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Stripe Crypto

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Re: Stripe Crypto

#331
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe is largely selling well-made shovels for the gold rush here. ... This time around, they ... don't have any exposure to the volatile world of ETH or other coins. Which is... even more evil? They're encouraging an externality which harms normal people but not them.

They're not encouraging crypto anymore than a liquor store encourages alcoholism. The liquor store may lower the barrier to entry for obtaining a bottle of alcohol, but it's ultimately the alcoholics choice to enter the store and purchase it. Offering a product is not evil or immoral. It may be amoral but that's not the same as immoral. Ultimately the market decides what stays and goes except in extraordinary circums…

Oh yes, the "If I didn't sell them X, someone else would have done" excuse.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not encouraging crypto anymore than a liquor store encourages alcoholism. The liquor store may lower the barrier to entry for obtaining a bottle of alcohol, but it's ultimately the alcoholics choice to enter the store and purchase it. Offering a product is not evil or immoral. It may be amoral but that's not the same as immoral. Ultimately the market decides what stays and goes except in extraordinary circums…

"Offering a product is not evil or immoral" - this is the motto of my "Heroin for kids" brand. Selling a ponzi scheme may not be illegal, but it seems plausibly immoral.

Yeah, but in this case Stripe is one step removed morally as well. I don't see this as materially different from them being a payment processor for an online liquor store or a pyramid seller like LuLaRoe.

You could say that a payment processor should morally screen their clients in general, but that seems like a stronger and not-so-reasonable statement. They do prohibit certain kinds of businesses, but I think the bar for that is very high and likely related to chargeback concerns and such.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#333

It's very strange seeing the option near the bottom of the page to donate a fraction of your revenue from Stripe Crypto to carbon recapture efforts. I agree with Stripe that, at this point, the solution to our climate problems must include carbon recapture, but it's not an ideal situation to be in. Businesses entering the crypto space always seem to tout carbon offsets and sidechains that use less energy, but offsets…

Stripe doesn't give two shits about the environment. It's just good PR. If they did, they would know that investing money in carbon recapture is not an effective way to combat climate change. I've had it up to here with people trying to find a technofix to all our problems. It's much more simple than that.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#334
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes from the office of the NYS attorney general. https://ag.ny.gov/consumer-frauds/pyramid-schemes Please send them an email elucidating the finer points of what scheme is what.

I'm aware of what page it comes from. I'm also aware that not all communications use exact definitions at all times! Your smugness is not called for. If you just want to link some government pages in the google results for 'pyramid scheme', here's one following the precise definition: https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes...

My point is, it doesn't matter whether you or I consider it a "bad definition". To say that these things are not pyramid schemes "in any way" is unnecessarily pedantic and not useful considering the context (the implications of their terms of service).

Re: Stripe Crypto

#335
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMO if you encounter any non-technical artist "excited" about NFTs, tell them to stay the hell away, or risk being seen a bad friend. Fuck that, despite me being incredibly skeptical of NFTs I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge the fact that some of my non-technical artist friends have earned 6-7 figure amounts selling NFTs.

6-7 figure amounts selling something of no worth to people who on average do not have any comprehension of it and which opens them up to fraud and scams. Great. If an artist friend of mine sells an NFT I am going to struggle with continuing to see them as a friend, because it's morally bankrupt. If a non-technical artist comes to you and asks for help selling an entirely phantom product to their presumably only-avera…

I don’t get it. How are my friends morally bankrupt for selling NFTs to people like Will Smith or Dubai royalty? Same people who are buying their art to hang on their walls.

It’s not like NFTs brought them a whole new audience, it’s just that their existing audience wanted NFTs.

You might think NFTs are worthless, but the exact same argument goes for easily reproduced physical works of art.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes yes and let's not forget tulip mania! Did you know that DRUG DEALERS use crypto?!

Is there a rebuttal? Greater fools scheme is a valid criticism, can't just handwave it away everytime

presumably a Stripe service built on ERC20 would support stablecoins (DAI, RAI, USDC), which will be pretty central to many crypto-commerce businesses. there is no greater fool in these closed systems.

source: I am selling art prints via stablecoins as a payment option for interested customers, but I’m manually handling the transactions, invoicing, and accounting (Stripe crypto could be an option for a small business like me).

Re: Stripe Crypto

#337
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My European debit card number worked just fine (as it basically always does when someone asks for a “credit card”)

I only had a EC card, but now have a credit card as well. (all those different standards are a bit annoying)

By choosing to only have an EC card you’re making a deliberate choice to make your life difficult by using an incredibly obscure method of payment, no?

You can hardly expect those to work even in other EU countries, much less with an US based online business.

Almost everybody else in the world has a visa or a mastercard (or unionpay)

Re: Stripe Crypto

#338
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of what page it comes from. I'm also aware that not all communications use exact definitions at all times! Your smugness is not called for. If you just want to link some government pages in the google results for 'pyramid scheme', here's one following the precise definition: https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes...

My point is, it doesn't matter whether you or I consider it a "bad definition". To say that these things are not pyramid schemes "in any way" is unnecessarily pedantic and not useful considering the context (the implications of their terms of service).

As far as the terms of service go, I could see conflating a pyramid and a ponzi, but a pump and dump is pretty distantly related.

And saying they need to remove that part of the ToS to honestly accept any crypto business is silly.

You could make an argument against allowing entirely new coins, I guess, but that's more about the other ToS terms than 'pyramid scheme'.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With NFTs they can get a cut of every transfer indefinitely How does that work? Also, what is to stop people copying it anyway and what is to stop artist from getting underpaid? All serious questions that I'd like to see answers to but don't understand how NFTs would solve any of them.

Royalties are built into marketplace smart contracts. Individuals can do P2P trades where the artist doesn't receive any royalty but this doesn't happen very often. Anecdotally, it typically only happens on large deals and people who do a P2P trade often send the artist their royalty anyway (but still benefit from not paying the OpenSea fees for example) Not sure what you mean by the second question

Wait, so the purported royalty benefit of wrapping this in a contract can be circumvented, but the NFT tech is still good because people who circumvent this kindly send the artist the royalty anyway? Would they not be able to send the same courtesy royalty if no NFTs were involved?

Re: Stripe Crypto

#340
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I thought your refusal was probably well justified considering the disproportionate levels of credit card fraud involved in anything to do with crypto. I'd love to see your end of year statistics now...

> disproportionate levels of credit card fraud involved in anything to do with crypto I'm really curious what your source is for this. Anyone legit in crypto who's taking fiat is doing way more KYC than your average ecommerce store.

My personal observation. A large proportion of credit card payment were fraud, or flagged as such. It was such a huge number (% wise) that I (thought I) understood why stripe pulled the rug out. And in another project I observed a very large and sudden increase at attempted fraud right after elements of crypto were introduced (including attempts at impersonating me, and someone else involved).

But honestly, when it comes to the crypto world, I'm that guy who laughed at that other guy for buying bitcoin at 20 cents. There was a lesson there somewhere.

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