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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

#821

Post by MrMan »

nathias wrote: post #808
MrMan wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can’t opt out of society without consequences

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#822

Post by MrMan »

leppr wrote: post #791
sorbits wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree assets with fixed inflation, be them cryptocurrencies or precious metals, make poor currencies, but some cryptocurrency projects are actually working on algorithmically price-stable currencies (ie. a cryptocurrency with a dynamic supply, not pegged to another fiat currency). When/if the supply problem is solved, and a more environnementally friendly consensus mechanism than PoW developed, there won't be many…

But that is still the future.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#823

Post by fredsir »

dalmo3 wrote: post #814
fredsir wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it 250% loss in buying value? So because of inflation everything now cost 2,5x what it did. Usually your paycheck can afford 100 apples but after inflation your paycheck can only afford 40.

If you had money for 100 apples, and now you only have money for 40 apples, you're down 60%, not 250%.

Sure, but that was not the claim by the parent. It's a bit unintuitive the way the parent wrote the claim, but the parent said the currency lost its value by 250% which is not really possible. What I think the parent means is that it became 2,5 times less worth. That is, what before could buy 100 apples can now buy 40 apples since 100/1=100 and 100/2,5=40, and as you say it, that means the value is down by 60% - same thing. At least that is how I understand what the parent claimed.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#824

Post by pertymcpert »

vntok wrote: post #816
edgyquant wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If you can earn risk free appreciation on a currency the smart thing to do is not spend it. This incentivizes hoarding money, not making smarter investments.

Nope, you are therefore incentivized to spend that money in objects or services that will bring in more value to you than the risk-free "interest" or gains brought by the mere deflation. Ergo, smarter investments.

No, it disincentivizes investments full stop. People aren’t making dumb investments deliberately. You don’t get any new information about whether an investment is smart or not based on your currency being deflationary.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#825

Post by maclured »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #433
yarcob wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exchange fees are a great way to charge consumers for spending their own money in 2021, when normal credit cards actually pay people 1-2% to use them Credit card companies in the US are a special kind of evil. They charge huge fees, force vendors not to pass the fees on to customers, and then pretend to be the consumer's best friend by returning a bit of the fees to them. They insert themselves between buyer and se…

Paying with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency requires the customer to pay the transaction fees. Regardless of what you think about credit card companies, which payment method do you think the average consumer would choose? 1) Pay by credit card, get 2% cash back, reserve option to reverse charges if vendor fails to deliver, don't lose all of your money if you lose your credit card. 2) Pay by Bitcoin, pay $8 transa…

> Realistically, any crypto-as-payment service will either charge the merchants large fees

Particl doesn't thanks to MAD escrow - https://particl.wiki/learn/marketplace/mad-escrow/

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#826

Post by dragonwriter »

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

Unless it acquired significant negative value, no, it didn't.

I'm not sure if you mean it declined to 1/2.5 times it's value (-60%) following the popular-but-annoying usage of “n times less” but converted to percentage (it's an idiom that isn't used with percentages and is mathematically wacky to start with) or if you mean to say it declined by 2.5 times it's post-decline value (-71%), using the ending rather than the starting value to calculate the percentage change.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#827

Post by splintercell »

nexthash wrote: post #591
tboyd47 wrote: post #547

It's important for people to read the actual press release: https://mstr.cd/3tLaPZM There's good info here which will be new info to many. Why did they do this? It turns out that about a third of Nigerians report using or holding cryptocurrency (!). https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio... Second place are Vietnam and the Phillipines. For all, the #1 reason was for remittances. Haven't we all h…

Set this chart to "all" and tell me that this price movement is not a bubble. There is no earthly reason for why a "BitCoin" is worth $47,459.66 as of this post. https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin Cryptocurrency adoption in 3rd world countries like Nigeria, Vietnam, and the Philippines is not a good thing. It's actually really sad, because it means they cannot rely on or trust their country's currency. Therefore,…

They can, and are, holding stablecoins [1]

1. https://businessday.ng/sponsored/article/how-nigerians-are-u...

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#828

Post by splintercell »

nexthash wrote: post #671
hntrader wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say the same things about artwork or gold. To me these things are totally useless, paint on a canvas (when I could just look at a photo of the same thing) and a shiny piece of metal, no utility whatsoever, who cares? Well the value doesn't come from one person's assertion of value, it's supply and demand. Apparently enough people like paint on a canvas and shiny metal for their own reasons.

Sorry, but in case you don't have much intuition, let me fill you in. People value gold and artwork because it is beautiful and you can have it for yourself. Gold also has several utilitarian uses. Now compare these things to a digital token. Can I frame and admire a digital token? Can I use it for anything? Do I even understand what it is or how it works most of the time? No. So it therefore has no value for me. Mil…

I pay my Spanish teacher in Latin America using crypto. Can't do that using gold, or paintings.

Blockchain is a global consensus network. The consensus is on a data structure's definition, rules and it's actual data.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#829

Post by dragonwriter »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #280
vbezhenar wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

> 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.

Well, except that the conversion into/out of fiat and the access to the network to transact the crypto are all things the government will usually be quite able to interfere with.

Re: MasterCard to open up network to cryptocurrencies

#830

Post by zhte415 »

jkepler wrote: post #382
sorbits wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And settlement happens in seconds to a couple minutes That is incorrect. On average it takes 10 minutes to mine a block, but you have to submit the transaction to be included in the block, so > 10 minutes before it appears on the blockchain. However, there are actually many block chains, as miners creates block in parallel, it’s the longest one that is the “official”, but the minute you see your transaction in a bl…

But how quickly does SWIFT or ACH settle? When one wires money overseas, settlement is counted in days, not minutes or hours as in bitcoin's case. Most of us use layer 2 or 3 solutions in our legacy national currency systems, such as Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, etc. Non elite don't have access directly to FedWire or ACH or SWIFT... it all has to pass through banks and other 'trusted third parties.' Also, eventually most…

It doesn't take days. RTGS is named rhat for a reason.

If you're also doing FX that'll be minutes for major currencies. Should you be going through a network of correspondence banks from obscure bank to obscure bank it might be longer but even then rarely days. If currency controls some dalay depending on regulatory setup. Even if the banks do netting, cheaper than RTGS, that should be just a couple of hours between reasonably large banks.

What you may have is a problem with your bank or it using ACH.

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