[HN Gopher] Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
___________________________________________________________________
Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70M Merchants
Author : rmason
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-03-17 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.btctimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.btctimes.com)
| bhouston wrote:
| Bitcoin is an asset that tends to appreciate. Why would I use it
| as payment?
|
| Lastly, is it considered legal tender? What is the meaning of
| legal tender if one can use Bitcoin everywhere usd is accepted?
| vmception wrote:
| its just liquidity
|
| there is tremendous value for me in being able to barter
| transaction with an asset that someone can immediately sell for
| what they want
|
| I've been illiquid sometimes due to some combination of card
| networks accepted and when I say "eh, what about Bitcoin"
| because I have some dust in a wallet on my phone, I'm
| completely serious while the merchant spirals into their
| ignorance and cognitive dissonance nervously laughing and
| regurgitating some headline they saw 7 years ago
|
| other people just take it like "yeah sure"
|
| its just like get over it are we exchanging equivalent value or
| are you mentally incapable for this century
| aeternum wrote:
| This lets you keep your funds in BTC until you the instant you
| want to use it. If you believe that Bitcoin is an asset that
| 'only goes up', wouldn't you want to keep even your spending
| money in BTC for as long as possible?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Because you will die if you don't spend it on some food. There
| is more to life than to grow your wealth.
| epx wrote:
| In a gold rush, sell shoves?
| wmf wrote:
| In the case of crypto that analogy doesn't really apply. Just
| hodling crypto exceeds the returns of building anything related
| to crypto.
| KallDrexx wrote:
| I"m pretty sure Coinbase's S-1 proves otherwise :)
| xiphias2 wrote:
| There are so many people commenting here about Bitcoin holders
| who don't even have Bitcoin.
|
| As a person living primary on Bitcoin, I would love what VISA is
| doing, the volatility is not a problem for me, lightning wallets
| would be perfect, but I don't want to do taxation for thousands
| of small payments with different Bitcoin prices (especially as
| I'm not from US, where there is specialized software for it), so
| I lend USD against my Bitcoin tax-free and use that money to buy
| stuff. My behaviour would change if Bitcoin could be used for
| buying things directly tax-free (just like with any other
| currency).
| Priem19 wrote:
| The most sophisticated pyramid scheme ever, hidden in plain
| sight; so obvious that everyone second guesses themselves. "They
| all seem to be going along, I guess I must be wrong."
|
| Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely:
| https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html.
| asinoastuto wrote:
| inb4 you get called a "no-coiner" which always makes me think
| people who are "coiners" are immature children.
| Priem19 wrote:
| I'm glad you used an adjective because the majority of
| children I teach would beat most cryptocurrency
| eschatologists in one fell swoop at a maturity contest.
| janspeer wrote:
| And visa used usdc from the stellar network (XLM)
| hnrodey wrote:
| One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is
| precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| To me, it just says that we are still in the early days in the
| grand scheme of things.
| hnrodey wrote:
| Yes.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| Exactly!
| zionic wrote:
| It's like slash dot hating the iPod all over again.
|
| "Expensive, less TPS than my SQL server. Meh"
| pjc50 wrote:
| I've reached the doubly-cynical conclusion: the critics are
| right, but it will probably keep climbing in value in the
| medium term. Actual on-chain transaction volume will remain
| dwarfed by on-exchange volume.
|
| Tether will get clobbered in the next few years. This ought to
| affect the bitcoin price, but won't.
| kajumix wrote:
| The anti-BTC sentiment on HN puzzles me. There is no
| intelligent critique. The doubts that are endlessly repeated
| here have been addressed in detail, and are available online.
| Scaling and transaction throughput, energy consumption, state
| attacks, protocol weakness and lack of backing have all been
| responded to, to a sufficiently satisfactory degree.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| > to a sufficiently satisfactory degree
|
| That's an opinion, not a fact.
| karpierz wrote:
| The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem
| does BTC solve? The answers I've seen so far are:
|
| 1. Avoiding Venezuelan hyper-inflation - it is a use-case,
| but doesn't really apply to the United States for example.
|
| 2. Store of value - volatility is way too high and there are
| much better alternatives (Treasury bonds)
|
| 3. Evading capital controls - it is a use-case, but not
| really applicable to most citizens in the US, and is unlikely
| to be applicable in the future.
|
| 4. Settlement layer for banks - banks already have a
| settlement layer that works for them.
|
| The downsides of a decentralized system vs. a centralized
| system are an increased cost (in energy, computation, time,
| money, etc.) of transaction. So what justifies the cost?
| rawtxapp wrote:
| > The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what
| problem does BTC solve?
|
| To me, it's trustless money. I don't need to trust the US
| gov, I don't care about who they will elect or which wars
| they are gonna start or which banks they are gonna bailout.
|
| You can verify everything through code and math. If that's
| not valuable to you, maybe there's some other use case
| you're interested. If you've done your research and there's
| really no use case that excites you, then you can just
| ignore it.
| tw600040 wrote:
| It's NOT trustless money. Instead of trusting the US gov,
| you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain
| acceptance by the whole world. Which one is more of a
| leap of faith?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Which one is more of a leap of faith?
|
| Governments of course. Anything is better than trusting
| governments.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| > you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will
| gain acceptance by the whole world.
|
| Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the
| _whole_ point of it. You can trust that there will never
| be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will
| never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run
| 24 /7, etc.
|
| Whether it will gain worldwide acceptance is another
| matter (btw, adoption is increasing at very fast pace
| now), as long as there's a subset of the world that
| accepts it, that's good enough for me.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the
| whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be
| more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will
| never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run
| 24/7, etc.
|
| No it isn't. If the Bitcoin devs and miners agree on a
| change (for instance, to increase the cap), it'll happen,
| so you have to trust them.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| They can't implement those changes uni-laterally, it
| would cause a hard-fork. In addition to devs and miners,
| you need users, network nodes and exchanges to agree to
| it as well.
|
| And even if that change were to go through, there will
| still be people running the old chain (Ethereum Classic
| is still alive). So those parameters would only change if
| they improve the network for most stakeholders,
| otherwise, most people would stay on the old chain.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > They can't implement those changes uni-laterally, it
| would cause a hard-fork. In addition to devs and miners,
| you need users, network nodes and exchanges to agree to
| it as well.
|
| Sure, but the devs do have the "Bitcoin" name, which
| would leave them well-positioned to market their changes.
| Bitcoin Classic may stick around, but like Etherium
| Classic, it may not be very healthy:
| https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-classic-blockchain-
| subject...
| rawtxapp wrote:
| Nobody owns the "Bitcoin" name, people collectively
| decide which chaintip to call Bitcoin and that's it.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| The core issue that Bitcoin resolves is transferring power
| from MBAs to nerds.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| I'd say it's more transfer of power from politicians to
| the the people, but we can always disagree.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| well, MBAs here is a catch all phrase that includes
| politicians (even though they are usually lawyers).
| yahyaheee wrote:
| Yeah the cost of decentralization is so high that you
| really need to be gaining something from it. I've long said
| that if drugs were legal it would remove most of bitcoins
| usage.
|
| Money is ultimately a reflection of power, and
| decentralization is merely a tool for when those power
| structures limit the market.
| qertoip wrote:
| You seem to have a very US centric view. There are other
| 7.5 billion people in the World.
| foepys wrote:
| Please explain to me how scaling is solved in bitcoin. The
| lighting network requires an on-chain transaction to create
| and close a channel both times. Even if the world population
| were static it would take months to open a channel for
| everybody. Companies also need multiple channels each.
|
| LN also requires a _constant_ observation of the LN network
| or malicious actors can just take more from a channel than
| allowed. This eventually leads to entities specialized in
| monitoring the chain for the average Joe. You could call
| those payment providers.
| kajumix wrote:
| "LN also requires a constant observation of the LN network
| or malicious actors can just take more from a channel than
| allowed."
|
| Not true. Cite a source.
| foepys wrote:
| Very true and often conveniently omitted by LN fans.
|
| Lightning Network Whitepaper, section 3.3.4 states very
| clearly:
|
| "For this reason, one should periodically monitor the
| blockchain to see if one's counterparty has broadcast an
| invalidated Commitment Transaction, or delegate a third
| party to do so. A third party can be delegated by only
| giving the Breach Remedy transaction to this third party.
| They can be incentivized to watch the blockchain
| broadcast such a transaction in the event of counterparty
| maliciousness by giving these third parties some fee in
| the output. Since the third party is only able to take
| action when the counterparty is acting maliciously, this
| third party does not have any power to force close of the
| channel."
| rawtxapp wrote:
| > Please explain to me how scaling is solved in bitcoin.
| The lighting network requires an on-chain transaction to
| create and close a channel both times.
|
| Channel factories solve this issue by being able to create
| and close many channels at once.
|
| > LN also requires a constant observation of the LN network
| or malicious actors can just take more from a channel than
| allowed.
|
| These are called watchtowers, they _never_ have control of
| your funds, they are simply watching the blockchain for
| counterparty actions, which if they tried to steal your
| money, they would end up losing all theirs, so just knowing
| that you might be using a watchtower is a very strong
| deterrent to not cheat you.
| foepys wrote:
| Channel factories do not work globally as far as I
| understand them. They only work within a group of
| addresses that know they won't close the channels every
| other hour or everybody would have to create yet another
| channel. It sounds very similar to a credit union.
|
| Watchtowers are what I meant with payment processors. You
| need to pay them to watch the chain in case the other
| party tries to literally steal from you. You can call
| them whatever you want, it's a third-party, just like
| Visa.
|
| I love how all these cryptocurrency concepts have
| "traditional" counterparts, btw. Or it's rather the other
| way around.
| Spivak wrote:
| I don't think they have which is why they keep coming up
| again.
|
| BTC genuinely uses a stupid amount of energy and there isn't
| a terribly good reason for it since we don't need a
| completely trustless financial system outside of some
| libertarian ideal. It would be necessary if establishing
| trust was impossible but it isn't.
|
| BTC transaction fees and throughput are still an issue. Off-
| chain transactions that use the main network as a settlement
| layer is a non-solution that undermines the whole point of
| BTC. Might as well just use banks as a settlement later for
| the lighting network for all it matters at that point.
|
| Volatility and the fact that BTC is more of an investment
| vehicle than anything else matters if you want to actually
| use it to buy stuff.
|
| The fact that there is no form of monetary policy means that
| the available currency doesn't expand and contract with
| growth in economic output which makes prices unstable and
| naturally deflationary.
|
| BTC is fine as a nerdy digital cash and commodity market
| based on its value as such but a general purpose currency it
| isn't.
| graeme wrote:
| HN isn't wrong about everything. It was extremely bearing on
| Groupon in 2011. It was another thing where true believers
| would say that skeptics "just don't get it", but the HN critics
| had extremely cogent critiques that went without response.
| Google "Groupon Stock", HN was _very_ correct.
|
| VERY different from the anti-Dropbox sentiment of the famous
| Dropbox comment.
|
| You also have Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger,
| Nassim Taleb, Nouriel Roubini, all claiming Bitcoin is
| worthless. Some of the brightest minds in finance with
| impeccable and long track records.
|
| Bitcoin has had 12 years and still has no real world use cases.
| By contrast the internet was instantly useful. Bitcoin has a
| monstrous cost in energy and money to maintain the network. The
| token backing BTC, Tether, is founded by con artists and was
| just revealed to not have had the backing they claim. BTC has
| been subjected to the same money money printing its advocates
| defy in fiat.
|
| ----
|
| Check the results for Groupon:
| https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ei=7H1SYMDVJKiYwbkPvqiEg...
| hnrodey wrote:
| I'm not here to defend Bitcoin nor respond to critiques. Just
| not what I'm in to. Full disclosure, I have a financial stake
| in Bitcoin.
|
| My observation on all of this is that the most common themes
| to bear Bitcoin - can all be fixed! People are quite happy to
| look at the current landscape and proclaim immediate and
| indefinite failure. Detractors allow no room for growth.
|
| Volatility - you could argue that Bitcoin is still so young
| that the market is trying to determine it's worth. I estimate
| that Bitcoin is significantly less volatile at some point in
| the future.
|
| Real world use cases - currently I agree, I don't see a great
| use of it ... _yet_. I think we 'll find something.
|
| Energy, sure okay it uses a lot of energy. Is this less
| problematic is most of the energy is sourced from renewables
| (now or in the future)? Certainly it's also possible that the
| protocol is updated to be more energy efficient, or another
| coin reigns supreme.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I've doubted bitcoin for years, and continue to. Part of me
| realizes I was wrong, in the sense that I would've made
| money had I only bought and held - but I can't bring myself
| to buy something that doesn't work.
|
| I can't use it as currency due to transaction fees and
| times. "Store of value" is basically the same thing as
| "Ponzi scheme" as far as I can tell. I would've made money,
| but...
| graeme wrote:
| I didn't mention volatility. I said Bitcoin's current run
| up is backed by massive fraud.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > The token backing BTC, Tether, is founded by con artists
| and was just revealed to not have had the backing they claim.
|
| USDT doesn't back BTC. It's just a stable coin people use.
| There are other coins tracking the dollar. Binance created
| their own BUSD and it seems to be as legit as it gets with
| frequent audits of reserves and everything. There's also
| USDC.
|
| BTC is actually backed by the eletricity used to power the
| computers that mine it. The expensive computations guarantee
| its scarcity.
| hnrodey wrote:
| Replying to my own comment because an edit felt like
| cheating...
|
| The entire crypto market goes to infinity or zero. I don't
| readily know which is more likely; only that I'm betting on
| infinity.
| SigmundA wrote:
| "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply
| that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at
| Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright
| brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -Sagan
| auc wrote:
| Columbus also deserved to be laughed at. People in his time
| period knew the world was round and even had a pretty
| accurate estimate of its radius, but he (very erroneously)
| thought it was way smaller. That's why he thought he landed
| in India.
| janspeer wrote:
| And visa will use usdc on the stellar (XLM) network. Wonderful
| news for XLM
| [deleted]
| elietoubi wrote:
| 1) Title is somewhat misleading ... They are trying to help
| wallet to convert to fiat to pay in fiat. 2) I think Visa is
| terrified of the competitive nature of crypto (not only bitcoin
| but any stablecoin). By essence, a trustless network for digital
| payment is a direct competitor to Visa.
|
| Full disclosure. I am the CEO of carbon payment, a global payment
| solution leveraging stablecoins for global payments.
| imglorp wrote:
| Why? Nobody's going to spend the transaction fee, currently about
| $US16, to buy a coffee.
|
| For big items maybe?
| staplers wrote:
| I don't initiate a wire transfer when I buy a coffee. I use my
| bank card.
| lucb1e wrote:
| You don't think that if the transaction settlement method
| cost a tenner to settle a six euro item, you could buy it
| with your special card that uses this settlement method for
| six euros? If you use bitcoin, someone somewhere is moving
| those funds even if you are just "using your card". You're
| telling the payment provider to initiate a transfer to the
| merchant. How did you imagine this would work otherwise?
| [deleted]
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| These transactions may not be on the chain transactions. You
| basically buy Bitcoin from Visa, visa pays bitcoin to Merchants
| (which remains in Visa's wallet) and you and merchant will
| settle your accounts with Visa in future at which point you may
| have to pay a fee.
| lottin wrote:
| People are paying good money for owning a serial number with no
| connection whatever to anything in the physical or in the
| virtual world. Don't be surprised if they also gladly pay a
| ridiculous fee to buy a coffee.
| beforeolives wrote:
| > Don't be surprised if they also gladly pay a ridiculous fee
| to buy a coffee.
|
| I would be very surprised if people started deliberately
| picking the much more expensive option for no benefit
| whatsoever.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure they will.
|
| Saks Fifth Avenue sells a $1500 plastic tic-tac-toe board.
| Plenty of upscale market for absurdly expensive things that
| do the same thing the cheap version does.
| https://www.saksfifthavenue.com/product/edie-parker-tic-
| tac-...
| beforeolives wrote:
| I don't think it's the same. Paying more for the same cup
| of coffee doesn't make Starbucks more upscale than it was
| before or than it is for anyone who just paid with their
| credit card / phone / cash.
| [deleted]
| dizzant wrote:
| This take on Bitcoin -- not backed by anything in the
| physical or virtual world -- is misinformed. You're correct
| that coin isn't specifically backed by anything in the sense
| that you can't trade it in for a an equivalent asset like
| gold. But neither is the US dollar. BTC's value is backed at
| least by the billions that have been spent on mining
| architecture by companies like MARA and RIOT, large mining
| pools, producers of mining ASICs, etc. Huge amounts of
| physical and virtual infrastructure have been created to
| achieve the current global hash rate, and the stakeholders in
| that infrastructure have vested interest in the value of
| Bitcoin remaining high. China is transitioning to digital
| currency, which lends legitimacy to the technology. There is
| also a growing collection of institutional owners, such as
| MicroStrategy, Square, and Tesla's notorious $1.5B buy in.
|
| The USD is backed by "the full faith and confidence of the US
| Government" since leaving the gold standard. Bitcoin is
| backed by collective faith and confidence in the security and
| utility of the underlying blockchain. As more opportunities
| arise to transact in Bitcoin, its value will tend to
| stabilize.
| Goronmon wrote:
| _The USD is backed by "the full faith and confidence of the
| US Government" since leaving the gold standard. Bitcoin is
| backed by collective faith and confidence in the security
| and utility of the underlying blockchain._
|
| The utility of a country, it's
| people/resources/military/economy/etc, is pretty obvious.
| What is the utility of the blockchain outside of the value
| of Bitcoin itself?
| darioush wrote:
| For example, "the collective lack of full faith and
| confidence of the people that the US Government will
| always act in their best interest"
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| You can't ban the USD though. And I don't see China
| adopting Bitcoin. They will have their own currency.
|
| While I wish I jumped on the bandwagon. I don't see why any
| nation would adopt a solution they don't control. They are
| happen to consider it a commodity and tax it though.
| lottin wrote:
| I wasn't talking about bitcoin not being backed by anything
| (which is true, incidentally), I was talking about NFTs.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If we're talking about 100 or 1000 crypto-rich people buying
| coffee with Bitcoin to prove a point, sure.
|
| But the tens of millions of people who buy coffee every
| morning have no desire to spend extra for the same product.
| They already have a credit card in their pocket that has no
| fees (or maybe negative fees if it's cash back.). They're
| going to use that card.
| tylersmith wrote:
| Almost certainly Visa would be acting as a (centralized)
| transaction aggregater that uses the settlement-layer pattern.
| There's no value for Visa to provide anywhere else really,
| other than to use their transaction network to transact the
| bitcoin asset.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| What happens then if I pay in bitcoin and the price drops
| before Visa posts the aggregate transaction to the chain?
|
| Who takes the hit?
| tylersmith wrote:
| They would be totally decoupled, but essentially they'd
| take risk of the underlying prices changes. Same as now
| with the USD, it's just not as pronounced.
| foepys wrote:
| High Bitcoin transaction fees are exactly what's good for Visa.
| Visa most likely wants to get your Bitcoin first and settle in
| the merchant's currency. They then sell Bitcoin from different
| purchases in large on-chain transactions.
|
| Visa can essentially make the fee of a Bitcoin-to-merchant
| transaction $16 and still be on par with Bitcoin's own
| transaction fees. Only that you can buy stuff easily.
| 1023bytes wrote:
| I already have a Binance VISA card that works anywhere. So what's
| supposed to be new with this solution?
| drchopchop wrote:
| Not much.
|
| From the article: "And secondly, working with Bitcoin wallets
| to allow the Bitcoin to be translated into a fiat currency and
| therefore immediately be able to be used at any of the 70
| million places around the world where Visa is accepted."
| RyanShook wrote:
| Bitcoin transaction costs are very high so I'm assuming all these
| payment processor transactions will be off-chain. Do you think
| that having so many off-chain transactions that are essentially
| converting USD reduces the perceived value of BTC or raises it?
| fearface wrote:
| Yes
| thebean11 wrote:
| Why would it reduce the value? Off-chain transactions are
| something the core Bitcoin team are very much in favor of.
| postalrat wrote:
| That sounds like they are in favor of not using bitcoin.
| tylersmith wrote:
| Instead of using Bitcoin, the transaction network, they are
| using their transaction network to transact bitcoins, the
| asset. The chain gets used primarily for settlements in
| this model.
| thebean11 wrote:
| They are in favor of not using the L1 Bitcoin blockchain
| for small payments. L2 solutions, both decentralized ones
| like the lightning network and centralized ones like Visa
| are still "using Bitcoin" as a currency, even though they
| are not using the L1 blockchain.
| [deleted]
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| This is very much how the US stock market works. Stocks
| aren't actually traded in real-time, but instead are
| netted and eventually settled through DTCC.
|
| Similarly, BTC will just be a transmission mechanism
| between multiple large, centralized, highly regulated,
| trusted entities, which will perform all of the work.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| All trading within exchanges already happens outside the
| blockchain. This allows them to offer low or zero fees since
| transactions only cost money when users withdraw their
| cryptocurrencies.
|
| I'd say it adds a lot of value.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| It sounds more like Visa will let you settle your statement in
| BTC than actually using it as a processor.
| kevinak wrote:
| It's just on-chain layer 1 transactions that are somewhat
| expensive. The lightning network solves this and works great,
| can do thousands of transactions per second and has close to 0
| fees. Feels like magic to use it :)
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| That doesn't solve anything, it still has to be synced with
| the chain so that the balance can be useful to anyone else.
| The average transaction is around $20 USD and has been around
| this much for a while. Opening and closing second layer
| channels is even more expensive than an average transaction.
|
| There is no universe where 1.5KB/s in transactions makes
| sense. Any other cryptocurrency works better, ethereum and
| bitcoin cash already have more transactions than bitcoin and
| any other cryptocurrency works better.
| centimeter wrote:
| It doesn't sound like you're familiar with how lightning
| works. It doesn't have to be "synced with the chain" except
| during channel opening and closing, which occur
| infrequently (like on the scale of weeks or months).
|
| > ethereum and bitcoin cash already have more transactions
| than bitcoin
|
| The eth blockchain is untenably huge (good luck running an
| ethereum full node), and ethereum fees are often higher
| than Bitcoin fees.
| kevinak wrote:
| It does. You don't need to leave the L2 solution. Why would
| you when you have the possibility to transact for free?
| Liquidity on LN is growing by the day and as more and more
| people join there will be fewer and fewer reasons to
| settle.
|
| Define works better. Has larger blockchains? All
| transactions don't need to live in the blockchain.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It's 20 dollars now. Over the last year 50% of the time
| it's a few dollars.
|
| It has been 20 or more dollars 5% of the time this year.
|
| https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_
| f...
| cwkoss wrote:
| I'm not an expert on lightning network, but couldn't Visa
| position themselves as a central hub for lightning network
| transactions, so that most people can open a channel to
| Visa and they act as the clearing house for keeping all of
| those channels balanced?
|
| I'd never want to send large BTC amounts through visa, but
| I would trust them enough to facilitate <$100 transactions
| for a ~3% fee (with some potion profit and some towards tx
| fees).
|
| Or heck, maybe consumers don't need an actual channel, just
| let me send Bitcoin out on credit and pay my monthly
| balance with BTC. Maybe only channels to vendors that
| receive payments are necessary.
|
| Not sure how much demand exists for this, but "We are the
| #1 facilitator of Bitcoin transactions" would probably be
| great for Visa's stock price if they could achieve it.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| They could, the big difference is they would just be
| another player on the lightning network payment channel,
| perhaps a very big player, but not "own the whole layer"
| kinda big.
| kevinak wrote:
| They could and they probably will if LN keeps growing.
| You wouldn't need to trust VISA at all, LN is
| "trustless". They would just be a cog in the wheel, like
| all the other LN "nodes".
| rawtxapp wrote:
| > Opening and closing second layer channels is even more
| expensive than an average transaction.
|
| That's true if opening/closing channels require you to go
| to the blockchain, but channel factories will significantly
| ease the burden of 2nd layers on the blockchain.
| Tepix wrote:
| Why use an outdated planet-killing tech such as butcoin
| underneath your level 2 bolted on solution when you can use
| something modern and do it directly on-chain?
| centimeter wrote:
| I assume this is a bad-faith question, given how much it
| begs the question, but: there is no known solution to the
| double-spend problem that achieves the same security
| properties as proof-of-work without consuming energy.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Dumb out-of-the-loop question: then what's this talk of
| Ethereum moving to proof of stake? Whenever someone
| brings up that PoW is bad, people say Ethereum; whenever
| someone says why PoW, someone says because PoS isn't
| safe.
| centimeter wrote:
| There are two problems here: The first is that a lot of
| ethereum talk is just that; hot air with little
| substance.
|
| The second is that PoS has significantly worse security
| properties than PoW.
|
| The core reason is that "changing your mind" (rolling
| back the blockchain) is free with PoS, except for
| possible loss of value of the cryptocurrency, whereas
| it's extremely expensive with PoW. There are all sorts of
| band-aids you can slap on like ignoring block reorgs of a
| certain depth, but then you lose properties like network
| partition tolerance.
| polyomino wrote:
| Short answer is it doesn't work now and is not known to
| be able to work.
|
| Much easier to make promises than keep them.
| anythingdude321 wrote:
| Don't want to duck your question but: the reason this is
| hard to get a handle on is that it's really complicated.
|
| It's not that the premises and protocols themselves are
| complicated -- sure, they're technically sophisticated,
| but they can be explained simply. The problem lies in
| that it is very hard to predict the economic consequences
| and security guarantees of the various consensus
| mechanisms. Frankly, if Bitcoin hadn't been working
| flawlessly for the past 12 years very few people would
| guess that it would work.
| dlubarov wrote:
| I don't understand how this viewpoint can persist now
| that we have quite a few PoS chains humming along in
| production: Cosmos, Tezos, Polkadot, Mina, Solana,
| Avalanche, Cardano, Eth2.
|
| Edit: I suppose what you said is a fair statement; PoS
| security is different in that it relies on weak
| subjectivity. In particular, users can maintain security
| by syncing every X days, where X is based on the staker
| bonding period, and not accepting long forks beyond X.
| It's not equivalent to PoS security, but there's nothing
| really problematic about it IMO. Several years ago, one
| could make the case that this security model was
| untested, but not so much today.
| TheDurfAbides wrote:
| To add to that, Algorand has the ability to prevent
| double spending, and is decentralized proof of stake.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| It's magic until you realize you need to spend $15 to get off
| chain to buy a coffee. And then you realize you aren't ready
| to commit a bunch of cash to a speculative currency (or
| investment) so that you can buy coffee.
|
| Also, you will need to file taxes for your coffee if your
| bitcoin goes up after you bought it. Fun!
| kevinak wrote:
| The idea is to never go off-chain, so no need to close your
| channel(s). And aren't you already committing cash if
| you're "in" bitcoin?
|
| The tax filing doesn't sound so bad in the long run. I'm
| sure someone will write some nifty tool to extract whatever
| payments you've done.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Arguably, the tax filing sounds like the single worst
| part of it. Imagine if you really used Bitcoin for every
| purchase you make in a normal tax year. Suddenly how much
| you pay in taxes depends on the path integral of the
| exchange rate over the entire period. That's an absolute
| accounting nightmare. Now you have a huge incentive to
| batch all of your purchases at market low points to
| minimize tax burden and you're stuck trying to beat the
| market just to buy groceries. That isn't something I want
| to have to think about.
| kevinak wrote:
| Fair enough, that's why I wrote "in the long run". Also,
| there's always the option of moving somewhere that
| doesn't have this issue. Well, unless you're from the US
| and must file taxes even when you're not even in the
| country, I suppose.
| flatline wrote:
| You may have been downvoted for a snarky tone, but this is
| the first time I've seen it mentioned here - bitcoin is
| taxed as a commodity in the US, each exchange is a capital
| gain or loss.
| midasuni wrote:
| If you buy euros with dollars, keep them, then buy
| dollars back, is that lunged as capital gain/loss?
| projektfu wrote:
| In short, yes, in the US, with a few exceptions.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I believe currency trading has special tax treatments
| distinct from commodities.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/09/forex-
| taxatio...
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| This is the poison pill for BTC in my opinion. I have a
| very small amount of BTC and this is the primary reason I
| don't have a larger investment, don't make more of an
| attempt to use it as currency, etc. The central
| banks/governments aren't going to give up their power so
| easily. They may have low-key destroyed crypto by
| considering them commodities.
|
| The only way crypto can win* is if a plurality of people
| just choose not to follow the tax laws. It has to be
| enough people that it becomes unenforceable.
|
| win* in this case is defined as being a 1st order
| currency largely unencumbered by central
| banking/government authority.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| You can just borrow against it to spend it. No tax
| whatsoever and you hold on to your asset.
| dingus9 wrote:
| Some exchanges will let you withdraw to a lightning wallet
| so you never have to interact with the base blockchain
| layer for smaller day-to-day transactions.
|
| I would imagine most exchanges will have similar lightning
| withdrawal options in the future, if there's demand for it.
| helen___keller wrote:
| What does this look like in practice? A "bitcoin debit card" tied
| to an exchange as your bank account?
| philangist wrote:
| That's how the Coinbase VISA card works
| kevinak wrote:
| Wondering the same. I hope they use the Lightning Network. If
| it's just another debit card on top of some exchange that's
| pretty boring.
| [deleted]
| baby wrote:
| Why is everybody betting on bitcoin for payments when there are
| faster and more stable alternatives in the crypto space?
|
| I'm thinking that this is more about a proof of concept to get
| into the space.
| staplers wrote:
| I used to think this community was bright techies. Now I'm here
| having to explain basic network effect.
|
| Why is ipv4 still being used? C'mon guys you're smarter than
| this.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Satoshi said in 2009: "The existing Visa credit card network
| processes about 15 million Internet purchases per day
| worldwide. Bitcoin can already scale much larger than that with
| existing hardware for a fraction of the cost. It never really
| hits a scale ceiling. If you're interested, I can go over the
| ways it would cope with extreme size."
|
| "By Moore's Law, we can expect hardware speed to be 10 times
| faster in 5 years and 100 times faster in 10. Even if Bitcoin
| grows at crazy adoption rates, I think computer speeds will
| stay ahead of the number of transactions."[1]
|
| [1] https://plan99.net/~mike/satoshi-emails/thread1.html
| Tepix wrote:
| Then came the bitcoin core wars. Today bitcoin is a
| technological dead end, unable to evolve.
| atweiden wrote:
| > Then came the bitcoin core wars. Today bitcoin is a
| technological dead end, unable to evolve.
|
| Yet in spite of this, "speculative store of value" remains
| the only real world use case of cryptocurrency, full stop.
| No cryptocurrency has risen above speculative store of
| value absolutely without exception.
|
| N.B. "digital gold" is merely a euphemism for speculative
| store of value.
|
| "Digital gold" is the Cadillac of all cryptocurrency
| narratives from a pure practical proven standpoint, much to
| the chagrin of investors loudly beating the "utility coin"
| drum to shamelessly _drum up_ demand for other people to
| invest in their supposed utility-having coin unironically
| as a speculative store of value.
|
| This is also why all Bitcoin-to-altcoin competition is zero
| sum, and always will be -- because no one uses
| cryptocurrency, they just virtue signal with it to jockey
| for position in the sheer Keynesian beauty contest that is
| cryptocurrency valuation [1].
|
| Every core developer of Bitcoin could drop dead
| simultaneously, and Bitcoin's "digital gold" narrative
| would remain intact. All you need is what Bitcoin is today
| if your only goal is the safest safe haven asset.
|
| It was wise of the Bitcoin developers to double down on the
| digital gold narrative due to the inherent realities of the
| cryptocurrency space which continue to prove themselves out
| as Bitcoin has risen from $300 to over $50,000 USD. Bitcoin
| is digital gold, and every altcoin is low-key trying to
| become that by calling attention to their "utility" which
| virtually no one has ever made any "use" of.
|
| Which is why Bitcoin remains the #1 coin by market cap, and
| virtually every other cryptocurrency is down c. 70% from
| their all-time highs (BTC-denominated ofc, because no other
| metric counts).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Well, this is one thing that he obviously got wrong. Computer
| hardware speed didn't become faster by a factor of 100 in the
| 12 years since Bitcoin started. Just by a factor of 2, maybe.
|
| But solutions to that problem exist. I pay small amounts
| regularly with my bitcoin wallet (the Wallet of Satoshi), it
| costs mere cents and transactions confirm in seconds. It's
| far superior to anything visa has to offer, because it's
| fraud and counterfeit proof, privacy friendly, globally
| universal and cheap.
| loceng wrote:
| Because they want to be at the bottom of the pyramid scheme and
| now that it's gained enough mainstream media attention it
| doesn't even cost ridicule.
| [deleted]
| markkanof wrote:
| If it is in fact a pyramid scheme, wouldn't they want to be
| on the top rather than the bottom?
| tylersmith wrote:
| Nobody wants to be the bottom of a pyramid scheme. That's the
| scheme.
| yumraj wrote:
| 1. FOMO
|
| 2. If everyone (read: the vocal but high profile minority) is
| talking about it, even though we don't understand it, there
| must be something to it. Everyone (read: the vocal but high
| profile minority) cannot be wrong.
|
| 3. There is no career downside of betting on this and it fails,
| since everyone else was betting on it.
|
| 4. There is a career downside to not betting on it and it is
| successful.
| pier25 wrote:
| > _If everyone (read: the vocal but high profile minority) is
| talking about it, even though we don 't understand it, there
| must be something to it. Everyone (read: the vocal but high
| profile minority) cannot be wrong._
|
| That sounds like the JS community.
| [deleted]
| Kranar wrote:
| None are as stable as Bitcoin. There are some that are faster
| right now because no one uses them, but are likely to fail if
| they get any serious adoption.
|
| Ethereum is the only sensible alternative to Bitcoin but
| Ethereum has major scalability issues and much less
| infrastructure compared to Bitcoin to alleviate those issues.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| How would USDC fail?
| Kranar wrote:
| USDC uses Ethereum so it has all the scaling issues
| Ethereum has.
|
| That said Ethereum would be a reasonable alternative, but
| in terms of stability and performance, Bitcoin is far ahead
| of Ethereum currently. Maybe Ethereum 2.0 with sharding and
| staking solves those scalability issues and at that time it
| will be the best choice, but right now there are too many
| unknowns.
| T-A wrote:
| > USDC uses Ethereum so it has all the scaling issues
| Ethereum has
|
| USDC also uses Algorand, Solana and Stellar:
|
| https://www.circle.com/en/usdc-multichain
| eximius wrote:
| Ethereum does face additional problems because of the EVM.
|
| Proof of Stake is coming which helps _a lot_ with overall
| effort expended, if not directly tx /s.
|
| What does Bitcoin have that Ethereum doesn't for scaling
| transaction rate?
| polyomino wrote:
| lightning
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| What about Monero? It seems like the perfect coin.
| beaner wrote:
| People want to spend what they hold, and most people who hold
| crypto hold Bitcoin.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Another layer 2 for BTC
| iijj wrote:
| Maybe I don't understand it correctly, but after having recently
| done my taxes, it seems to me you'd generate a capital gain or
| loss that has to be captured on IRS Form 8949 every time such a
| thing triggered bitcoin to be converted to USD, goods or
| services.
|
| Or is it some nudge-nudge-wink-wink situation where everyone,
| including the IRS, ignores such a thing unless the sums involved
| are large.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| ;)
| rawtxapp wrote:
| Because of the open nature of the blockchain, the IRS knows all
| your exact movements, so there's no nudge-nudge-wink-wink
| especially if you have tied your real identity to a Bitcoin
| address using a centralized exchange.
|
| Presumably, tools like cointracker (maybe even Visa
| themselves), etc, will take care of reporting these taxes for
| you, still a pita, but doable.
| pmastela wrote:
| > open nature of the blockchain
|
| Only some are open. Take a look at Monero. There's a bounty
| out to make transactions on it traceable [1].
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25752042
| purple_ferret wrote:
| Misleading Title. Visa says it will allow for Bitcoin to be
| converted to fiat, and the fiat can be spent using a Visa Card in
| the same way debit cards already work.
|
| This is already done with the Coinbase card, Gemini card, etc
|
| The statement is very vague in terms of who is covering the
| conversion.
| lupire wrote:
| It says they are using USDC stablecoin for the conversion.
| harikb wrote:
| Visa is doing what any decent $500B company will do because of
| FOMO
| notyourwork wrote:
| It's such an anti-pattern for the world to adopt this approach.
| Sadly most people don't care nor should have to but the
| decentralization is effectively moot when payment processors
| like Visa get involved. Sadly, I'm less and less hopeful that
| crypto will be what the movement conveyed over last 10 years.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Think of it like the currency equivalent of backwards
| compatibility.
|
| It's meant to serve as a stopgap so that accepting bitcoin
| for a purchase doesn't require the friction/risk of only
| being able to use that bitcoin at other places that accept
| bitcoin.
| notyourwork wrote:
| If BTC could replace CC merchants in terms of their
| transaction volume than this would not be possible.
| However, because the transaction volume cannot be handled
| natively Visa is able to wrap the "decentralized" currency
| and profit by continuing to be a middleman.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The tax treatment of crypto as an asset makes it hard to
| avoid, right?
|
| Otherwise, you have to note the current price of _coin in USD
| each time you use_ coin to pay for something, because you owe
| capital gains or losses on whatever currency you liquidated
| to make the purchase.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| Presumably there will be tools to automate that, but I
| agree with you it would be a pita.
| kajumix wrote:
| Bitcoin disrupts central bank, not payment networks.
| Lightning [1] as layer 2 on top of Bitcoin adheres to
| trustless and p2p ideals, and is actually the competition for
| Visa.
|
| [1]: https://lightning.network/
|
| Edit: added link
| zionic wrote:
| Lightning, technically speaking, is garbage.
|
| 10k transactions per second ETH2 layer 1 + zk roll-ups
| providing throughout multiplication threatens VISA.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| > Lightning, technically speaking, is garbage.
|
| Do you care to elaborate?
| kajumix wrote:
| I will cheer for the success of ETH2 as well. The reason
| I like Lightning better is because the engineer in me
| wants to freeze the base layer and do the experimental
| layers in isolation. Internet infra is all layered for
| good reason.
| lupire wrote:
| The OSI layering model of internet infra is largely a
| myth, a simplification for students. It's similar to C is
| called "portable assembly" despite compilers being far
| more complex in practice.
| quesera wrote:
| OSI layers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are very real.
|
| Roughly, e.g.: 1:Fiber, 2:Ethernet, 3:Routing, 4:TCP/IP,
| and 7:HTTP.
| hggh wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM4gNVme5a0
| fny wrote:
| I mean... what do you expect with a currency with an
| annualized volatility of 100%. The risk is way too damn high.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I don't expect anything other than businesses will do what
| businesses do. Its just sad that mainstream media consumers
| will interpret this very differently from reality.
| waheoo wrote:
| I think you're the one messing with reality here.
|
| Bitcoin needs to be stable before it can be used
| widespread for transactions.
|
| Visa doing this increases its adoption, increased
| adoption, even if used in this way will stabilise the
| currency.
|
| That is huge. It's just a required stepping stone.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's impossible with current bitcoin transaction fees. Monero
| has a better chance at seeing real usage as currency.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the decentralization is effectively moot when payment
| processors like Visa get involved_
|
| It's a deflationary currency. If it has a future as a store
| of value, and I think it very well may, it would have a net
| effect of concentrating wealth. And with wealth comes power.
| Whether that power is exercised through how the blockchain
| processes transactions or via some other vector seems
| something of a side show to me.
|
| The wealthy never wanted to abandon the gold standard. It was
| the populists and the bankers. The poor and the middlemen.
| adventured wrote:
| > It's a deflationary currency.
|
| It's not a currency, that's a misnomer to a great degree.
|
| Which nations are supporting it as a currency? Essentially
| none. If something doesn't have the currency status backing
| of a single major economy, it plainly can't be considered a
| currency. It's a store of value.
|
| Sure, we could be pretend about it (any medium of
| exchange), be idealistic, and say that you don't need
| nations to back something for it to be considered a
| currency, however that's repudiated by every possible
| aspect of how things actually work (and will continue to)
| both locally within an economy and internationally in
| trade.
|
| Gold also is not a currency today, it's a store of value. I
| don't think anyone confuses gold for being a currency and
| there's no reason to confuse Bitcoin as being such.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It 's not a currency, that's a misnomer to a great
| degree_
|
| I agree with you. The comment was made within the context
| of (a) Visa treating it like a currency and (b) OP
| referencing the original dream of Bitcoin supporting a
| decentralized financial system.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The only people I see campaigning for the return of the
| gold standard are populists.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The only people I see campaigning for the return of the
| gold standard are populists.
|
| Many of the current crop "populists" don't really have a
| program that would actually help the people whose support
| they've gained through emotional appeals. They're mainly
| just trying to harness dissatisfaction with the current
| order to fuel personal ambition.
|
| IIRC, the _original_ populists actually opposed the gold
| standard, when it was still actually a thing, and
| supported silver because it was more inflationary. They
| understood deflationary money helps the people who
| already have money, and inflationary money helps the
| people who are in debt to them.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Just as with social media, convenience was more important
| than sovereignty via decentralization.
|
| Can't change the wind, have to adjust your sails.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I don't fault the average person for not wanting to be
| their own bank. I've been using bitcoin for years and I'm
| still terrified I'm going to mess up a transaction or lose
| access to my wallet.
| notyourwork wrote:
| This is the biggest problem that an average person need
| not ever want to deal with. How do you explain to someone
| sorry we cannot help you because it was _your_
| responsibility to manage that wallet.
| dnprock wrote:
| The problem with using Bitcoin for payments is volatility.
| Bitcoin's price is volatile. Bitcoin supporters say volatility
| will go down "at some point". The logic is pretty silly. Bitcoin
| is money for the people. But when the super rich people adopt it,
| volatility will go down. They have more money. The Bitcoin money
| "tank" will be bigger. Its volatile flow will go down.
|
| Bitcoin is digital gold, God's money. When it comes to
| volatility, it's up to humans to "fix" it. The fix means we all
| have to "buy" into it, that is, blindly believe the problem will
| be fixed somehow. Stop selling, keep holding. Maybe, forever. :)
|
| It's probably not going to be fixed. Volatility is likely an
| inherent property due to its limited supply.
|
| https://bitflate.org/post/2020/05/10/bitcoin-volatility.html
| [deleted]
| tehjoker wrote:
| How the heck would bitcoin volatility go down when there's no
| fixed reason to use it? USD has value despite fiat status
| because it's required to pay US taxes and oil markets are
| priced in USD (by force and trade agreement). Bitcoin is
| totally unteathered from reality (and deflationary which is
| another story entirely).
|
| This means Bitcoin's value is based on completely ephemeral
| feelings, and the size of its network -- both things that can
| disappear overnight. The most solid thing you can say about it
| is that you can use it to get around government sanctions,
| which is not exactly high praise.
| capableweb wrote:
| > both things that can disappear overnight
|
| I understand what you mean and it's true in theory, but could
| never happen in reality. Even if a lot of the world stops
| believing in Bitcoin and the price tanks, there will always
| be at least two people interested in trading it with each
| other. If those two people run one node each, they can make
| it happen.
|
| Bitcoin can no longer disappear overnight. It was true in the
| beginning, but the network and mind-share is too big now.
|
| > which is not exactly high praise
|
| The market seems to value a independent and censorship proof
| currency differently than you, as those are two of the main
| features of Bitcoin and Bitcoin is seemingly receiving a lot
| of high praise, at least at the moment and past 7 years.
| tehjoker wrote:
| > Bitcoin can no longer disappear overnight. It was true in
| the beginning, but the network and mind-share is too big
| now.
|
| This is what they said about the housing market in 2008.
| The question isn't whether bitcoin would operate at least 1
| transaction, it's whether it is usable as a stable store of
| value or a large useful network.
|
| > The market seems to value a independent and censorship
| proof currency differently than you, as those are two of
| the main features of Bitcoin and Bitcoin is seemingly
| receiving a lot of high praise, at least at the moment and
| past 7 years.
|
| I meant morally, not financially. I suspect that multi-
| nationals are trying to become supranational entities and
| would be thrilled to be able to become more powerful and
| free from discipline from individual nations.
| pmastela wrote:
| > This means Bitcoin's value is based on completely ephemeral
| feelings, and the size of its network -- both things that can
| disappear overnight.
|
| Yet here we are in 2021. The ephemeral feelings to me are the
| memes that keep things like culture going as well as Bitcoin,
| and thanks to the Lindy Effect [1], everyday Bitcoin doesn't
| die, it grows stronger. If ever there was a time for Bitcoin
| to die, it would've been in its infancy days in 2009 -- yet
| here we are in 2021.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > This means Bitcoin's value is based on completely ephemeral
| feelings
|
| How is this different from any other asset? Value always
| disappears when people stop believing in it. People invest in
| company stock because they believe the company is valuable
| and will grow over time. Nobody wants to hold coins that lose
| value constantly. Governments have to literally force people
| to use their currencies by force of law.
| kajumix wrote:
| High volatility is due not to supply, but to the trading
| volume. Like Taleb said, there is no long-term stability
| without short-term volatility.
| dnprock wrote:
| Taleb changed his mind on this subject. :) I can see Bitcoin
| as a "stable" long-term Store of Value. Short-term, it's
| always volatile. It's not suitable as a Medium of Exchange.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Is this anything more than Visa responding to Mastercard
| announcements last month?
|
| The HN discussion with 800+ comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102030
| monkeydust wrote:
| Having dived into DeFi over last few weeks I am much more
| conscious and annoyed by the fees you have to pay to get from
| fiat to your final intention.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Nothing like using a credit card and paying a $15 fee for a
| transaction that takes 2 hours and can't be reversed.
| tylersmith wrote:
| Visa would be providing 0 value if it exposed these drawbacks
| of Bitcoin's transaction network to users. Making cheap, fast
| transactions with fraud protections is exactly what a company
| like Visa has to offer.
| latchkey wrote:
| "Other than Bitcoin, the payment processor also plans to allow
| for the use of stablecoins."
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Call it what you want. Visa is now a second layer and btc is the
| first haha
| tryonenow wrote:
| I have very little long term faith in BTC at this point. It is
| effectively centralized, has limited capacity, outrageous fees
| when the network is busy, and then there are growing concerns
| over environmental impact...but I'm still holding on to my stash
| as the growing institutional momentum over the last year or so
| seems like it might have a significant positive influence on
| price, before BTC is eventually abandoned.
|
| It's a gamble but it wouldn't surprise me if we saw $100k at this
| point, might as well let it ride if you've locked in whatever you
| originally paid for it.
| k1rcher wrote:
| 100% agree with you on all points.
|
| As a valid replacement for currency, it is inherently flawed.
| As an investment? A very solid choice.
|
| Many seem to have difficulties differentiating between the the
| two distinct concepts, myself included.
| qeternity wrote:
| > As an investment? A very solid choice.
|
| What's the thesis?
| zucked wrote:
| Because it's still magic to retail investors, and as long
| as they don't see behind the curtain, they'll keep coming
| along in droves and inadvertently propping it up + pushing
| it higher.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| Bank of America had this[1] to say: "No good reason to own
| BTC unless you see prices going up. .. it is not tied to
| inflation, and remains exceptionally volatile, making it
| impractical as a store of wealth or payments mechanism. As
| such, the main.. argument for holding Bitcoin is.. sheer
| price appreciation"
|
| I haven't found a reason in favor of owning btc other than
| "number go up".
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/137212900125
| 12215...
| tryonenow wrote:
| Institutional and retail investors are just starting to
| pile on and there will be potentially massive gains to be
| had in the near to mid term before the bottom falls out.
|
| Long term? Probably not smart.
|
| Safe to get in now? Debatable, pretty high risk.
|
| But if you have a bunch of coins laying around and you're
| willing to gamble a bit longer...
| rowland66 wrote:
| Wow, that is pretty basic economic fallacy. Whether you
| hold coins today or not should not impact an investment
| decision. If the BTC you bought 10 years ago for $100 is
| worth $100,000 today, and a couple of weeks from now the
| price collapses and is worth $100 again, you have still
| lost $100,000. Just the same as if you paid $100,000 for
| your BTC today. Only difference would be tax liability.
| perl4ever wrote:
| It sounds like you believe the marginal utility of
| currency or wealth is constant and anything else is
| contrary to "basic economics".
|
| Can you explain further, because it sounds weird to me?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think the idea is you have some amount of "worth"
| today, denominated in whatever you like. Maybe you have
| 100k USD in BTC or in cash. If you let your bitcoin ride,
| that's equivalent, modulo taxes, to buying bitcoin. Or,
| selling your bitcoin today is equivalent to choosing not
| to buy.
|
| The idea is that you shouldn't think "I already have some
| bitcoins, may as well let them ride" but instead think
| "Would it be better to have bitcoins or dollars?" And
| then, whatever your answer and current assets are,
| reposition yourself so you're consistent with your
| beliefs.
| qeternity wrote:
| Yeah this is trading 101 for anyone who has cut their
| teeth somewhere decent. I had that drilled into my head.
|
| There is no such thing as house money.
| qeternity wrote:
| GBTC was trading at 15% discount to spot today...
|
| The institutional thesis is massively overblown. And
| retail isn't piling in like in 2017.
| perl4ever wrote:
| There was an article I read on how arbitrage vs BTC was
| possible, despite it not being an ETF. I forget the
| details, it may have taken like 6 months to do the
| exchange for regulatory reasons.
|
| So professionals were making money while it was >BTC,
| until they overdid it and the premium went away.
|
| It seems reasonable to be patient because there's just a
| lot of lag in the system as it's currently set up.
|
| If you've ever paid attention to closed-end funds, you
| might have noticed how they can trade substantially over
| or under asset value for quite a while, but not forever.
| qeternity wrote:
| There's no arbitrage in the strict sense but basically
| it's just a straight convergence trade without a delivery
| mechanism. Just need funding, which is abundant today.
| k1rcher wrote:
| That's a very good question, one that I don't have an
| answer to. "A very solid choice" was a very poor choice of
| phrasing. I was intending to generalize the reasoning
| behind the recent surges in value and popularity.
|
| My statement was more intended to be a critique on the
| current perception to the layman. I believe bitcoin and
| crypto as a whole should be looked on as a currency, rather
| than a get-quick-rich investment that absolutely anyone
| with a spare penny can leverage for their own profit.
| dandanua wrote:
| And what is Bitcoin value without it being used as a
| currency?
| kevinak wrote:
| Why is it flawed as a currency?
| tw600040 wrote:
| If BTC does catch up, the current inequality of the world will
| look like an anthill in comparison to the inequality that BTC
| will create. I can't imagine the world letting that happen..
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| How is that the coin's fault? Nothing stops anyone from
| downloading an app, buying some and selling for profit whenever
| convenient.
| kneel wrote:
| People who can recognize value and invest in it might actually
| get a decent return on their due diligence. The horror.
| dencodev wrote:
| Not sure if this was the first year for tax returns to have it,
| but I was asked to document every single time I spent bitcoin to
| purchase something. Because you have to pay capital gains on the
| value above when you bought it. I wonder if this is true here but
| either way it's a massive pain in the ass.
| gervwyk wrote:
| Not directly related, but has anyone looked at Kin [1] recently.
| Besides btc and eth, they are the only guys with SEC clearance.
| And given that they are running on the Solana chain, as far as I
| understand, makes micro transactions possible. Also from a dev
| point of view, their weekly reward engine payouts is quite
| attractive! I'm really interested to hear what others think of
| Kin?
|
| [1] - https://kin.org
| k1rcher wrote:
| This is super interesting, thanks for sharing.
|
| Cryptocurrencies and alt coins are a dime a dozen these days
| and it is incredibly difficult to filter through the noise.
| gervwyk wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I've tracked these guys from the start.
| Really solid concept behind it and the founder make a really
| strong commitment from the start to say that if its a
| currency the only thing that matters is the number of daily
| transactions. Which is really true if you consider the value
| of a currency related to the value of the network.
|
| unfortunately they really hit a speedbump with the long
| ongoing SEC case, but now that it is finalized it all can
| really play into their advantage.
|
| Also the fact that they have done 3 chain migrations did not
| do any favors, but the techs say its for the best. Would be
| really interested to understand why changing from Stellar to
| Solana is so important?
| 67868018 wrote:
| The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand
| Bitcoin and crypto is astounding.
|
| Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value
| store. Immutable deflationary digital gold.
|
| I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees
| were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they
| couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around
| last year believing that's the scam they were still peddling, but
| once you take time to investigate you'll see it will become a
| major part of the world economy.
|
| COVID helped push this over as bailouts and printing money in the
| US and the ECB is going to drive a massive movement of money out
| of the markets and fiat.
|
| Normally you'd see momentum go to bonds when the stocks burst but
| the bonds situation is unsalvagable.
|
| Also expect a ton of movement to crypto when wealth taxes get
| implemented to fix economies. They'll use it to hide assets,
| guaranteed. Form an LLC, siphon the money out that way and into
| crypto.
| Priem19 wrote:
| >Also expect a ton of movement to crypto when wealth taxes get
| implemented to fix economies. They'll use it to hide assets,
| guaranteed.
|
| Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely. Disregarding all
| of bitcoin's shortcomings, a financial instrument that brings
| out the worst in people--greed--won't change the world for the
| better. https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html.
|
| I used time-travel to uncover three secret messages hidden in a
| popular Bitcoin meme - "This meme is designed to exploit a
| number of weaknesses in our understanding of money, and to play
| on our fears. I'm going to show you how it does it, and why."
| https://brettscott.substack.com/p/bitcoin-meme-time-travel.
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