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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

#801

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #478
rkangel wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment is making a philosophical/ethical point - there is a lot of power concentrated into two private companies (Mastercard and Visa). They are the gatekeepers to being able to take payments, without them you can't have consumer income, and they make moral judgements that make it hard to operate certain kinds of (legal) businesses.

Sure, but why not use a stablecoin cryptocurrency? Why do we need to invent an all-new alternative currency and asset class just to use these technologies? Why do I have to invest in 1 of 1000s of altcoins just to arbitrary change numbers in a shared ledger?

Because the US monetary policy and inflation, and USD not being backed by anything, and because people don't want this power in corruptable governments.

This is not even some dispited facts (that this is one of major reasons for why some people want a new currency), this thing has been discussed over and over into oblivion, since the beginning of cryptocurrencies. It is a question that has been answered millions of times at this point. You just haven't researched any of it.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#802

Post by dmitriid »

leppr wrote: post #789
gbear605 wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A market doesn’t work in countries without a strong government, since for a market to work, there needs to be faith that the other party isn’t going to break the rules of the market. If you’re trying to sell your goods and someone comes in with a gun, then you have to hope that either you have a gun or can call police. If you have to resort to using a gun, then that leads to huge costs and lots of dead people.

That's precisely the main innovation of Bitcoin. Without the aid of a central authority, people are able to decide on a set of rules that must be respected to play in the market. People can switch to different "markets" with different rules at will. The value of these markets is itself decided through a free market. Given a sufficient level of digitization, it's not hard to imagine how many kind of real world markets…

> Without the aid of a central authority, people are able to decide on a set of rules that must be respected to play in the market.

What you mean to say: people will reinvent laws and governance.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#803

Post by CryptoPunk »

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…

>>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...

In these countries, those in power rob the public blind. They steal the country's wealth and do anything they can to hold on to and expand their power. Giving the state more power just means giving the elite more power to rob.

The point is that when a state is inept and driving the country into bankruptcy, the grey/black market can be a lifeline keeping people alive.

You don't want to chain the population to the efficacy of state, by closing off avenues to non-state payment-systems and currencies.

The internet, and the currencies built on it, can provide alternate, superior governance systems for financial and economic collaboration that can operate in parallel with state-administered ones.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#804

Post by dmpk2k »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #576
vishnugupta wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as a country cannot print usd itself, this is a fast shortcut to unemployment, hunger, etc... We don’t even need to make up hypothetical examples. We have a live one in Greece. The Greek citizens went through this exact ordeal for the exact reason you stated. They couldn’t print EUR and the ECB wouldn’t extent monetary support to Greek government.

The Greek citizens went through this because the Greek government has been lying for many years in its financial reports.

Both can be true (and are).

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#805

Post by vbezhenar »

sorbits wrote: post #342
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).

Normally the government leverages its power to keep its currency stable. If a country fails at that, the residents tend to switch to another country’s currency, for example USD is widely accepted in countries with unstable currencies, and this makes sense, since a lot of commodity prices are set in USD. What we have seen with crypto currencies are extreme volatility, not useful to base a country’s economy on, and bec…

For some countries official rate is terrible and buying USD unofficially is dangerous (it's prohibited and you can end up with fake dollars). BTC might be somewhat safer, as can keep anonymity and there's no fake BTC.

About volatility: you're right but the thing is: even if BTC is volatile, over longer period its value rises up. Nobody lost any USD yet if he kept his BTC long enough.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#806

Post by CryptoPunk »

adrianN wrote: post #795
leppr wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's precisely the main innovation of Bitcoin. Without the aid of a central authority, people are able to decide on a set of rules that must be respected to play in the market. People can switch to different "markets" with different rules at will. The value of these markets is itself decided through a free market. Given a sufficient level of digitization, it's not hard to imagine how many kind of real world markets…

Except for very narrow use cases I don't see how the rules you can enforce in a digital space like a blockchain network help when you don't have a stable meatspace system of law. A bitcoin transaction can be mathematically as bullet proof as you want, but that doesn't help make your meatspace assets any more bullet proof.

It doesn't take much law to make cryptocurrency secure for a person to hold: just protection from home invasion and torture. It can work quite well in otherwise highly dysfunctional societies.

Other forms of property ownership are much more fragile, and require a much more sophisticated legal system.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#807

Post by srg0 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #255
systemvoltage wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of an unstable, volatile, frantically manipulated currency that is susceptible to social media pump and dump schemes (Elon + Doge)? Currency and its exchange rate needs to be relatively stable for the world to put trust into it. Saying that BTC is stable, but the rest of the world's fiat currency is fluctuating makes no sense. US dollar provides stability and security, I feel confident that a cappucc…

Your view must be skewed by privilege of having stable currency. Currency of my country lost 250% of its value over last 7 years. It's not bitcoin-level volatile, but close to it. Thankfully I have an option to use USD to hoard money, but that option is not something that's given, in many countries you just can't exchange for fair price. I agree that for someone living in US or EU there's no much point using BTC.

> Currency of my country lost 250% of its value over last 7 years.

I doubt population of your country at large can afford bitcoin transaction fees for their daily shopping.

BTW, are you saying that your currency has negative value now? I assume you mean a 2.5x inflation multiplier over 7 years, or +14% per year. That's mild compared to an order of magnitude walk of the BTC-USD rate over just one year.

The only real use case for BTC I see is moving capital between jurisdictions.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#808

Post by nathias »

MrMan wrote: post #732
ardy42 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strong currencies are not the solution to poor governance. Good governance and democracy makes a country and its currency strong. Not vice versa. That's a good point. Too many people propose individualist solutions to social problems, and all their "solution" would do is make the social problem worse. I think that stems often stems from an overzealous faith in free markets, which leads to a distorted idea that indi…

This is why I called Bitcoin “naive and antisocial”. I perceive a long-standing willingness on the part of crypto proponents to willfully ignore why monetary policy exists and how it is tied to society’s needs. Self-governance cannot be cast aside in favor of a currency managed by a network of miners remote from the Economic output, debt and other expressions of local social economy. I called it evil and I wasn’t bei…

Of course monetary policy is good for the guys implementing it, crypto is here for the rest of us. Making monetary policy tied to a currency and immutable is one of the great benefits of crypto, akin to having monetary policies be part of constitution.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#809

Post by nathias »

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…

yes, calling them colonies are a stretch but there is a relation of dominance there, not just because of inflation but the whole credit system

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#810

Post by MadSudaca »

warkdarrior wrote: post #678
Solvitieg wrote: post #585

It's bizarre that in this tread, the US dollar is treated like an immaculate flawless tool for transferring value. But in every thread about economics, its agreed the US dollar lacks trusts, is being manipulated by the fed, and is the leading cause of gross wealth inequality.

> the US dollar [...] is the leading cause of gross wealth inequality I have never seen this claim made before. Do we have an explanation on why the US dollar causes inequality? Would it improve if the US changed their currency to Yuan or Euro tomorrow? Also, how will cryptocurrencies prevent gross wealth inequality?

It will help people who don’t buy assets to keep their wealth over time. That is, the great majority of the world’s population.
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