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Stripe Crypto

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Re: Stripe Crypto

#341

It is important to recognize that Stripe is largely selling well-made shovels for the gold rush here. They have a history of diving more deeply into this market [1] and withdrawing from it before [2], so this is just Take 2. This time around, they are not themselves buying Cube Thingies or similar and don't have any exposure to the volatile world of ETH or other coins. I think there will be decent transfer of money f…

I have a friend of a friend who has a really low salary (think less than $500/month - third-world country) who spends 1/3 of his income on LoL digital items. Knowing that really changed my perspective on the viability of NFT. It's more addictive than digital stuff that you buy but can't sell.

Now you can buy to maybe sell for a higher price in the future. That should increase engagement and the user base. It is still a very particular behavior that only a small fraction of society engages in.

But there is 6.6Bn smartphone users in this world. If a tiny 0.1% of the population buys/sells NFT for fun and addition, that's still 6.6 million user. That's billions of $$ pumped into the NFT economy and dozens of billions of "value" for these digital items.

The world is crazy once you go from the local scale to the global scale.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My interest in web3 + art is from finding new livable income sources for artists generally You should track down the New York Times article from this past weekend. From memory, it says that despite all the hype, almost no artists are making any money from NFTs. The average sale price is less than $400, which doesn't even cover materials.

What exactly are the "materials" to create an NFT? Photoshop?

Time and expertise to develop skills, rent, food and bills while they work.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#343
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device holds a private key that can be regenerated from 12 seed words. The device itself doesn't really matter if you know these 12 words. The key is what lets you update ownership information on the public block chain. The wallet doesn't hold any coins on the device, just a key that let's you update the chain of public ownership. For example: - You live in Russia and see the writing on the wall for invasion and…

First of all, if you have to liquidate 90% of your wealth in the middle of a market crash you're going to lose most of it before you even get it out of the country. This, of course, assuming you can get out of the country, which for many people is not a realistic option. And finally, movements of capital across borders are highly regulated. You can't simply cross the border and "recreate" your wealth on the other sid…

> "if you have to liquidate 90% of your wealth in the middle of a market crash"

That's why I said before the invasion, if the market already crashed probably too late to matter, but you'd still want to get whatever you have out.

> "And finally, movements of capital across borders are highly regulated. You can't simply cross the border and "recreate" your wealth on the other side, because all you will have re-created is a pile of dirty money that now will have to be laundered at a great expense. All this is illegal, by the way."

We're talking about escaping an autocratic authoritarian government. With BTC you can simply cross the border and recreate your wealth in a way that protects you from that government accessing it - that's my point.

I don't think you're arguing in good faith so this is the last reply from me.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the current system when an artist creates something and sells it, they typically get paid once, often lowballed. The buyer may turn around and sell it for 100x. The buyer made far more than the artist, who gets nothing in this scenario. With NFTs the artist can get a cut of every transfer indefinitely.

Oh so it's a pyramid scheme as well? What a horrible payment system. Imagine if whenever you sold your car you had to take a fraction of what you received for it and give it back to the dealership (or rather, the manufacturer in this case).

[deleted]

Re: Stripe Crypto

#345
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.

That’s way a huge amount of NFT’s don’t end up as rug pulls and scams right?

Re: Stripe Crypto

#346
post #222

Things like this where companies reinvent traditional payment processing “but with crypto” is the antithesis of what crypto used to stand for. As a former believer in the original goal of private p2p digital cash, I am saddened by what crypto has become in practice. Crypto is just centralized as the traditional financial system. Oh and nobody actually uses it as a currency. I feel like I’m one of few who’s actually p…

There are still crypto projects whose primary focus is privacy (eg monero). But unsurprisingly, it's difficult to spend that money without going through a KYC process. I think the "dream" of truly private transactions was always unrealistic. Governments have many tools at their disposal to get what they want. Even cash is only so private. In the USA cash purchases over $10,000 require a report to the IRS.

Particl.io has built a marketplace for this. It hasn't taken off yet but the 'dream' seems to be their dream too

Re: Stripe Crypto

#347
post #271

It is important to recognize that Stripe is largely selling well-made shovels for the gold rush here. They have a history of diving more deeply into this market [1] and withdrawing from it before [2], so this is just Take 2. This time around, they are not themselves buying Cube Thingies or similar and don't have any exposure to the volatile world of ETH or other coins. I think there will be decent transfer of money f…

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.

Ugh - not a fan of declaring everything you disagree with as "evil".

I think NFTs, along with the vast majority (but not all) crypto, are total bullshit, but I also accept (a) I could be totally wrong in this, in which case, my loss, and (b) offering rails to sell these items doesn't strike me as "evil" in the slightest.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device holds a private key that can be regenerated from 12 seed words. The device itself doesn't really matter if you know these 12 words. The key is what lets you update ownership information on the public block chain. The wallet doesn't hold any coins on the device, just a key that let's you update the chain of public ownership. For example: - You live in Russia and see the writing on the wall for invasion and…

So a key step in there is finding someone that's willing to take your local currency in exchange for a not-local asset that you can access later. Would it be very different if that asset was Euros? Or ownership of gold that's stored in Chile? If you need any documents you can store them in a secret passworded account.

You're right that if you have access to foreign bank accounts or currency that can be an option (can be hard to get if you're in a country with a hostile government). Often BTC is the most accessible option available.

Crypto is the only option where you have the (practical) capability of true custodial ownership (as opposed to trusting a third party to hold it for you). Practical meaning you can actually take it with you in a low risk way (you're probably not escaping your hostile government with gold bars if you're even able to buy them in the first place).

Re: Stripe Crypto

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My interest in web3 + art is from finding new livable income sources for artists generally. Less about big money speculation, more about getting more artists supported such that they don’t need a day job or purely commercial art pursuits (as opposed to “fine art”). I understand the current state of crypto isn’t near offering this outside of hyped speculative investments I’m also not interested in ideas on a shelf tha…

What is the pitch for how web3 will help artists find income without purely commercial art pursuits? Every single web3 art project I've seen has been entirely commercial.

Maybe I don't understand the question enough because I'm wondering if DeFi is excluded as a viable answer, but possibly you're just not aware of it? But it seems like it's making lots of people money and that seems inclusive of artists.

Re: Stripe Crypto

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Besides, why commit credit card fraud when there are so many scam options available in the crypto world. :)

There are always scams of different flavours around - that doesn't stop anyone from picking one or another. The appearance of easy money attracts those who seek easy money.
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