer solely about cash flow and debt ratios and market cap and addressable market and whatever other traditional metrics we previously used to value co…

I think you can't judge whether TSLA is overvalued or not until they are no longer instantly selling out of all their products. People are bullish on TSLA because they have a product that many, many people want, more than they have the capability to supply.

Once they have their peak production capacity and have surplus stock across all markets we will get a better idea of their true value.

The most that the price of TSLA and BTC have in common is that both their values can be represented on a graph.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#309

Post by ivalm » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #180

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you apply this logic to USD? You either want to hold it or want to use it? Of course it applies. Holding lots of dollars ( e.g. as hard cash or in a checking account) is stupid. That is the purpose and benefit of (mild) inflation: to incentivise consuming or investing them.

What if cryptocurrencies do not have the inflation problem?

But inflation isn’t a problem, it’s a benefit. We want people to spend or invest (in production) their money; economy works best when money is actively circulated, not hoarded. The problem with a totally fixed money supply is that as productivity grows new investments are disincentivizes, as a fixed currently holder get the benefits of aggregate productivity increases (through deflation) without risking his money in investing in companies.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#310

Post by bob33212 » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #281

the_local_host wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The original idea of Bitcoin was to have a currency that wasn’t in government control I've never understood this. With an immutable ledger of all transactions, governments simply have to make it illegal to transact anonymously (or pseudonymously), watch the blockchain, and investigate any un-attributed transactions. It would actually enhance governments' surveillance capabilities against anyone not willing to run t…

Copyright infringement was also always illegal (and still is). That doesn't mean that Napster, BitTorrent, etc. didn't massively increase access to music outside the control of the copyright system.

Perfect analogy. From 1998-2006 it was easier to get pirated music than pay for it. Once the music industry realized that the days of people paying $20 per CD that they may only listen to a few times were over, the streamers took over and now 90+% of music is listened to with permission of the centralized gate keepers.

Regulators and other parties will catch up eventually. When there is a 500% tax on homes/cars you purchase with BTC the whole "decentralization/permissionless" idea will fade away.