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MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

reuters.com

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Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#761

Post by kristianp »

michaelmrose wrote: post #710
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…

If your credit card gives you 1% back but charges walmart 2% and walmart takes this 2% into account when setting their prices then you aren't getting paid to use your credit card you are paying 1%.

Are you talking about flyer miles when you say the card gives you 1% back? (I'm not in the USA, so I might not know what you're referring to)

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#762

Post by spats1990 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #660
scotty79 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare this to wealth of Elon Musk. This month he's the richest person on planet, two months ago he wasn't even in top 10 (I think). Did anything changed for him? No. Can he not be the richest man on the planet in two months? Sure. Will it change anything for him? Still no. I pretty much think about people who got into bitcoin early and they have more than 1000% gain and just hodl because they don't have much use fo…

The future would be very weird if the singular determinant of a person's success in life is how early they invested in Bitcoin. Which is one of many reasons why we're not going to have a mass switchover to Bitcoin. It wouldn't actually benefit the average person, but it would make early adopters ridiculously wealthy for having clicked the right buy button at the right time and not lost their private key along the way…

>In reality, once Bitcoin becomes a mechanism for the early adopters to wield wealth over the later adopters, everyone who didn't get rich early on will switch to playing a different game. No reason to go all-in on Bitcoin if the system is stacked in so far in favor of early adopters that you'll never be one of the wealthy ones.

Where I live, this is how some people my age are starting to feel about real estate. Maybe that's why cryptos are so popular, for better or worse, among younger people.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#763

Post by vivekd »

halukakin wrote: post #373
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that this aspect of the conversation so often gets replaced by everything else. This is (IMO) the most important point about digital currency - the promise of providing consumers in unstable economies the chance to convert to a more stable currency without government intrusion. We're still not there, but that should be the north star for crypto (again, in my opinion).

Say everyone in an unstable economy were paid in usd. If that country has foreign deficit, if that country has high government debt. What happens? How can the government keep paying its own employees? How does it pay retiree checks? How does it subsidize farming when needed? As long as a country cannot print usd itself, this is a fast shortcut to unemployment, hunger, etc... Strong currencies are not the solution to…

>Good governance and democracy makes a country and its currency strong. Not vice versa.

The issue with this argument is that good government is a very hard problem that in many cases has no clear immediate solutions. While things like crypto many not be a solution they are a vood stopgap solution for the problems created by bad governments - at least until we can get thw good governance problem solved

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#764

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

totalZero wrote: post #716
halukakin wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say everyone in an unstable economy were paid in usd. If that country has foreign deficit, if that country has high government debt. What happens? How can the government keep paying its own employees? How does it pay retiree checks? How does it subsidize farming when needed? As long as a country cannot print usd itself, this is a fast shortcut to unemployment, hunger, etc... Strong currencies are not the solution to…

I don't think the answer to this question plays out the way you want it to... 1. Countries that have natural resources can raise capital when they need to, either by selling/taxing rights to those resources or by selling nationalized resources. Ecuador for example uses the dollar and also produces about a half of a million barrels of oil per day. 2. For many developing countries, the whole point of using the dollar i…

I think this is only half the story.

What you are missing in your detail is that ecuador actually got itself into a very serious currency bind precovid, and it seems to be staying that way.

So this would validate parent comment and actually negate your assertion that parent was incorrect.

That being said, this is half the story. And its the other part that matters. This is the first time ecuador gets in trouble post USD adoption. Where it goes from here will directly prove or disprove the very thesis, that parent comment assumed was a foregone conclusion.

Thus , your refutation may be correct after all, except for what i believe are different reasons.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#765

Post by nexthash »

rantwasp wrote: post #753
nexthash wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't invest in what you don't understand is the #1 rule of investing. If you jump off the deep end without knowing what's at the bottom, you are at a high risk of losing what you put in. New technology always comes with this risk. That's kind of why most don't touch crypto - its far too technically complex for them to even comprehend the risks. If you've followed crypto and blockchain for long enough though, you rea…

it’s okay to not see the potential. blockchain is more than a distributed database. in a distributed database someone is still in charge and can make decisions unilaterally about how the data is altered. in blockchain you have a bunch of entities that can transact with each other with zero trust and without the need of a central authority. that is the truly innovative aspect of the blockchain and what sets it apart.

No, no, no! That's the whole reason behind why it sucks... you can't trust it! You have to verify every record on that chain by yourself, and if you make a mistake in a transaction or other operation there is no court or process that can give you restitution. Its also very inefficient (massively slow) compared to a distributed database, while functionally doing the same thing. There are barely any use cases where you don't want central authority and you want distributed storage... centralized databases are always going to be more efficient and convenient. If you want to use a inefficient, crappy excuse for a database be my guest.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#766

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

variaga wrote: post #583
reedjosh wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say everyone in an unstable economy were paid in usd. Then that country would be paying the unseen tax of inflation as the US banking system prints more and more USD. Said country would basically be a US colony.

TIL Zimbabwe, Ecuador, El Salvador, Palau, East Timor and the British Virgin Islands are all "basically US colonies". What about countries that don't use the dollar as currency directly, but keep a fixed exchange rate to the dollar - they would be paying the unseen tax of inflation too, right? With a fixed exchange rate if the dollar value falls, so will the value of their currency. So that would mean Hong Kong, Cuba…

Montenegro and Ecuador are effective colonies in their most developed areas.

Most of the valuable property in major metros is owned directly by US-based or EU-based emigrees , who paid top dollar for property that has a ROC duration in excess of 20 years.

Most of the metro areas on these countries are rapidly turning hollow projects which cheap rents or undeveloped land. It is quickly becoming like paris.

Flat rental 2000 EUR. Buy price: 2M EUR.

When someone that is not a local is taking all your valuable land... Thats the textbook definition of colony

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#767

Post by _jjkk »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #691
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPN hides activity. Bitcoin makes it public record. Regulating Bitcoin transactions is extremely easy due to the public ledger. You simply make it illegal for exchanges to transact with coins that are known to be stolen or otherwise flagged. Then all exchanges are forced to blacklist coins on that list, as well as descendant transactions from those blacklisted coins. Now there are two classes of addresses on the bloc…

I can exchange my coins on a DEX - No third party required.

Whether or not it's a DEX doesn't matter at all.

In this hypothetical world of regulation which has made some BTC "tainted" through surveillance, it will always be in the BTC receiver's best interest to verify the coins are "clean". Only a fool (or fellow criminal) would transact with tainted coins; most people would probably not use a DEX, or else use one which verified clean coins anyway without being regulated to do so.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#768

Post by DSingularity »

arcticbull wrote: post #393
DSingularity wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will only revert if people sell. What if nobody sells because they equate selling with giving up on their dreams of fighting climate change?

Again, Tesla makes climate change worse by investing in Bitcoin so if climate change is the driver they should sell ASAP. I think you're overestimating the average speculator's love of the environment. Yes, this time could be different. Past performance is not an indication of future performance. That said, it would be the first time something's gone parabolic upward (while lacking the fundamentals) without retracing…

I’m not debating the subtleties of Tesla’s carbon footprint. Im just asking what if the people buying TSLA are not buying for profit? What if they are buying because they believe it is the way they can fight climate change.

Will it eventually retrace? Probably. Almost surely. But it will probably not matter at that point relative to today.

I think we are in an era where stocks are mostly detached from fundamentals. Ask yourself who truly cares about fundamentals? It’s the uber wealthy who are trying to preserve their capital. Wealth disparity is huge so those numbers are fewer.

The Robinhood investors aren’t pouring over spreadsheets to decide where the best PE ratio tradeoff is most favorable. They aren’t trying to balance growth and income. They are literally buying whatever hyped them the most.

Now regarding the AMD chart. You should consider it in context of their defeat by Intel and subsequent turnaround. That, I think, drove the price movements shown in the chart. Did profit taking from amazing runs also matter? Probably. But you can’t ignore that AMD was nearly bankrupt and had to reinvent itself because it lost so much ground to Intel.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#769

Post by DSingularity »

kipchak wrote: post #563
DSingularity wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will only revert if people sell. What if nobody sells because they equate selling with giving up on their dreams of fighting climate change?

Retail might never sell, I doubt commercial institutions Vanguard for example would not sell for idealistic reasons.

Vanguard doesn’t try to call tops. If they sell shares it would be to lock in profit and diversify their EV investment.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#770

Post by gpanders »

kristianp wrote: post #761
michaelmrose wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your credit card gives you 1% back but charges walmart 2% and walmart takes this 2% into account when setting their prices then you aren't getting paid to use your credit card you are paying 1%.

Are you talking about flyer miles when you say the card gives you 1% back? (I'm not in the USA, so I might not know what you're referring to)

Many credit cards literally give cash back (in the form of a statement credit).
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