WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#91

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #88

codethief wrote: post #40

When Signal integrated MobileCoin last year (in the UK), there was a lot of uproar here on HN – some well-founded ("Why equip a slick and lightweight standalone app for privacy-preserving messaging with payments, a feature that adds bloat and will likely attract government regulation and oversight?"), some less so ("The Signal developers are just scamming everyone"). Given WhatsApp's move toward a WeChat-like app now…

>Given WhatsApp's move toward a WeChat-like app now, I think some of the criticism against Signal/MobileCoin needs to be reconsidered: Moxie et al. might have seen that coming (which I guess wasn't too difficult in light of WhatsApp's involvement in payments in India) and they are possibly just trying to stay competitive in the long term. So given that Facebook is also now mining data on every user of Whatsapp, shoul…

> So given that Facebook is also now mining data on every user of Whatsapp

Is this true? I thought they still had minimal insight into the data on the app.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#92

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

BbzzbB wrote: post #76

vmception wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip: this is how Tether works but people in the west dont want to believe that people in the east actually deposit fiat into bitfinex. Multiple US regulators came to the same conclusion. One regulator said “well you usually create tethers 1:1 in response to deposits the vast majority of times and vast majority of amounts, but for the brief few times you didnt at least put a disclaimer up, also here is a fine for n…

Here's one blatantly noticeable difference that makes me more trustful of USDP than USDT even without being informed about Pax : total USDP in circulation ("market cap") went down nearly 50% when Bitcoin and cryptos crashed in May-June [0], as you would expect if they indeed offer an off-ramp to USD as people will be bailing out in downturns and if the coin is pegged to cash flows. USDT? Up and up, it has not once si…

Maybe tether just hopes to be so entrenched and trusted that they become their own "Central bank of crypto". Doubt it would work considering the whole point of crypto is "minimal trust", but being the money printer could be a valid business model.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#93

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #57

pavlov wrote: post #21

This is fundamentally a centralized system like PayPal. Most transactions never touch crypto. Meta/FB keeps some USDP at hand for those very few users who actually want to do crypto withdrawals. Facebook has been trying to get payments into WhatsApp for a long time. This is just the latest experiment to try to find something that would be acceptable to local regulators while simultaneously extracting some value from…

> This is fundamentally a centralized system like PayPal. This is fundamentally a centralized system like wechat pay , an app you can't see in the West. If it's allowed it will be hugely successful.

I don't think its a given that WeChat is fundamentally the "right" UX and the west is behind.

The cultural/regulatory differences between china and western (free) countries means that (1) different models thrive differently and (2) pressure to centralize delivery through WeChat is there from the gov in china but not for the rest of the world. I think FB would love to be WeChat to avoid the App Store, but i'm not sure users would actually prefer that.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#94

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #48

jd115 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, but this isn't for the Russian people! It's for the so called "oligarchs" and their families who - surprise - don't actually live in Russia! They like America and western Europe much better. And if you don't realise that Russian government / KGB is VERY MUCH behind Facebook and its initiatives, I'm afraid you have quite a bit of catching up to do.

> And if you don't realise that Russian government / KGB is VERY MUCH behind Facebook and its initiatives, I'm afraid you have quite a bit of catching up to do. Uh, I have to say, this is a new one for me. What's the theory here?

In real news, Russia (the gov, and affiliates) has made lots of popular fb groups/accounts/pages to attract american attention and spread misinformation.

There have been reports on everything from "Christians for trump" groups to "abortions are a human right" groups. These accounts were used to spread disagreement and angst across the population. they even pit groups they owned against each other IRL [1]...

No evidence that russians were part of facebook but rather that they took advantage of the anonymity of the internet to pretend to be american and cause political divide (esp. during election times).

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-trolls-senate-intelli...

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#95

Post by vineyardmike » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

leodriesch wrote: post #10

Why crypto? WhatsApp users are not particular tech-savvy, why not just use Fiat? The use of crypto in here just makes it more difficult to understand for the end user, or am I missing something?

For some reason its hard to send money overseas. This seems to be universally true in "real" finance world. Not sure why, probably regulation? If you want to use things like Western Union et al. then you can expect (relatively) high per-tx fees. Crypto doesn't have this property.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#96

Post by vmception » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

BbzzbB wrote: post #76

vmception wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip: this is how Tether works but people in the west dont want to believe that people in the east actually deposit fiat into bitfinex. Multiple US regulators came to the same conclusion. One regulator said “well you usually create tethers 1:1 in response to deposits the vast majority of times and vast majority of amounts, but for the brief few times you didnt at least put a disclaimer up, also here is a fine for n…

Here's one blatantly noticeable difference that makes me more trustful of USDP than USDT even without being informed about Pax : total USDP in circulation ("market cap") went down nearly 50% when Bitcoin and cryptos crashed in May-June [0], as you would expect if they indeed offer an off-ramp to USD as people will be bailing out in downturns and if the coin is pegged to cash flows. USDT? Up and up, it has not once si…

Right, the redemptions. The counterpoint to that is how much do people withdraw from their investment accounts? They just go to cash within their investment accounts, while other people are still earning and depositing.

The same standard would apply to Bitfinex. Only explicit tether redemptions for fiat at the issuer cause tethers do be destroyed. People just sitting in database-fiat on the exchange during a risk-off moment wouldnt cause tether redemptions.

If a more respected exchange like say TD Ameritrade issued a stablecoin upon every deposit, it would go up and up and up too, even in market crashes, as people use their investing accounts as value storage even in market crashes, anticipating to buy dips or wait for other market conditions.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#97

Post by BbzzbB » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #92

BbzzbB wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one blatantly noticeable difference that makes me more trustful of USDP than USDT even without being informed about Pax : total USDP in circulation ("market cap") went down nearly 50% when Bitcoin and cryptos crashed in May-June [0], as you would expect if they indeed offer an off-ramp to USD as people will be bailing out in downturns and if the coin is pegged to cash flows. USDT? Up and up, it has not once si…

Maybe tether just hopes to be so entrenched and trusted that they become their own "Central bank of crypto". Doubt it would work considering the whole point of crypto is "minimal trust", but being the money printer could be a valid business model.

An understatement, it's a fantastic business model. As I recall they have less than 12 employees, and they have printed like $80B with zero accountability. There's a saying that a good and strong business has a licence to print money, in their case it is literal.

Frankly I am baffled it is still going, I think it has to do with it being the first, but can't understand it hasn't fallen apart since or been taken over by better designed stable coins. People called Bitcoin fairy dust, but at least its supply is determined by its protocol and its price by a market - poorly regulated as it may be. Tether is proper fairy dust, holding together thru sheer wishful thinking of this tacit agreement that it is worth $1 a pop.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#98

Post by qeternity » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #94

qeternity wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if you don't realise that Russian government / KGB is VERY MUCH behind Facebook and its initiatives, I'm afraid you have quite a bit of catching up to do. Uh, I have to say, this is a new one for me. What's the theory here?

In real news, Russia (the gov, and affiliates) has made lots of popular fb groups/accounts/pages to attract american attention and spread misinformation. There have been reports on everything from "Christians for trump" groups to "abortions are a human right" groups. These accounts were used to spread disagreement and angst across the population. they even pit groups they owned against each other IRL [1]... No eviden…

Oh Russian troll farms pushing propaganda? I think that’s pretty much fact at this point.

A far cry from what it seemed was being insinuated, as if the Kremlin had something to do with Facebook’s success.

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#99

Post by toast0 » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #59

toast0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Style rules used to suggest an apostrophe for initialized items such as C.D.'s for sale. Of course, modern style rules suggest CDs for sale (but don't tell the New York Times).

The Times’ style guide would render more than one compact disc as C.D.s (no apostrophe, but with periods in intialisms). Do you have a link to any authoritative style guide that suggested “C.D.’s”? The Times' guide (2015) demands apostrophes to pluralize single letters: “the word has two t’s”. I think that’s silly, just as their use of quotation marks rather than italics for book titles. Here is a quote from the 2015…

I've probably gotten confused about the single letters and the C.D.s, thanks. (actually, looking at the other response's link, the Times may likely have changed their style guide)

But, then why an apostrophe for t's and not for fees? :D It rhymes, it should be punctuated the same is as good a rule as any!

Re: WhatsApp Launches Instant Cryptocurrency Payments in the US

#100

Post by monocasa » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 8:35 PM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #91

tw04 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given WhatsApp's move toward a WeChat-like app now, I think some of the criticism against Signal/MobileCoin needs to be reconsidered: Moxie et al. might have seen that coming (which I guess wasn't too difficult in light of WhatsApp's involvement in payments in India) and they are possibly just trying to stay competitive in the long term. So given that Facebook is also now mining data on every user of Whatsapp, shoul…

> So given that Facebook is also now mining data on every user of Whatsapp Is this true? I thought they still had minimal insight into the data on the app.

https://www.newframe.com/whatsapp-has-been-mining-your-data-...