[HN Gopher] Stripe Crypto
___________________________________________________________________
Stripe Crypto
Author : seabj0rn
Score : 347 points
Date : 2022-03-10 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stripe.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stripe.com)
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| This is unrelated to the specific story, but as more and more
| companies and people I respect get involved with it, the more I
| realize I need to have a working knowledge of Crypto Currency so
| at the very least I can be involved in the discussion.
|
| Does anyone have any good resources for learning the building
| blocks/vocabulary of Crypto Currency?
| tremarley wrote:
| You could check out crypto.tre.gd
| fossuser wrote:
| This is the highest signal list I'm aware of on the topic:
| https://danromero.org/crypto-reading/
|
| For a book with more in the weeds details:
| https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Cryptocurrency-Technologies-C...
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| Thanks for the thorough answer.
| Hjfrf wrote:
| Reddit.com/r/buttcoin
| kayamon wrote:
| https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-s1...
| Nathanael_M wrote:
| Thanks!
| BoorishBears wrote:
| My respect for Stripe plummeted when I reached out about a closed
| API and got a passive aggressive answer from support.
|
| I don't think I've ever gotten that kind of rude sarcasm/passive
| aggression from a simple support inquiry, and I vowed never to
| use their services again.
|
| Their competitors to this specific API were much nicer to work
| with and onboarded us after some basic introductions, so part of
| me wonders what other fronts Stripe has better but less well
| known competitors on.
| ndr wrote:
| Can you share the API/competitor?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Marqeta, Treasury Prime, Synctera
|
| All companies that actually spoke to us and assisted when
| Stripe Treasury essentially said "why are you bothering us?"
| sodality2 wrote:
| Can you post the reply? I'm curious about what they said.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Sure, I inquired about the API, and got a templated reply
| that simply repeated the API's landing page
|
| I replied saying I'd be interested in knowing what they're
| looking for in potential beta partners:
|
| > That is good to hear. All you need to do is follow the
| instructions listed in my previous email and wait on contact
| from the Treasury team. I am happy I was able to assist you.
|
| > Thank you for choosing Stripe!
|
| Keep in mind the "instructions" are to fill out the form that
| got me into this email chain in the first place: in other
| words there's nothing about what I asked there.
|
| There's the whole "That's good to hear" reply _to a question_
| I asked...
|
| And I was especially taken aback by the whole facetious
| "happy I was able to assist you" bit after completely
| ignoring my question.
|
| -
|
| The entire interaction felt like "why are you bothering us",
| which is honestly would be a fair position if they're looking
| for established players for example... but why not be direct?
|
| We had other companies flat out say their partners want X
| million in funding before they'll work with you, and that was
| fine.
|
| It'd actually take less work than writing out a non-answer
| like that
| bhaak wrote:
| Doesn't sound like you even interacted with a human being
| but a badly written bot.
| ffritz wrote:
| danuker wrote:
| Is it a scam if everyone is in on it?
| tchock23 wrote:
| 16% of the US has owned/traded crypto. So yeah, everyone.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| This page is more useful:
| https://support.stripe.com/questions/crypto-supportability-a...
|
| Basically can sell crypto for KYC backed cash in the US. No
| credit cards. No paying in crypto?
| jessaustin wrote:
| Thanks for puncturing the silly hype.
| throwaway55522 wrote:
| colesantiago wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't start yet another instance of the same old generic
| flamewar on HN. The issue isn't whether you're right or wrong,
| it's that we've had this flamewar hundreds of times already and
| nothing new comes of it. That makes if off topic for this site,
| which is supposed to be for curiosity. Curiosity withers under
| repetition and fries under indignation.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| colesantiago wrote:
| But this is a valid question? I am sure other Stripe
| customers are upset with this as much as I am to call it what
| it is.
|
| Are you going to flag them too?
| exdsq wrote:
| Happy to see you're taking this approach now Dang. It's
| really killed a lot of threads and I hope conversations can
| now go up a level to the technical uses rather than generic
| 'ponzi scheme' claims.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > I hope conversations can now go up a level to the
| technical uses
|
| Most if not all of the "technical uses" rely on rent
| extraction so it's _really_ hard to talk about the
| technical uses without focusing on that major sticking
| point. Cryptocurrencies /dApps et al only work because of a
| network of miners _on top_ of existing Internet
| infrastructure. They all add some extra cost onto every
| transaction. This in addition to the fantastic number of
| hucksters and scammers that need suckers to buy into the
| system so they can cash out.
|
| The whole subject of crytocurrencies cannot be separated
| from the implementation details. Talking about "technical
| uses" as if the economic considerations didn't exist is
| pointless.
| exdsq wrote:
| Yes I understand how blockchains work. Having that extra
| layer allows for these projects so, as an end user, we
| should shift the focus on things like the costs of using
| an app rather than the implementation (except maybe for
| PoS v PoW for environmental reasons). Instead of
| technical uses maybe I should have said projects and
| products.
| colesantiago wrote:
| This technology does not work as designed, advertised and
| towards the environment.
|
| And this announcement is an endorsement of the entire space
| which is full of scams, is this what you are also
| endorsing?
| dang wrote:
| I'm not endorsing anything except good threads on Hacker
| News.
| exdsq wrote:
| I've left the field of crypto/blockchain but worked on a
| few projects such as the Cardano blockchain. Now I'm
| focusing on effective altruism and food security. Anyway,
| I've been aware or involved with the crypto space since
| 2014 when I used to play a drinking game involving the
| Bitcoin ATM at Google Campus in London (guessing if the
| price would go up or down when it updated every minute or
| so, around the $300 mark if I remember correctly). In
| that time I've worked for several different startups in
| the space and not once have I worked with anyone who's
| trying to scam people. Yes scams exist. No, most projects
| are not scams. Bad ideas? Sure, maybe! Bad execution?
| Yep, that happens! Quickly obsolete tech? It's a fast
| moving scene! But when a startup is trying to build a
| product such as a financial account for developing
| countries without banking infrastructure to allow people
| to build a credit score, or trying to reduce
| international banking fees impact on remittence payments
| in countries like Nepal, or trying to allow people to
| have options in countries where their own national
| currency is going down the drain, I find it offensive
| that people on HackerNews who on the whole are smart
| well-experienced people default to this idea that it's
| all one big scam. This is in fact one of the reasons I
| left Crypto - because of relentless attacks on peoples
| character and how toxic it can be. I'm very happy if this
| style of conversation disappears from HN forever because
| 1) saying it's a scam doesn't change anyones opinions 2)
| the arguments have been repeated literally for years 3)
| it goes against HN T&Cs anyway.
|
| I hope we're at the point where we can focus on
| individual projects (which may well be absolutely useless
| products) than judging the entire space as a whole.
| dang wrote:
| We've been taking this approach for a long time - it's just
| hard to get the word out.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| slippery slope dang, HN soon the place to be for
| promoting NFT's about tech
|
| oh it is already, does Stripe gets an exception because
| it is "backed by YC"?
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe
|
| It should be tagged as such
|
| More transparency dang, please
| dang wrote:
| > does Stripe gets an exception because it is "backed by
| YC"
|
| Neither Stripe nor any other YC startup. It's the other
| way around actually: we moderate less, not more, when a
| YC startup is the story. See https://hn.algolia.com/?date
| Range=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for many years' worth
| of explanations.
| tchock23 wrote:
| Isn't it classified as "curiosity" when people question
| whether crypto works?
|
| By labeling the criticisms as a "flamewar" you/HN are tacitly
| endorsing it.
| 10x-dev wrote:
| It is not established that cryptocurrencies in general are
| scams. I could make my own cryptocurrency and use it for
| completely legitimate reasons.
| topranks wrote:
| Sounds like a scam
| siruncledrew wrote:
| That's an interesting 180 degree turn from saying "no" to crypto
| support to now allowing crypto support. What regulations changed
| behind the scenes?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| If anything, with the recent executive order, I expect the
| regulatory landscape to change quickly to make cryptocurrencies
| even less desirable to support for payment.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| danielandrews43 wrote:
| Some high quality humor on the page with "Cube Thingy 1", "Cube
| Thingy 2", and "Cube Thingy 3"
| edwinwee wrote:
| And the Cube Thingies are real!
| https://niftygateway.com/collections/cube-thingies
| danuker wrote:
| "Not yet Available". Aww.
| edwinwee wrote:
| Come back later today for minting time--open edition at
| 6:30 PM ET for two hours.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I just want to say that the extraordinary unseriousness
| of this (and the NFT twitter icon, really!?) has
| convinced me that Stripe is through the looking glass,
| now.
|
| This is such a demoralising turn of events.
| llsf wrote:
| "We will not rest until 1 billion people are collecting
| NFTs." Is it Apr. 1st already ?
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Every day is April 1st now.
|
| More and more I am convinced that the weasel that crawled
| into the LHC and got itself killed only died _inside_ the
| collapsing time bubble it somehow created through an
| unspecified accident and in which we are now all living.
|
| Outside the time bubble, it scampered away and Brexit,
| Trump's victory, the Ukraine war and the Tiger King series
| never happened.
| Devasta wrote:
| Stuff like this just gives credence to the farcical notion that
| crypto is reputable.
|
| The leadership at stripe should be utterly ashamed.
| bradgessler wrote:
| When can I accept crypto payments for products and services with
| Stripe?
|
| I don't expect this to have a lot of volume from the start, but
| it's important that payment platforms like Stripe start accepting
| cryptocurrency so this can get bigger.
| johnm212 wrote:
| > Build your crypto business with Stripe
|
| I would hesitate building any business on Stripe. However, if you
| are considering using Stripe Crypto, build the integration it in
| a way that you can easily migrate away.
|
| We built our credit card processing and invoicing on Stripe.
| We've only processed $2.5m and now we are migrating away. We are
| 2 months into the migration.
|
| It's worth the migration cost, working with Stripe has been an
| absolute nightmare. Really wish we had built our billing system
| differently... and not with Stripe.
| cffeecffeecffee wrote:
| Curious what happened with your integration and subsequent
| migration?
| xmprt wrote:
| Do you mind giving more information? I've mostly heard good
| things about Stripe about things like their documentation and
| APIs. I'd love to hear stuff contrary to that. I personally
| don't use Stripe either but I'm interested in hearing your
| reasons so we don't go through a lengthy migration that ends up
| biting us in the back.
| lovingCranberry wrote:
| I'm not OP, but I have a story to share:
|
| I worked for a company which is selling a tool that allows
| windows users to spoof unique identifiers of their computer.
| A lot of software these days grabs MAC addresses, disk and
| monitor serials in order to identify users. So, this tool
| just hooks into the windows kernel, and returns made up
| identifiers when a program requests them via the windows API.
| It _does not_ change any files on the user 's disk, and it
| does not modify any other programs in RAM. Literally the only
| thing it does is hooking the kernel like a 3rd party anti-
| virus. It is basically like the "randomize MAC address" and
| "change advertising identifier" on modern smartphones. Just
| for windows.
|
| Well, one day I woke up with this email in my inbox:
| https://i.imgur.com/g91KDqE.png
|
| They stopped the payouts, as this tool was deemed as a
| "restricted product". The cited point as the reason of the
| termination is the following:
|
| > Compliance with Applicable Laws: You must use the Services
| in a lawful manner, and must obey all laws, rules, and
| regulations ("Laws") applicable to your use of the Services
| and to Transactions. As applicable, this may include
| compliance with domestic and international Laws related to
| the use or provision of financial services, notification and
| consumer protection, unfair competition, privacy, and false
| advertising, and any other Laws relevant to Transactions.
|
| As it came to light, a 70bn company namely Activision filed a
| lawsuit and subpoena against us as the tool is used to bypass
| their (poorly) implemented anti-cheat. Nothing had been
| decided in court yet (whether the product is unfair
| competition or piracy), but stripe still chose to just kill
| the account for our core product.
|
| I'm glad that they didn't lock away the money for 180 days
| minimum like PayPal usually does. Employees need to be paid,
| and this just sucks for everyone.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Documentation is amazing, dashboard is amazing, pricing is
| high, you have to have a lot of volume before they will
| consider lower rates and/or removing/lowering the flat per-
| transaction fee. I'm also migrating away. Another reason I'm
| leaving is in-person payments. They have moved forward on
| that front but their offering is still pretty lacking. Lastly
| other processors will profit-share with you much earlier,
| stripe will do it but again, you have to have a lot of volume
| first.
| edwinwee wrote:
| I work at Stripe and I'd like to hear what went wrong here.
| (Feel free to email me directly at edwin@stripe.com.)
| chinathrow wrote:
| Oh please. Long time Stripe fan and customer here - this makes me
| sad from the inside. They even mention NFT marketplaces - scams
| all over the places. Why would they want to support use cases
| like that?
| sodality2 wrote:
| > _Why would they want to support use cases like that?_
|
| Money? They are a business
| floodyberry- wrote:
| > They are a business
|
| with poor ethics
| fmvab wrote:
| Because there is money to be had, and people like money.
| orangepanda wrote:
| They forgot to update their terms of service.
|
| > Prohibited Businesses
|
| > You must not use Stripe's services for the following
| activities:
|
| > * Pyramid schemes
|
| > * 'Get rich quick' schemes
|
| > * No value added services
|
| > * Predatory investment opportunities
| atlantas wrote:
| Serious question: Do you think pyramid schemes, get rich quick
| schemes, no value added services and predatory investments are
| new?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Hot take! DAE crypto is a scam?
|
| Tweeting "buy $SHITCOIN!" isn't a pyramid scheme, do we have to
| have this discussion on every thread?
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| It's "greater fool" theory at best.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| yes yes and let's not forget tulip mania! Did you know that
| DRUG DEALERS use crypto?!
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Is there a rebuttal? Greater fools scheme is a valid
| criticism, can't just handwave it away everytime
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| > Greater fools scheme _[sic]_ is a valid criticism
|
| Did you mean greater fool theory? That's not a financial
| _scheme_ that 's listed under Stripe's ToS (our context).
|
| Are you arguing in good faith that Stripe should _update
| the Prohibited Businesses section of their ToS_ based on
| what you said?
| mattdesl wrote:
| presumably a Stripe service built on ERC20 would support
| stablecoins (DAI, RAI, USDC), which will be pretty
| central to many crypto-commerce businesses. there is no
| greater fool in these closed systems.
|
| source: I am selling art prints via stablecoins as a
| payment option for interested customers, but I'm manually
| handling the transactions, invoicing, and accounting
| (Stripe crypto could be an option for a small business
| like me).
| exdsq wrote:
| Tulip mania wasn't even that big a thing. Lasted a few
| weeks and consisted of a couple traders trying out new
| speculative financial instruments.
| colesantiago wrote:
| We're just calling it what it really is, what is wrong with
| that?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| > isn't a pyramid scheme
|
| BitConnect was an _actual_ Ponzi scheme. I don 't see how
| buying my coffee with DOGE counts as a "predatory
| investment opportunity."
| colesantiago wrote:
| Ask Elon's manipulation tactics of that specific dog coin
| and it's derivatives like SHIB.
|
| All scams.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| (Ask his tactics?) That's market manipulation.
|
| > All scams.
|
| "All" meaning those 2?
| colesantiago wrote:
| [deleted]
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Presented without evidence, dismissed without it.
| unreal37 wrote:
| You keep using the word scam. I don't think it means what
| you think it means. ;)
|
| If two people want to send some bits between each other,
| and they both know what they're doing, it's not a scam.
| It may be risky, it may be unwise, it may be
| speculation... but scams involve deception between the
| receiver and the sender. And crypto is equivalent to
| dollars in this sense.
| kache_ wrote:
| been a while since I heard "DAE"
| fmvab wrote:
| Wait, isn't that exactly a pyramid scheme?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| If you're asking in good faith, it's market manipulation.
|
| In your own words, can you explain the difference between,
| say, a Ponzi and a pyramid scheme? Pyramid and a matrix? Or
| do you use "pyramid scheme" to just mean "scheme?"
| fmvab wrote:
| Okay, it may not be a pyramid scheme in the exact
| technical sense, but combined with the other items on the
| list, "get-rich-quick", etc., I think pump-and-dumping
| shitcoins counts, right?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| It's not a pyramid scheme in _any_ sense.
|
| Pump-and-dump schemes fall under the "get-rich-quick"
| language, but I don't see what this has to do with the
| details of _this_ specific announcement.
| fmvab wrote:
| 'A pyramid scheme is a fraudulent system of making money
| based on recruiting an ever-increasing number of
| "investors." The initial promoters recruit investors, who
| in turn recruit more investors, and so on. The scheme is
| called a "pyramid" because at each level, the number of
| investors increases. The small group of initial promotors
| at the top require a large base of later investors to
| support the scheme by providing profits to the earlier
| investors.'
|
| Come on, many crypto projects don't seem like this in
| _any_ sense?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That's a bad definition.
|
| The key characteristic of a pyramid scheme is that each
| person gets paid by the people they recruit.
|
| If there is a global FIFO, that's a Ponzi scheme.
|
| A pump and dump is something else entirely. It doesn't
| depend on an infinite series of investors, just one wave.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| The general term should be "greater fools schemes". Ponzi
| and Pyramid are just subtypes of this. There is also MLM
| and PnD which have their own characteristics. All of
| these involve finding more and more people to invest so
| that early investors can exit.
|
| The reason why every greater fools scheme fails is that
| there is no net revenue (or too small to sustain the
| scheme). No matter the scheme, you will always run out of
| greater fools, and so it must collapse eventually.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > All of these involve finding more and more people to
| invest so that early investors can exit.
|
| > No matter the scheme, you will always run out of
| greater fools, and so it must collapse eventually.
|
| That depends on how you define "collapse". After a pump
| and dump, a stock might crash to zero, or settle back to
| where it was, or even settle back to a higher number than
| it was originally at. It doesn't require a particularly
| large supply of fools, and it only requires them for a
| small amount of time. And it doesn't have to move the
| stock price by a huge percentage either.
| fmvab wrote:
| It comes from the office of the NYS attorney general.
| https://ag.ny.gov/consumer-frauds/pyramid-schemes
|
| Please send them an email elucidating the finer points of
| what scheme is what.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'm aware of what page it comes from.
|
| I'm also aware that not all communications use exact
| definitions at all times! Your smugness is not called
| for.
|
| If you just want to link some government pages in the
| google results for 'pyramid scheme', here's one following
| the precise definition: https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-
| safety/common-scams-and-crimes...
| fmvab wrote:
| My point is, it doesn't matter whether you or I consider
| it a "bad definition". To say that these things are not
| pyramid schemes "in any way" is unnecessarily pedantic
| and not useful considering the context (the implications
| of their terms of service).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| As far as the terms of service go, I could see conflating
| a pyramid and a ponzi, but a pump and dump is pretty
| distantly related.
|
| And saying they need to remove that part of the ToS to
| honestly accept any crypto business is silly.
|
| You could make an argument against allowing entirely new
| coins, I guess, but that's more about the other ToS terms
| than 'pyramid scheme'.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| You know they use Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc as well for all
| of these scams.
|
| Should Stripe ban businesses that deal in Dollars, Euros,
| Pounds, etc?
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| danuker wrote:
| Which cryptos are scams and why?
| rewtraw wrote:
| well, most cryptos are scams. that's extremely obvious.
|
| the 0.1% that are _not_ are going to be the foundation for
| the next generation of web and finance -- this is also
| obvious.
|
| but it's silly to pretend like most cryptos aren't just cash
| grabs. but just like 99.9% of websites on the internet are
| scams/ads/useless, doesn't take away from the importance of
| the legitimately useful websites.
| leifg wrote:
| > 99.9% of websites on the internet are scams/ads/useless?
|
| Really?
|
| Does Amazon, Wikipedia count as one website or do you just
| deploy an arbitrary definition of the word _useless_?
| kayamon wrote:
| If it's so obvious why can't you explain it?
| leifg wrote:
| Which ransomware doesn't use crypto?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| All ransomware that existed before crypto?
| leifg wrote:
| Usain Bolt and I can run.
|
| Magnitude matters.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| And ransomware was making a LOT of money before crypto,
| so we can't blame crypto for it. Magnitude matters.
| leifg wrote:
| Estimated 5 billion in 2021.
|
| How much was it before crypto?
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Has anything else changed since the early 90s that might
| make ransomware more profitable today than 30 years ago?
|
| Cryptolocker is estimated to have "only" cost its victims
| millions. However, cryptocurrency already existed when it
| was released.
| danuker wrote:
| Which ransomware doesn't use the Internet?
| schleck8 wrote:
| Paddle, Payoneer, Braintree and Klarna are commonly thrown
| around
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I just spent 12 months investigating crypto. I bought come coins,
| got lucky on that ENS airdrop, made a smart contract, bought an
| NFT, learned some Solidity, joined some Discords, listen to some
| podcasts, set up a miner and generally tried to learn about this
| area.
|
| 2 weeks ago I left all but one discord, unfollowed all Web3
| specific accounts on Twitter and stopped looking at Binance etc.
|
| My life has improved considerably. I'm sure someone is getting
| rich in there but I can't work out who or how amongst the hype,
| pumps, grifters, scams and outright criminals.
|
| I'm ok missing the boat if it turns out to be any more than a
| raft. My sanity and concentration is worth far more than whatever
| rubbish they are all peddling.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Cool. Any thoughts on the article you're commenting on?
| 2ndseq wrote:
| Respect for actually getting into the thick of things and
| trying it out. I hope some of the hype can die down without
| totally killing the momentum.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Thanks, I made a legit concerted effort and just could make
| it stick. Maybe I'll look stupid in the future but from where
| I am now with the information I have I'm ok with that.
| muttantt wrote:
| If you got into crypto in 2021-22.. you already missed the
| boat. This is the cashing out phase.
| danuker wrote:
| Can it not compete with, say, gold, a lump of metal that does
| nothing and is not able to be sent over the internet?
|
| Because if it can, then crypto market cap is 5-10x
| undervalued.
| risho wrote:
| people have been saying this since 2011. thats not to say
| that the speculation that is taking place in crypto isnt
| ridiculous and destructive, but your claim is completely
| unfounded
| muttantt wrote:
| The risk reward ratio is just not there anymore. We may see
| $100K bitcoin, sure, but that's just 3x, you can get that
| buying and holding TSLA starting today. But IMHO the risk
| of bitcoin crashing to, say, $10K is pretty significant,
| especially when Russia sanctions could be used as pretext
| to regulate crypto to death.
| servercobra wrote:
| Sure, but that's only looking at BTC. There's a lot of
| other coins still jumping a 100-1000x in this bull run,
| even if BTC only went up a few times. The point about it
| all crashing is true though, high risk-high reward (and
| that risk likely outweighs the reward for BTC in my
| opinion).
| risho wrote:
| this is how you prove that you just learned about crypto
| last week. if you think that bitcoin was more of a sure
| thing and less risky relative to reward in 2011 then you
| have no idea what you are talking about. first of all if
| bitcoin crashed from 65k to 10k that wouldn't even be the
| worst drop bitcoin has ever seen. thats like an 85
| percent drop. bitcoin has seen MULTIPLE 95+ percent drops
| over the course of it's life. it's harder to regulate
| bitcoin today than it has ever been because there are
| multiple fortune 500 companies and s&p companies that
| would be massively negatively effected by this change.
| bitcoin is in a less risky political position than it has
| ever been in before.
| muttantt wrote:
| I've been in crypto since 2012..
| nightski wrote:
| Very bullish for you to think TSLA is going to be a $3T
| company in the near future! I'm sure it will happen at
| some point. Maybe it will due to inflation hah.
|
| But on average the market takes very roughly 7 years
| (probably more) to double your money. So you are talking
| about a ~10 year time frame.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Who knows at this stage but I'm not smart enough to work it
| out that's for sure
| m00dy wrote:
| we haven't build economies on crypto yet. I think we are in
| buy-and-wait-for-price-up phase. Once we use crypto for
| utility, we will be in different phase.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > buy-and-wait-for-price-up phase
|
| This is what I did 2-4 years ago... then it started going
| down by a lot so I cashed out. I actually did lose. Not
| THAT much, thankfully.
| loeg wrote:
| > I'm sure someone is getting rich in there but I can't work
| out who or how amongst the hype, pumps, grifters, scams and
| outright criminals.
|
| I think you figured out exactly who is profiting from it.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| After I posted and reread it I thought "well I guess that is
| who's getting rich"
| muhammadusman wrote:
| Went through this same cycle back in 2017-2018 and I realized
| that I didn't have enough energy to keep up with all the news
| popping up and some seemingly spiking the price of a crypto
| while other news just as juicy/valuable/hype-worthy didn't seem
| to do the same.
|
| I know some friends who made good money from NFTs and some
| crypto pumps but most have either stayed flat or lost money.
|
| So, I'm in the same place as you, I'll put my money on less
| "cool" investments and continue to watch the space.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Yeah you missed this bull run if you've only been in for 12
| months. The run up in 2020 was the time to be in it. For
| example you could have bought SOL at sub $1 and made millions.
| I know so many people (literally dozens) that made that one
| trade and they're now set for life.
|
| So much of crypto is about being early to the bull run, finding
| the few coins that are going to outpace everything else, and
| just putting a few thousand into each.
|
| Once the first big pump happens there are maybe a few other
| 5-10x opportunities, but certainly 2 years in everything is
| dried up. Exit pumps have already started and most major CT
| personalities are selling, regardless of what they're saying
| publicly.
|
| The good news is that you'll have another opportunity in
| another 2-3 years.
| ATsch wrote:
| I'm sure this will go very differently from the last
| cryptocurrency bubble, where a whole bunch of merchants started
| accepting them, just to realize half a year later that beneath
| the hype, nobody was really interested in using these so-called
| currencies as an actual currency and quietly shelved it.
| TomGullen wrote:
| Used to be a big Bitcoin advocate, we accepted it on our
| website but removed it due to it just not being worth it for
| the odd sale with the extra accounting required.
|
| Bitcoins original goal was to be an online currency, this has
| not transpired nor do I think it ever will which is why I
| (unfortunately!) got out. Talking to random people on the
| street the main feeling I'm getting now is as some sort of gold
| analogue, which I also think is doomed to fail. I just don't
| see Bitcoin growing out of it's main use which is criminality
| and unregulated gambling.
| rufusroflpunch wrote:
| I think you're not correct, your timescale is just too short.
| Monetization happens in three phases, roughly.
|
| First, it is the store-of-value phase. Anticipation of future
| value, based on past and present value, will cause people to
| hoard a good as a savings technique. Bitcoin is still in this
| phase. Usually when you say this on the internet, someone
| will come in and say "Oh, but Bitcoin's volatility makes it a
| poor store-of-value!" But again, it's short-sighted. Looking
| at the 200 WMA will easily demonstrate the store-of-value
| aspect of Bitcoin.
|
| Second phase is "medium of exchange". This is the thing
| people always point to and say that Bitcoin has failed. But
| it hasn't failed, it just hasn't reached it yet. This phase
| is started when a good becomes valuable enough that merchants
| begin to demand or incentivize payments in the good. As you
| mentioned, there are accounting, tax and technological
| impediments currently that make it less convenient to accept
| Bitcoin payments. These will be overcome with time, however,
| as the impediments are eliminated, or the value of Bitcoin
| makes it economically worthwhile to transact anyway.
|
| The final phase will be "unit of account". Once a Bitcoin
| circular economy starts, people will begin to think of prices
| in Bitcoin, instead of dollars, euros, etc.
|
| This may sound far-fetched to skeptics, but I consider this
| to be a near guarantee to happen eventually. Bitcoin's
| network effects and unique balance of incentives more or less
| ensures that it can't be killed, that everyone is better off
| participating in the network or they will be worse off in the
| long run.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| The main point of crypto these days appears to be to replace the
| current middlemen with different middlemen who can make more
| profit while offering the consumer much less legal protection.
|
| It's a bit concerning.
| schleck8 wrote:
| How to participate in crypto? Just head to a privately owned
| exchange that might be traded at a stock exchange!
| Alternatively use a startup service that in turn relies on a
| privately owned backend that might as well go public at any
| point.
| xtracto wrote:
| Or get to localcrypto, localbitcoin, localmonero and find a
| peer who is willing to give you crypto for your cash.
| schleck8 wrote:
| Which are run by private companies and take cuts don't
| they? Also last time I checked the rates on P2P exchanges
| are ridiculous for any trusted seller
| samstave wrote:
| CryptoBarter is here!
|
| So we simply ~~kill the batman~~ -- er... trade resources
| for resources, and determine a balance between what I am
| asking for vs your offer?
|
| Its amazing we need digital fn currency to algorithm this
| bullshit for us to maintain trust in such NOTES
| toolz wrote:
| or more protection, depending on your perspective. I'd think
| russians wanting to interface with US services right now would
| find crypto offers more protection than fiat.
|
| Further, I know a few small businesses that have had large sums
| of money locked up by services like paypal without any
| communication. Crypto also provides far more protection from
| issues like that.
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| Except any company facilitating this would be in violation of
| US sanctions. No way Stripe-crypto is going to be a 1-click
| money laundering tool
| skybrian wrote:
| I don't know how this applies to their crypto offering, but:
|
| > Stripe currently does not support users located in Russia,
| Ukraine and Belarus. While users with direct or indirect
| activities involving Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are not
| broadly considered prohibited by Stripe at this time, all
| major credit card networks have announced that they are
| ceasing services to Russian financial institutions.
| Additionally, Stripe will not process transactions involving
| sanctioned Russian financial institutions and does not
| support Mir. This means transactions involving Russian-issued
| cards are likely to be unsuccessful. We encourage you to
| ensure compliance with relevant sanctions regulations in your
| jurisdiction.
|
| https://support.stripe.com/questions/impact-of-sanctions-
| on-...
| khanan wrote:
| Why the fsck would they block Ukrainians? Makes no sense.
| antaviana wrote:
| I figure they are betting that Ukraine will be sooner or
| later part of Russia.
| vmception wrote:
| or the limited partners of the private equity firms that
| invested in them are Russian oligarchs telling them what
| to do lol
|
| This is pretty common (simply by the size of the
| investments), and Yuri Milner's DST Global was in some
| funding rounds so they probably have a big stake.
|
| Yuri Milner is exhibit A of how the offshore feeders fund
| a bunch of US tech startups, mostly for the alpha, but
| that also comes with influence
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11
| /yu...
|
| So, sanctions result in cutting off Russia, investors
| result in cutting off Ukraine ha.
| skybrian wrote:
| I don't know but for some context, see the end of [1].
| (It's not about Stripe specifically, but about why banks
| do this.) The whole article is useful background.
|
| [1] https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/moving-money-
| international...
| banannaise wrote:
| Like seemingly everything these days, crypto has a grifter
| problem.
|
| It's becoming a predictable story - something with potential
| arises, with a community of mostly true believers. The true
| believers make money, but they're not optimizing for profit,
| they're optimizing for making the ecosystem better. The
| grifters, optimizing only for profit, not only start to take
| the lion's share of the profit, but also attract more grifters.
| The grifters eventually outnumber the true believers, because:
|
| 1. true believers are hard to make; grifters already exist
|
| 2. grifting as a skill can be applied anywhere; true believers
| need relevant skills
|
| 3. lower profits and higher burnout leads to attrition among
| the true believers; some of them even convert to grifters
|
| So the grifters completely dominate the market. They then
| siphon the market dry, offering essentially nothing in return,
| and then move onto the next grift, flush with the proceeds from
| the last one.
| samhw wrote:
| It's just bizarre. You end up paying your cut twice: once to
| convert it into crypto (paying the exact same card fees you'd
| pay for a _direct_ card payment), and then once again to pay
| someone like Stripe for this. For either a business owner or a
| customer, that 's a loss - increased infrastructure fees just
| to do business.
|
| It's the opposite of the crypto dream. But that's not Stripe's
| fault; it's Bitcoin's, for not creating a product which is
| actually capable of living up to its goals, and instead
| requiring all this 'glue business' to make it work. I hope
| someone else creates a new radically-different cryptocurrency
| which can be truly new, and not just a novelty stuck on top of
| Visa/Mastercard.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| I think this is exactly right. The implementation of the
| technology has necessitated all of these different layers,
| each of which create new opportunities to take a cut.
|
| Many of the crypto businesses in the ecosystem talk about
| removing financial friction and control, but it seems they
| are only interested in introducing their own versions of
| them, and building their own little Wall Street while they
| can still get in on the ground floor.
|
| Here's a great example: how are you going to "reach the
| unbanked" in the third world if you have transaction fees,
| paid by the user, inherent in your architecture? That's just
| nonsense. It's a step down from cash in every way. Cryptos
| which aren't feeless but talk about the "unbanked" are full
| of hot air. And this pattern of false promises is all over
| this space.
| mattdesl wrote:
| transaction fees on L2s are in fractions of a cent,
| certainly lower than the fees paid to PayPal or Stripe on
| regular international payments.
|
| a feeless public ledger seems unlikely to ever work at
| scale; it would immediately be polluted by spam.
| vmception wrote:
| there are many many more ways to acquire crypto, which many
| many people have done already
|
| it sounds like _you_ have only attempted to acquire it by a
| combination of
|
| 1) Purchasing it
|
| 2) with a credit or debit card
|
| All it comes down to is that its a $2 trillion market with an
| extremely high volume of transactions, at all and when
| compared to the capitalization of the market
|
| so service providers cater to that, and fortunately for the
| end users, a very large portion of that $2 trillion did not
| require people to pay once to convert their existing cash
| into crypto.
| the_gastropod wrote:
| So liquid, in fact, that it needs a host of very opaque and
| questionable stable coins to maintain some semblance of
| liquidity.
|
| A $2T market cap doesn't mean a whole lot. It's unclear how
| much money actually changes hands in this system. You and I
| could make a $2T market cap system today, right now. I'll
| start an excel spreadsheet and sell you a cell for ~$40.
| BAM! $2T market cap excel spreadsheet, even though only $40
| has changed hands! Neat, eh?
|
| I've argued with crypto enthusiasts long enough to
| anticipate the requisite "WHAT ABOUT STOCKS" retort. Yes.
| Stock market caps are also a sloppy measure, though
| significantly less so in magnitude. Businesses are
| regularly purchased outright at their market caps. There
| are, of course, exceptions, like Gamestop, Tesla, AMC, and
| many other meme stocks. But these are the exception to the
| rule.
| vmception wrote:
| The questionable stable coins are 10% of the total market
| capitalization ($180bn) and even the _worst_ , most fear
| addled estimates are that 90% of that is paid up capital,
| where dollars were exchanged directly to create an
| equivalent stablecoin, and a large portion of it is
| overcollateralized. The people just wish that was 100%,
| in the case of Tether.
|
| Strawman arguments are interesting, because usually it
| involves creating an argument nobody had offered just to
| discredit that argument, hoping to discredit the thing
| people actually were talking about. But in your case,
| your argument isn't a problem? The crypto ecosystem
| doesn't _need_ to host stablecoins, it just does because
| people launched them and others found utility in that.
| They contribute to the market capitalization, and the
| liquidity, bolstering my observation. Is there a term for
| that? Reverse strawman?
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Hmm. I'm not sure I follow. My point was two-fold:
|
| 1. Market capitalization is fairly meaningless,
| especially when you don't know how much money is changing
| hands (wash trading, for example, is rampant in the
| crypto world). I'm confused why you're citing market
| caps, again, to try to suggest stable coins don't play a
| significant role in crypto's liquidity. That doesn't make
| any sense.
|
| 2. Liquidity is very much lacking in the crypto world.
| Bitcoin's order books are extremely thin, which is one
| reason volatility is so high. Stable coins were developed
| not in a vacuum, but precisely because liquidity was so
| lacking.
| vmception wrote:
| > Market capitalization is fairly meaningless
|
| I agree with that. Marketcap + Volume can still be
| compared to other assets. Determining how much is wash
| trading versus something else is unfalsifiable in crypto,
| the nature of transactions cannot be determined with only
| a limited analysis available on centralized and
| decentralized exchanges. But not the unlit markets, or
| the nature of transactional demand.
|
| Compared to currencies, crypto assets function similarly
| with M0 and M1 being the tiny liquid cash thats actually
| moving and M2 and M3 being the illiquid much larger
| aspect of the currency. It requires a completely new
| standard to criticize crypto assets based on the exact
| same observation.
|
| Compared to securities and commodities, crypto's much
| lower marketcap and high volume (see my first paragraph
| for why I don't mind the volume) is a great proportion.
| So, in your two-fold point, there still must be some
| standard for relative comparison, what would your
| alternative be? I choose market capitalization,
| understanding that a significant portion of it is
| relevant to value transferred from other financial
| ecosystems directly for exchange of the crypto asset,
| supporting its valuation much better than a low float
| asset we make in a spreadsheet.
|
| > Liquidity is very much lacking in the crypto world
|
| Its pretty decent. The unlit markets are bigger than the
| lit ones. Any OTC desk can corroborate that. Someone
| trying to swap in and out can use both the lit markets
| and the darkpools. For the size of the market, crypto's
| liquidity again relatively great. Of course, I see how
| paradoxical it is to mention "size" of the market, again,
| but you're not leaving me with much in the English
| language to work with for relative comparison. Although
| its totally fine for me. The market works for me.
|
| > Stable coins were developed not in a vacuum, but
| precisely because liquidity was so lacking.
|
| Although I disagree with the liquidity issue, I don't ...
| care about this distinction? I consider stablecoins to
| fulfill a market need and are crypto assets, the market
| noticed and used them, some of the biggest ones are
| currently surrogates of fiat assets. Liquidity begets
| liquidity, so anything that attracts liquidity is a net
| good to me. I don't consider the crypto space to "need"
| them, I consider the market to have chosen the thing that
| fulfilled a need, and that grows/grew the market.
| fossuser wrote:
| The capability of self-custody is the thing to pay attention
| to.
|
| Nothing else has this capability to the same extent.
|
| Today we store most of our wealth in assets (market index
| funds, stocks, real estate, etc.) and some (typically very
| little, and rarely outside of a bank account) in cash.
|
| Most of this is not actually controlled by you.
|
| With BTC (and cryptocurrency more generally) you have the
| capability of having your private key in a hardware wallet
| under your control and retain the capability to transact
| independently of other institutions.
|
| If you keep some percentage of your wealth here you retain
| certain advantages that you can't get elsewhere. The closest
| alternative would be having cash (in cash form), but it's hard
| to have that much, hard to travel with it (you can memorize
| your wallet seed words and recreate your wallet on the other
| side of a border), and cash is vulnerable to government
| stupidity (see: Russia).
|
| I'm not sympathetic to the Canadian truck protests, but whether
| or not you care about what they're protesting - it's the
| capability wielded by the Canadian government over their
| private finances that's alarming.
|
| All this is to say the focus on middleman and paying with
| crypto in the general case is kind of missing the forest for
| the trees.
|
| The capability of a global self-custody capable store of value
| that can be trivially moved anywhere is a big deal and puts
| power back in the hands of individuals.
| pphysch wrote:
| It's funny because some Bitcoin evangelists point to the US
| govt's 1933 confiscation of a gold as a reason to use Bitcoin
| instead.
|
| ... How is nabbing a gold ingot and different than nabbing a
| storage device? If anything, the threat surface of a digital
| wallet is much greater (you could steal it remotely if the
| user doesn't have good cybersecurity practices, unlike a gold
| ingot).
| fossuser wrote:
| The storage device doesn't matter - it's the seed words
| that generate the wallet that matter. If you memorize them
| you're good (short of someone beating it out of you or
| legally compelling you - even then they'd have to be able
| to prove it existed in the first place).
|
| You can trivially prove your gold ingot exists because you
| can just find it. It's also way harder to move your gold
| ingot out of your war-torn country, harder to transact with
| it, etc. The storage device does not hold the actual coins,
| just a private key that lets you update the public ledger
| that determines ownership (thinking the storage device
| holds the coins is a common misunderstanding).
|
| I'm an open-minded skeptic, but there are real technology
| advantages to blockchain and cryptocurrency, there are a
| lot of scams too for sure - but that's not the interesting
| part. The HN median opinion on this is wrong as it often is
| (it was wrong about EVs and Tesla too).
| pphysch wrote:
| You can also bury your ingots/drives deep in the
| wilderness and only memorize where they are at
| fossuser wrote:
| Obviously that is not as easy/useful/realistic as a
| wallet you can generate from memorized seed words to
| instantly recover your wealth anywhere.
| lottin wrote:
| How does that protect you from someone who can seize your
| device? If they can seize your device they can also seize
| any physical assets that you possess. So your wealth
| exists only nominally, you can't really spend it.
| fossuser wrote:
| The device holds a private key that can be regenerated
| from 12 seed words.
|
| The device itself doesn't really matter if you know these
| 12 words.
|
| The key is what lets you update ownership information on
| the public block chain. The wallet doesn't hold any coins
| on the device, just a key that let's you update the chain
| of public ownership.
|
| For example:
|
| - You live in Russia and see the writing on the wall for
| invasion and currency collapse
|
| - Prior to the invasion you move 90% of your wealth into
| a BTC wallet.
|
| - The invasion happens and the currency collapses.
|
| - You want to escape the country, but the border exits
| are guarded by corrupt guards that will steal any
| money/valuables you try to cross with.
|
| - You memorize the 12 seed words of your wallet and cross
| the border with nothing.
|
| - On the other side you recreate your wallet and restore
| access to your wealth in a safe country.
|
| This isn't just a hypothetical, this kind of thing has
| already happened:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29518181
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| So a key step in there is finding someone that's willing
| to take your local currency in exchange for a not-local
| asset that you can access later.
|
| Would it be very different if that asset was Euros? Or
| ownership of gold that's stored in Chile?
|
| If you need any documents you can store them in a secret
| passworded account.
| fossuser wrote:
| You're right that if you have access to foreign bank
| accounts or currency that can be an option (can be hard
| to get if you're in a country with a hostile government).
| Often BTC is the most accessible option available.
|
| Crypto is the only option where you have the (practical)
| capability of true custodial ownership (as opposed to
| trusting a third party to hold it for you). Practical
| meaning you can actually take it with you in a low risk
| way (you're probably not escaping your hostile government
| with gold bars if you're even able to buy them in the
| first place).
| lottin wrote:
| First of all, if you have to liquidate 90% of your wealth
| in the middle of a market crash you're going to lose most
| of it before you even get it out of the country. This, of
| course, assuming you can get out of the country, which
| for many people is not a realistic option. And finally,
| movements of capital across borders are highly regulated.
| You can't simply cross the border and "recreate" your
| wealth on the other side, because all you will have re-
| created is a pile of dirty money that now will have to be
| laundered at a great expense. All this is illegal, by the
| way.
| fossuser wrote:
| > "if you have to liquidate 90% of your wealth in the
| middle of a market crash"
|
| That's why I said before the invasion, if the market
| already crashed probably too late to matter, but you'd
| still want to get whatever you have out.
|
| > "And finally, movements of capital across borders are
| highly regulated. You can't simply cross the border and
| "recreate" your wealth on the other side, because all you
| will have re-created is a pile of dirty money that now
| will have to be laundered at a great expense. All this is
| illegal, by the way."
|
| We're talking about escaping an autocratic authoritarian
| government. With BTC you _can_ simply cross the border
| and recreate your wealth in a way that protects you from
| that government accessing it - that 's my point.
|
| I don't think you're arguing in good faith so this is the
| last reply from me.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| You can currently take physical possession of commodities
| including all the precious medals, one doesn't have to allow
| their stock certs to be help by others, cash and other such
| methods still work but most people chose to let middlemen do
| it for them, just like most people do for Crypto judging by
| the market valuations of some of those companies.
| fossuser wrote:
| You're right of course, but it's way riskier to take
| physical possession of commodities and it's harder to move
| them. These are things crypto is better at.
|
| For cash, the advantage is that crypto is independent of
| government action and global. The crash of the Russian
| currency is an example of why this is important. Crypto is
| obviously more volatile than USD, so there's a tradeoff
| depending on the government backed currency's stability.
|
| It's also harder to move similar amounts of wealth in cash
| or commodities (you could have self custody of a wallet
| with a billion dollars in it, can't really move a billion
| dollars in cash or gold).
|
| These advantages are real and people are relying on them:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29518181
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| As are the disadvantages as evidenced by all the ransoms
| paid in crypto, these ransoms are also evidence that the
| security required to keep your crypto secure isn't
| exactly all that common in some of the market segments
| the crytpo companies are trying to reach.
| fossuser wrote:
| I don't disagree with you and I don't pretend there are
| no risks with cryptocurrency. The security requirements
| are obviously harder, the UX is bad and even technical
| users fuck it up.
|
| Some of this will be improved by tooling, some of it is
| just what's required for self-custody.
|
| Still, the _capability_ it provides is new and gives
| individuals more power even with these tradeoffs. That
| capability is valuable and shouldn 't be dismissed imo.
| It's a lever against authoritarian control and increasing
| centralization of power.
| [deleted]
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > The main point of crypto these days appears to be...
|
| Maybe you can ask people who get their funds randomly blocked
| and restricted by PayPal and seized for months/years while an
| "investigation" takes place if there's any use-case for crypto.
|
| Maybe you can ask ordinary Russian citizens what their legal
| protections are worth once they've been un-personed by the
| world.
|
| Or perhaps you can ask Canadian mandate protesters what their
| legal protections in their currency are worth at their bank
| middlemen.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| How about the people who saw crypto wealth disappear with the
| ebb and flow of the cybercrime and money laundering industry?
|
| Or the people who will inevitably be fleeced when the main
| settlement token is an outright fraud which implodes?
| rrdharan wrote:
| Crypto has not helped any of these people.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Is it not possible to hypothesize how cryptocurrencies
| afford them options that other financial tools do not?
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Do you know the reasons traditional financial services do
| not afford such options?
| [deleted]
| lostcolony wrote:
| I can hypothesize those...and then also hypothesize a
| counter as to why it won't help, for long at least. Maybe
| you'd like to counter with an actual example of how it's
| enabled them, and why increased regulation of the crypto
| space won't prevent that (i.e., "I was able to buy a
| Domino's pizza with donated crypto" - additional
| regulation that would prevent you from traditional
| banking could also make such crypto, with its traceable
| history, be unspendable. They can't take it from you, but
| they can levy the same threats they do for people who
| ignore sanctions, which would mean crypto you've touched
| is now effectively untradeable amongst regulated
| businesses).
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| >Maybe you can ask ordinary Russian citizens what their legal
| protections are worth once they've been un-personed by the
| world.
|
| Their own government will "un-person" them for converting
| Rubles into crypto too.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| It is important to recognize that Stripe is largely selling well-
| made shovels for the gold rush here. They have a history of
| diving more deeply into this market [1] and withdrawing from it
| before [2], so this is just Take 2. This time around, they are
| not _themselves_ buying Cube Thingies or similar and don 't have
| any exposure to the volatile world of ETH or other coins.
|
| I think there will be decent transfer of money from venture-
| funded NFT startups to Stripe for the next few years, followed by
| a dip in the market when the startups discover that selling
| digital art is less of a viable market than they realize.
|
| I am personally skeptical about the end market, but Stripe seem
| well-insulated from the risks. I'm curious what people who are
| bullish on this think though - what might I be missing about the
| digital art market? I think paying 12 million pounds for a Renoir
| is bananas too, but people certainly do it [3]. I just expect
| digital stuff to be more volatile because it's hard to
| communicate that combination of artisanship and rarity.
|
| On the topic of well-made shovels, I highly recommend the Voile
| Telepro in HN Orange [4] as a portable snow shovel to keep in
| your car if you live in a snowy climate. They will probably be on
| sale in spring and summer.
|
| ----------------------------------------
|
| [1]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20150516061807/https://stripe.co...
|
| [2] https://stripe.com/blog/ending-bitcoin-support
|
| [3] https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-pierre-auguste-
| renoir-1...
|
| [4] https://snowmetrics.com/shop/voile-shovel/
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| My interest in web3 + art is from finding new livable income
| sources for artists generally. Less about big money
| speculation, more about getting more artists supported such
| that they don't need a day job or purely commercial art
| pursuits (as opposed to "fine art"). I understand the current
| state of crypto isn't near offering this outside of hyped
| speculative investments
|
| I'm also not interested in ideas on a shelf that could do this
| better in an alternate reality but aren't active
|
| I also recognize there are uphill battles conceptually for both
| adopters and builders, such as ownership models where access is
| not exclusive (which is also not without precedence outside
| crypto)
|
| Not interested in discussing these distractions: the perceived
| quality of current art, what types of art are more deserving of
| their artists having a livable income off, ideas on a shelf for
| solving this at scale in an alternate reality, scam activity,
| or pretending proof of work chains are state of the art
| karpierz wrote:
| My concern around this space is less "does it make sense" and
| more "if the bubble collapses as I expect, what will happen
| to people who take the crypto/NFT money for granted"?
|
| I'm more interested in solutions that I expect to be stable
| and last. I do understand why artists are hoping to cash on
| the NFT wave; I just worry that a lot of people will come
| crashing down along with the hype.
| fivre wrote:
| This is a solved problem: you pay them for their work, which
| is how artists have made money since time immemorial. The
| degree to which artists can make a living off their art is a
| function of demand and discoverability, not whether they have
| a payment system (they do need this, but they already have
| them).
|
| I'd be curious to know what fraction of NFT enthusiasts had
| previously commissioned a piece of art, and of those how many
| were truly aghast at the dire state of payment systems
| without NFTs or at their inability to assert ownership via a
| blockchain. I suspect both are quite small.
|
| The former is ludicrous, because Paypal/Kofi/Patreon/what
| have you offer a wide array of easy-to-use, feature-rich
| payment systems.
|
| The latter maybe less inconceivable, but IMO it's driven by a
| desire to use blockchain tech for _something_, find something
| that it can conceivably do, and then deciding that that thing
| is therefore important. Personally, proving ownership and
| providence hasn't ever been a concern for any of my art
| purchases because they, like the vast majority of art, isn't
| worth selling a forgery of--nobody is coming to steal the
| forum avatar I commissioned or selling unauthorized prints of
| the obscure photographer I like.
|
| This is just round three (or whatever) of blockchain being a
| solution in search of a problem: having failed to evangelize
| its wide use as a consumer payments system in general, its
| adherents moved on to hyping it as a solution to Enterprise
| IT problems (where selling bullshit is the name of the game
| anyway), failed to find traction (because everyone discovered
| it didn't actually solve any problems), and so we've circled
| back round to a consumer market, but now with more celebrity
| endorsements. It's still an effort to convince people that
| the blockchain version of something is much better and
| therefore worthwhile so that the worth of the tokens is tied
| to something other than transactions illegal goods and wild
| speculation. It's about supporting the livelihoods of people
| hoarding GPUs and wasting electricity to mine the tokens, not
| artists.
| atlantas wrote:
| In the current system when an artist creates something and
| sells it, they typically get paid once, often lowballed.
| The buyer may turn around and sell it for 100x. The buyer
| made far more than the artist, who gets nothing in this
| scenario.
|
| With NFTs the artist can get a cut of every transfer
| indefinitely.
| pyrale wrote:
| Physical art typically doesn't get flipped that much,
| especially art from artists that _actually_ need support.
| OGWhales wrote:
| > With NFTs they can get a cut of every transfer
| indefinitely
|
| How does that work?
|
| Also, what is to stop people copying it anyway and what
| is to stop artist from getting underpaid?
|
| All serious questions that I'd like to see answers to but
| don't understand how NFTs would solve any of them.
| almostkorean wrote:
| Royalties are built into marketplace smart contracts.
| Individuals can do P2P trades where the artist doesn't
| receive any royalty but this doesn't happen very often.
| Anecdotally, it typically only happens on large deals and
| people who do a P2P trade often send the artist their
| royalty anyway (but still benefit from not paying the
| OpenSea fees for example)
|
| Not sure what you mean by the second question
| fivre wrote:
| Wait, so the purported royalty benefit of wrapping this
| in a contract can be circumvented, but the NFT tech is
| still good because people who circumvent this kindly send
| the artist the royalty anyway? Would they not be able to
| send the same courtesy royalty if no NFTs were involved?
| [deleted]
| Tenoke wrote:
| Ownership transfer is done by a function call. The
| function often has extra logic like % of the funds for
| the transfer going to the artist. I guess you can cheat
| by sending a small amount in the transfer and seperately
| paying the seller the rest but then you make the thing
| you bought seem cheaper in the official records so that's
| in most cases counter-productive.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| So I guess the next goal here is a startup to implement
| this as a smart contract to go full circle. The market
| will do it because any transaction fee is a hindrance to
| it's liquidity and is a possibility to undercut someone
| else.
| tashoecraft wrote:
| No you're assuming based on what seems like no knowledge
| of the industry.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| > With NFTs the artist can get a cut of every transfer
| indefinitely.
|
| Too bad this hadn't been invented when Ted Nelson was
| alive.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| Oh so it's a pyramid scheme as well? What a horrible
| payment system. Imagine if whenever you sold your car you
| had to take a fraction of what you received for it and
| give it back to the dealership (or rather, the
| manufacturer in this case).
| cinntaile wrote:
| How to say you don't know what a pyramid scheme is
| without saying it.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| That's still beneficial to the artist as it usually
| raises the market value for the rest of their work.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| That's not always true. German copyright law, for
| example, includes a right for artists to a cut of the
| proceeds for auctions in the secondary market.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| This is what I mean by idea on a shelf - this idea
| doesn't have mass adoption momentum and is also not
| accessible to less established artists
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Buddy, think about the poor starving VCs. They got into
| certain coins at prices at fraction of a dollar. They need
| 10000x returns so they can keep putting 100m into a saas
| company that sales force can buy.
| syntheweave wrote:
| It was never a solved problem, it was an addressed problem.
| And the method of address poorly allocated credit.
|
| Maintaining records for art transactions, and thus enacting
| a fee structure that would benefit the artist when art is
| traded, traditionally meant introducing a middleman - and
| the associated overheads are why "fine arts" are known as a
| gatekept world and commissions have become the default for
| digital art. A sneer like "yeah well did you commission art
| before NFTs" is tautological. Commissions are the business
| model because they're available with minimal financial
| technology, not because they're ideal for society. The
| result you want is "more art is produced and more artists
| can afford to produce at a high level". But not everyone is
| interested in commissioning a large quantity of art of
| their furry OC getting porked. And likewise, people have
| trouble commissioning an artist to work freely without
| adding some kind of externalized upside like "build my own
| personal brand". There's a saturation point to that
| business model in and of itself.
|
| It's only been relatively recently that artists also
| started to be able to access intellectual property law as a
| business model, but running an IP business involves a
| perpetual defense of property through legal enforcements,
| since we are in the age of mechanical reproduction. So it
| also has barriers to entry and ongoing overheads. I don't
| hear anyone saying that game developers should all work on
| commission, though.
|
| The proposition of NFT art is just a revision of the
| gallery system - make intellectual work an asset, but on a
| much broader scale. The fee structure is automated, and the
| art itself is open to viewing and therefore doesn't need
| the same degree of IP enforcement as a paywall model; the
| only provenance question is the initial one of whether you
| actually minted your own work. And naturally, among the
| first people to have jumped on this are charlatans who have
| tested that exact question of initial provenance.
|
| But I can say, having closely observed and participated a
| little, that NFT art on the whole is not uniquely bad or
| good, it's still "just" an art market, just one geared
| towards the artist who is interested in making their brand
| a speculative investment. And that is another way to get
| art made.
| fivre wrote:
| Assuming blockchain (and OpenSea atop that) count as "no
| middleman, no overhead" and not a new middleman (but it's
| a good one, because Andreessen Horowitz will make bank if
| it succeeds) atop technology that requires more energy
| consumption than small countries, it still isn't some
| magical wand that creates more people that spend
| disposable income on art.
|
| Commissioning art is one of _many_ ways you can do this.
| Non-commissioned works are readily available too! I also
| purchase those! Some of these are one of a limited set
| (common for photo prints), some of these aren't (Bandcamp
| albums). Point being, if you were someone who wanted to
| buy art before NFTs, you could do so. I'm skeptical of
| there being some large market segment that desperately
| wanted to buy art but only realized they could with the
| advent of NFTs.
|
| The royalty business model also already existed, where it
| made sense. There's no contract governing me reselling
| the painting I bought from someone at the local farmer's
| market because there wasn't any expectation on either my
| or the artist's part that it'd be resold at all, much
| less for a sum vastly greater than its purchase price.
| It's going to hang on my wall until I die, at which point
| it'll likely get tossed in a bin.
|
| That's in contrast to say, a film score, where the
| expectation is that it will be resold (as part of your
| theater ticket price, but whatever) many times over:
| ASCAP exists, and handles paying the IP lawyers on behalf
| of its members, because that's a business model that
| works for them. They've been managing this just fine for
| over a century.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| >> _" I'd be curious to know what fraction of NFT
| enthusiasts had previously commissioned a piece of art, and
| of those how many were truly aghast at the dire state of
| payment systems without NFTs or at their inability to
| assert ownership via a blockchain. I suspect both are quite
| small."_
|
| The main complaint I hear from actual commission-taking
| artists is that even something fun and innocuous but
| potentially readable as suggesting banned uses, like "fuck
| yeah," in the comment field on the paying side will make
| PayPal suspend your account. The artists I know are
| universally opposed to NFTs with more artists I know _of_
| coming out against every time a new NFT site launches with
| stolen art.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _My interest in web3 + art is from finding new livable income
| sources for artists generally_
|
| You should track down the New York Times article from this
| past weekend. From memory, it says that despite all the hype,
| almost no artists are making any money from NFTs. The average
| sale price is less than $400, which doesn't even cover
| materials.
| unreal37 wrote:
| What exactly are the "materials" to create an NFT?
|
| Photoshop?
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| Time and expertise to develop skills, rent, food and
| bills while they work.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| NFTs are a shit way of supporting artist and a lot of high
| profile artist are just having people make NFTs with links to
| their work without permission so they aren't really making
| anything off this situation.
| almostkorean wrote:
| What makes it a shit way of supporting artists? I have seen
| some fraud like you describe, but I think it makes a lot of
| sense for digital only artists.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| The fraud I describe makes it a shit way of supporting
| artist. As for digital only artist, there are plenty of
| non-NFT ways to support them. Commissions, Patreon, and
| merch to name a few.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Have fun living and getting ahead off some $30 tshirt
| sales / supporting the artists you like that way
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The only reason NFTs sell for more is because of the hype
| and the likelihood of there being some bigger sucker to
| resell it to at an inflated price. This won't last
| forever and then you'll end up with the same same 30$
| t-shirt-like prices but in NFT land. The "art" and
| "artist" involved is irrelevant here - what matters is
| that you have something that the current market has a lot
| of demand for.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I think Patreon and similar is probably a better avenue for
| digital. More consistent support than selling peices as NFTs
| or in meat space and with digital I think you're more likely
| to find 100 people willing to spend $10 for a new wallpaper
| each month than 1 willing to spend $1000 on an NFT.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| NFTs don't need to be as expensive as that, that's only
| because currently all attention is on high-priced eth
| ecosystem
|
| Patreon is also a huge rent seeker, we can do better for
| artist direct payment
|
| Patreon is not passive income - people expect regular
| updates and special work/insight for private audience
|
| In terms of consistency, meat space has big issues with
| accessibility and reach
|
| Lastly you can look at the results. Patreon is not that
| widely transformative for giving artists livable income
| goosedragons wrote:
| I never said Patreon is passive income but it's
| consistent. The artist gets money for their output every
| month. People are only going to pay so long as they feel
| they get value. Unlike a subscription for rarely updated
| software you can still use that Wallpaper you got from
| being a patreon even if you're not subbed anymore.
|
| NFTs aren't passive either nor are they consistent.
|
| The whole point of NFTs is the scarcity aspect. Sure, you
| could maybe do 100 $10 NFT "prints" instead but now they
| need to manage that aspect and predict demand.
|
| NFTs mimic the meat space art world with all the same
| problems like infrequent unpredictable sales with few
| benefits like convenience.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| What is the pitch for how web3 will help artists find income
| without purely commercial art pursuits? Every single web3 art
| project I've seen has been entirely commercial.
| bmelton wrote:
| Maybe I don't understand the question enough because I'm
| wondering if DeFi is excluded as a viable answer, but
| possibly you're just not aware of it? But it seems like
| it's making lots of people money and that seems inclusive
| of artists.
| almostkorean wrote:
| Not sure what you mean exactly by commercial art pursuits?
| I'd say about 99% of NFT projects are garbage but I'm a fan
| of artblocks (https://www.artblocks.io/).
|
| I can talk more about how the system works if you are
| interested, but some established generative artists have
| created projects on their platform and have made more than
| they could before web3.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| When I say commercial art I don't mean it's not sold, I
| mean it in distinction with fine art. Commercial art means
| for example product photography or designing a book cover
|
| That said there are also public goods approaches, either
| where you have ownership without exclusive access
| (interesting but not obvious to most people how to
| productize) or grant models
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Unfortunately most new NFT projects are computer generated
| (no humans need apply). They have basically figured out that
| paying an actual human for the art is not needed when people
| will just buy cg art for the same price. There is one that
| just minted RGB colors. Its reddit AMA was pretty hilarious
| actually.
|
| Those that do include human art have a strong tendency to
| just lift uncredited art from Pinterest or deviantart.
| Supposedly the purpose of NFTs was to provide the provenance
| for art. But it seems that most NFT art is stolen from actual
| artists.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Please find another thread to talk about concern for the
| quality of the work or the current amount of scamming
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| Yeah, this is kind of what I meant by it being hard to
| project the combination of artisanship and rarity. I
| suppose that I _personally_ would pay some money for
| beautiful programmatically generated art too, but that 's
| probably a very niche market.
| wmf wrote:
| _Stripe is largely selling well-made shovels for the gold rush
| here. ... This time around, they ... don 't have any exposure
| to the volatile world of ETH or other coins._
|
| Which is... even more evil? They're encouraging an externality
| which harms normal people but not them.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| They're not encouraging crypto anymore than a liquor store
| encourages alcoholism. The liquor store may lower the barrier
| to entry for obtaining a bottle of alcohol, but it's
| ultimately the alcoholics choice to enter the store and
| purchase it.
|
| Offering a product is not evil or immoral. It may be _amoral_
| but that 's not the same as immoral. Ultimately the market
| decides what stays and goes except in extraordinary
| circumstances.
| joosters wrote:
| Oh yes, the "If I didn't sell them X, someone else would
| have done" excuse.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| "Offering a product is not evil or immoral" - this is the
| motto of my "Heroin for kids" brand. Selling a ponzi scheme
| may not be illegal, but it seems plausibly immoral.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| Yeah, but in this case Stripe is one step removed morally
| as well. I don't see this as materially different from
| them being a payment processor for an online liquor store
| or a pyramid seller like LuLaRoe.
|
| You could say that a payment processor should morally
| screen their clients in general, but that seems like a
| stronger and not-so-reasonable statement. They do
| prohibit certain kinds of businesses, but I think the bar
| for that is very high and likely related to chargeback
| concerns and such.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Both would fall under Stripe's list of prohibited
| businesses.
| dmead wrote:
| It was also safer to sell shovels in san francisco than it
| was to go to the Klondike and dig for gold. the analogy is
| correct.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Ugh - not a fan of declaring everything you disagree with as
| "evil".
|
| I think NFTs, along with the vast majority (but not all)
| crypto, are total bullshit, but I also accept (a) I could be
| totally wrong in this, in which case, my loss, and (b)
| offering rails to sell these items doesn't strike me as
| "evil" in the slightest.
| csomar wrote:
| I have a friend of a friend who has a really low salary (think
| less than $500/month - third-world country) who spends 1/3 of
| his income on LoL digital items. Knowing that really changed my
| perspective on the viability of NFT. It's more addictive than
| digital stuff that you buy but can't sell.
|
| Now you can buy to maybe sell for a higher price in the future.
| That should increase engagement and the user base. It is still
| a very particular behavior that only a small fraction of
| society engages in.
|
| But there is 6.6Bn smartphone users in this world. If a tiny
| 0.1% of the population buys/sells NFT for fun and addition,
| that's still 6.6 million user. That's billions of $$ pumped
| into the NFT economy and dozens of billions of "value" for
| these digital items.
|
| The world is crazy once you go from the local scale to the
| global scale.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| It's really attempt 2.0 and some sprinkles of "you may get
| rich" on the steam market with a hugely more inefficient
| system, which you can't even show case in game to your
| friends. All the while the gas fees causing a constant drain
| on any transaction.
|
| Try looking how many pages you need click through before you
| emerge from the minimum $0.03, the market for digital "art"
| is a hard one, because scarcity can only centrally be
| enforced.
|
| https://steamcommunity.com/market/search?appid=730#p1_price_.
| ..
| [deleted]
| hemantv wrote:
| It's high spread market. Any financial firms are salivating at
| how to take advantage and profit from it.
|
| Coinbase whole business is spreads.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Coinbase whole business is spreads.
|
| Coinbase collects fees. Even if the spread is minimal (I
| think Bitcoin goes to something silly like 8 decimals but
| even for a book in USD, the bid/ask spread may be 39 842.54
| vs 39 482.55, so a spread of one cent), Coinbase still takes
| a fee on every trade. And they take a fee from both the buyer
| and the seller.
|
| I'm not sure their business is related to spreads.
| [deleted]
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > Updated March 10, 2022
|
| Did they just update this after you pointed this out?
| [deleted]
| EE84M3i wrote:
| For me, Google's cache of the page[1] does not contain that
| and says a timestamp of 10 Mar 2022 01:35:20 GMT.
|
| [1]: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cK
| DBTS...
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| Hm, I thought I saw the update as while when I was looking
| at the pages; but thinking through it I remember that I was
| adding links _after_ I posted some of the text.
|
| Also, it's quite possible others pointed this out (the
| Stripe team in general has great attention to detail!) and
| updated the page.
| drdrey wrote:
| Why do you limit your scope to digital art? There are plenty of
| other potential applications, from tickets, music and gaming to
| gumroad-like marketplaces
| VHRanger wrote:
| This had been discussed a lot of times. All of those proposed
| uses are better served by regular databases
|
| When crypto proposes something that *is*, rather than
| something that *could be* people will stop considering it as
| a big casino.
| z3c0 wrote:
| > All those proposed uses are better served by databases
|
| I've often wondered how NFT's would fare in a situation
| like Diablo 3's colossal failure of a marketplace, where
| people could sell their rare items to other players. The
| whole concept broke, because "rare" doesn't mean anything
| when players can just flood the market with weapons created
| via modding. This seems to be exactly the use case NFT's
| are made for.
|
| For the record - as a digital photographer - I find NFT's
| for art to be a laughable concept. Keeping possession of my
| raw files has always been a sufficient means of copy
| protection for me.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| It's very strange seeing the option near the bottom of the page
| to donate a fraction of your revenue from Stripe Crypto to carbon
| recapture efforts. I agree with Stripe that, at this point, the
| solution to our climate problems must include carbon recapture,
| but it's not an ideal situation to be in.
|
| Businesses entering the crypto space always seem to tout carbon
| offsets and sidechains that use less energy, but offsets are
| insufficient, and NFTs minted on sidechains inevitably migrate to
| Mainnet, where they're just as environmentally destructive as any
| other NFT, or they fail.
|
| Stripe's carbon recapture efforts seem to be in the same
| category. Recapture is good, but not nearly as good as not
| emitting the carbon in the first place. If Stripe's support of
| crypto increases the use of blockchains, the overall impact of
| extra carbon emissions could very easily outpace all the carbon
| recapture they'll ever achieve.
|
| It's a shame. When Stripe announced their carbon recapture
| efforts, I was impressed by how sincere they seemed in finding
| solutions to climate problems. Next to Stripe Crypto, however, it
| appears to just be greenwashing.
|
| (And to head off the replies, I know all about proof-of-stake,
| but it's not relevant here. I'm unconvinced it will work, and
| even if it does, the ecological damage done and being done in the
| meantime is massive. If Stripe really cared about carbon
| emissions, they'd wait to launch Stripe Crpyto only on proof-of-
| stake blockchains, and only after they proved that the energy
| usage at scale was similar to the energy use for transferring
| fiat currency.)
| elefanten wrote:
| The "ecological damage" is a rounding error and being mitigated
| in several ways. This is not a serious concern for
| cryptocurrency, despite how often and blindly its repeated.
| Daishiman wrote:
| Which ways?
| root_axis wrote:
| It's hardly a rounding error, but I'm sympathetic to the fact
| that there are a lot more important concerns with respect to
| climate change than PoW, however, there is still a valid
| ecological critique of PoW due to it's inherent wastefulness
| relative to every other technology.
|
| The amount of waste necessary to support the network must
| always grow since any new efficiencies are immediately
| obviated by the incentive to bring on more miners, the total
| utility provided by the network (i.e. the rate of
| transactions it securely processes) has no relationship to
| the amount of energy that the network burns. With every other
| technology, new effeincies make the technology able to do
| more useful work while burning less energy, in this way
| anything based on PoW is fundamentally flawed. You could hook
| up a fusion reactor of the future to the bitcoin network and
| it would not provide any more utility, yet the network would
| eventually consume all the energy produced by the reactor
| given enough time to increase mining capacity.
|
| I know the typical response to this is PoS, and I think a
| switch to PoS would be great since its impact on the
| environment is within the realm of normal software. Whether
| or not PoS can actually work for a large network is a
| different discussion.
| dannyw wrote:
| There's a full featured testnet for the merge (Ethereum
| PoS) you can run right now. Yes, the developers were too
| optimistic with timeframes before, but it's close and I'd
| expect it by EOY.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| I'm following the progress. I don't like estimating
| release dates for other peoples' work, but I wouldn't be
| surprised if your EOY estimate is correct.
|
| The biggest concern I have though, is that you can run as
| many testsnets as you want, but that doesn't mean the
| rollout is going to survive contact with the enemy. I'm
| very pessimistic that PoS can replace PoW in real-world
| usage. Once everyone is on the PoS ETH, I suspect that
| problems will eventually manifest, and either ETH will be
| forced to roll back to PoW, or there will be splits, and
| one of the PoW chains that splits off will supplant ETH
| in popularity.
|
| I don't think this will happen immediately, but I think
| it's very likely to happen within a few years of ETH
| switching over to PoS.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| The Ethereum PoS Beacon Chain mainnet (it's not a
| testnet) has been running since December 2020: currently
| over 300k validator are active, with nearly 10 million
| "real money" ETH staked.
|
| https://beaconcha.in/
|
| https://beaconscan.com/
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| Yes, and it's definitely impressive, and I know this
| might seem like moving the goalposts, but the market cap
| of Beacon is very small compared to ETH Mainnet. More
| importantly, it's not _the_ ETH blockchain. Beacon may be
| working so well because PoS is optional. The people
| participating in Beacon have bought into PoS on a
| conceptual level and are working to make it work. When
| you're incentivized to, you can ignore the pretty
| fundamental design problems of PoS.
|
| Once ETH tries to get everyone into PoS, that's where I
| think problems start.
|
| If ETH weren't so established right now through the NFT
| marketplace, I might suspect you'd see a jump to other
| blockchains, like Bitcoin, that are still on PoW. Since
| it is established, I worry that people will try to make
| it work for a few years, but it ultimately won't work,
| and ETH Mainnet will either be forced to revert to PoW or
| lose popularity to another fork.
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| There's roughly USD $26 billion equivalent staked on
| Beacon, which puts it squarely in top-10 territory of
| crypto market caps, so I'm not sure why you consider it
| "very small", even compared to the ETH1 mainnet, but I
| guess "very/small" might be subjective.
|
| While NFTs are a non-negligible component of trade volume
| on the Ethereum blockchain, numbers I've seen recently
| put _monthly_ volumes of e.g. OpenSea in the single-digit
| USD billions equivalent. The _daily_ volume of ETH is
| currently about USD $14 billion equivalent. I don 't
| think the NFT marketplace is what's greasing the wheels.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| This is not a convincing argument, but even if it were,
| carbon recapture is currently even more of a "rounding error"
| in the grand scheme of carbon emissions. Current carbon
| emissions are somewhere around 50 billion metric tons a year.
| I've seen varying estimates of crypto emissions, so I'm going
| to cite one [1] on the low end here, since it's more
| favorable to your argument, but the highest I've seen is less
| than double this number, so they're all in the same ballpark.
|
| ETH currently emits 7.4 million metric tons of CO2 a year.
| Bitcoin is much higher. I've seen estimates as low as 16
| million and as high as 55. There are other chains as well. To
| keep the math simple, let's round it to 50 million, so crypto
| is contributing 0.1% of total carbon emissions. Like you
| said, a rounding error.
|
| I think we're just going to have to disagree on mitigations.
| I don't think they're working very well.
|
| Crucially, at the beginning of 2019, according to the source
| I linked, ETH was only at 2 million tons a year. It's more
| than tripled since then. In 2021, Carbon recapture removed an
| estimated 9 thousand tons of CO2. [2] The CO2 from the growth
| of ETH eclipses anything that carbon recapture is currently
| capable of. The technology will get better. The most
| optimistic estimate I've seen is that carbon recapture will
| hit 30 million tons a year in 2070. But this year, Stripe
| Crypto only has to increase crypto transactions, across all
| blockchains it supports, by 9,000 tons to completely offset
| all of the money it's putting into recapture efforts. Even if
| you remove all the other chains, Stripe only has to increase
| ETH transactions by 1.3% to achieve this own-goal.
|
| Long term, Stripe alone could end up causing more CO2
| emissions on the blockchains to grow faster than all of
| carbon recapture.
|
| 1: https://kylemcdonald.github.io/ethereum-emissions/ 2:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-
| largest-...
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| On the bright side, Ethereum devs have just launched the
| final testnet before the switch to Proof-of-Stake.
|
| It would be great for Stripe to continue investing the same
| amount of money into carbon recapture even after Ethereum's
| carbon emissions drop over 99%.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| As I said in my original post, it would be great if that
| happened. I'm skeptical proof-of-stake will work at
| scale. If it does, great, but Stripe should have waited
| until then to support ETH, and not support Bitcoin or
| other chains currently on proof-of-work.
|
| They damage they're doing in the meantime is more
| detrimental than their recapture efforts are beneficial.
| mattdesl wrote:
| Perhaps worth clarifying: emissions are tied to hash rate
| (and price action), not transaction count which is
| effectively capped by limited block space. Your post makes
| it seem that Stripe's service getting used will quickly
| increase emissions, but if ETH price and hash rate drops
| significantly in the coming months, the emissions would
| also follow suit regardless of transaction count.
|
| I agree though, the tech is currently immature and energy
| inefficient, and Stripe could have committed to PoS chains
| (eg: Tezos) if they really wanted to avoid bearing any
| additional emissions responsibility.
|
| Personally I am happy to see this service, as I currently
| have to rather painfully roll my own crypto-commerce stack
| to support ERC20/ETH as a payment option in my business
| operations, and I would rather a well-engineered product to
| remove some of this overhead.
| [deleted]
| pjscott wrote:
| > Recapture is good, but not nearly as good as not emitting the
| carbon in the first place.
|
| That's not necessarily true -- it depends on the marginal costs
| of each. Right now carbon capture is pretty expensive, but I
| can see that potentially changing with more investment put into
| it, which is what Stripe is trying to do.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| I'm mainly talking about the present and the near future. But
| there's more to the equation than carbon in, carbon out.
| Recapture isn't going to fix the non-warming issues with
| emissions, like ocean acidification.
|
| In a world without renewables, we'd never get to a place
| where the marginal costs of carbon capture would be lower
| than the marginal costs of burning fossil fuels for energy.
| The best hope for recapture is to be powered by cheap
| renewables. This requires having a lot more renewable
| capacity than we do now, which is absolutely something that's
| happening and should continue to happen, but it's not
| environmentally free. Mining and battery
| production/recycling/disposal have economic consequences.
|
| In its best form carbon recapture is trading emissions today
| for the promise that they'll be mostly recaptured in the
| future using renewables. But renewables also have to serve
| our other needs. So all the carbon we burn in the meantime
| creates more demands for solar panels, wind farms, dams, wave
| farms, and batteries in the future.
|
| Thus, it is better to not emit than to recapture. We
| recapture because we have ti.
| shafyy wrote:
| Stripe doesn't give two shits about the environment. It's just
| good PR. If they did, they would know that investing money in
| carbon recapture is not an effective way to combat climate
| change. I've had it up to here with people trying to find a
| technofix to all our problems. It's much more simple than that.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| You think "carbon captures" is better PR than alternatives
| that do work such that they picked this instead? Or you think
| they just pulled it out of a hat? Or is your explanation just
| not that good?
| joshmarlow wrote:
| While the energy usage of Proof-of-Stake systems like Bitcoin
| does seem embarrassingly excessive at first glance, I think
| there's more nuance here than it first may appear.
|
| One of the problems with renewables is that they are spike-y
| and there's a limit to how much you can control the spike. When
| renewable sources peak, they can put more energy into the grid
| than the grid can safely handle (too much power can cause
| damage). Battery storage tech is currently lacking for dealing
| with this (though https://www.energyvault.com/ has an
| interesting take on this) and power degrades quickly when sent
| over power-lines, so that limits distribution over long
| distances.
|
| In some scenarios, when energy becomes too plentiful, power
| companies may actually start charging _negative costs_ - ie,
| they pay people to take more power out of the grid. When you
| combine these two factors, power producers have an economic
| incentive _not to use renewables_.
|
| Enter Bitcoin - paying for power consumption is a huge
| component of operating costs. Mining rigs that are positioned
| near renewable power sources have an advantage in that they can
| just stop mining when energy prices get too high and start
| mining when energy prices are low enough. This provides a
| profitable way for miners and renewable power suppliers to
| operate together.
|
| Deployed properly, Bitcoin mining actually improves the
| economics of renewables. Because doing so improves the
| profitability of mining, there is an economic incentive for
| miners to move toward renewables and build infrastructure that
| only mines when it is most profitable - ie, the times when
| _not_ mining actually hurts renewable efforts.
|
| NOTE: in theory non-cryptocurrency applications could serve
| this same role to make renewables more economical, but many
| applications have an always-on requirement; you can't run a
| data center only when the sun shines, but you can mine crypto
| only then.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| If that were the only energy used for blockchains, then that
| would definitely eliminate the environmental arguments
| against cryptocurrencies, but I doubt you could run large
| blockchains on only renewable spikes.
|
| Even then, if battery tech improves enough, I think there's a
| compelling case to be made that the spike energy is better
| sent there than to mining rigs.
| joshmarlow wrote:
| > if battery tech improves enough, I think there's a
| compelling case to be made that the spike energy is better
| sent there than to mining rigs.
|
| I don't exactly disagree - with better storage tech, we
| could put the energy to more immediate uses. But why
| postpone improving the economics of renewables until we
| have better battery tech (which has an unknown timeline)?
| ksec wrote:
| As expected, lots of people unhappy. RailsConf had to cancel a
| talk on web3. I wonder if Stripe will face the same pressure.
| Liron wrote:
| Important to note that Stripe has NOT announced any
| crypto/blockchain/NFT products or tech of its own.
|
| The only news here is that Stripe is letting crypto companies use
| their various fiat processing services, now that they feel
| comfortable that they can legally do so. Confirmed by pc's
| comment [1]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30629169
| edwinwee wrote:
| Yes, the Stripe Crypto team started six months ago and the
| first step was to tune our fiat payment APIs to work with
| exchanges, on-ramps, and NFT marketplaces. Working on lots
| more, so stay tuned for more announcements very soon!
| biztos wrote:
| I would love to know how often real-world money is referred
| to as "fiat" inside Stripe.
| chockchocschoir wrote:
| "Fiat" does not mean "real-world money" as any money you
| consider "real" is "real". "Fiat" refers to money not
| backed by something physical, and it is not a new term that
| appeared from the cryptocurrency space (as many believe).
|
| The search trend, https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?
| date=all&q=Fiat%20M..., seems to be relative stable since
| start of collecting trend data (2004), with slightly
| increasing volume as we get closer to today, but generally
| stable.
|
| More information:
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| vishnugupta wrote:
| I skimmed the landing page. It looks like a collection of
| existing products and they are saying here's how you could build
| on ramp and off ramp products. They are basically saying use our
| product to handle fiat currency and the customers. And once fiat
| leg of transaction is complete it's upto you to manage the crypto
| part. I don't see anything Crypto specific product here. For
| example, custodial Wallet as a solution. Am I missing something
| super obvious?
| [deleted]
| djrobstep wrote:
| hemantv wrote:
| Who is on the hook if credit card fraud happens? If i just want
| to accept crypto payment what's my incentive?
| [deleted]
| harel wrote:
| Just last year Stripe wouldn't even allow any crypto business to
| be their customers. You could not use Stripe if you business was
| crypto related. A client of mine had to switch implementation to
| checkout.com because of that. I wonder what changed...
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| What changed is, someone very powerful said this: "One of my
| incredibly big misses over the last decade was not buying
| enough Bitcoin. At $60k per Bitcoin, I'm still not sure if one
| should aggressively buy it, but surely it is telling us that we
| are at a crisis moment for the Fed."
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| I'm not sure he actually is all that good at picking such
| things given his history
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Clarium_Capital
| fuzzybear3965 wrote:
| I searched for who said this but came up empty. Where is this
| quote from?
| cshenoy wrote:
| Pretty sure it was Peter Thiel.
|
| https://sports.yahoo.com/tech-billionaire-peter-thiel-
| says-1...
| clpm4j wrote:
| And pretty sure by "not enough" he means only bought
| single digit 1000s of bitcoins rather than hundreds of
| thousands or millions of bitcoins.
| fuzzybear3965 wrote:
| Thanks for the link. I didn't find that quote in the
| article, but maybe it was in there. If it's not in there
| then it's crazy that you linked that article saying
| "Peter Thiel" - another commenter said the same thing. If
| it's in there then it's weird that my quoted Google
| Search didn't yield at least that article.
| [deleted]
| eruleman wrote:
| a recent Peter Thiel talk:
| https://youtu.be/Bw1ByVhJt7A?t=740
| [deleted]
| pc wrote:
| Yep. Until very recently, we weren't able to support businesses
| selling crypto. (The regulatory details are complex.) We're now
| rolling out support and this page is basically about that
| change.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Well, regulatory details have been complex for years and
| capable companies with smaller compliance/legal teams found a
| way to do it.
|
| My sense is it's more about the window shifting enough that
| it's palatable enough for a Stripe product team to stake
| their professional rep on now. "If Twitter and Square are
| doing it..."
|
| To an extent, I wonder what the impact of the SEC ruling for
| BlockFi (crypto exchange) did to clarify the regs for larger
| companies like Stripe.
| squidlogic wrote:
| Can you be more specific than "Regulatory details are
| complex"? I think we would enjoy hearing about the
| complexity! :)
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| How will a bank that has restrictive policies around crypto
| know that a Stripe payout made into a customer's account was
| _not_ related to an NFT sale?
|
| Essentially, how are existing Stripe users protected from
| Stripe's reputational self-harm here?
| ipaddr wrote:
| How would this bank even know stripe is accepting a new
| currency? Why would it matter. Money will flow into your
| account from stripe. Stripe is not a cryto service provider
| defined by banking regulations.
|
| That's like saying a bank won't accept a transfer from
| another bank because that bank allows you to pay them in
| cryto.
| biztos wrote:
| > That's like saying a bank won't accept a transfer from
| another bank because that bank allows you to pay them in
| cryto.
|
| Or a bank won't accept a transfer from your bank because
| your bank might be taking deposits from entities subject
| to strict sanctions, and the plausible deniability is
| very thin.
|
| I think banks are working on that as we speak. Cold days
| in Cypress soon, etc. The reputation risk of "doing
| crypto" might be decreasing, but the legal risk of
| violating sanctions seems to be increasing.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > Stripe is not a cryto service provider defined by
| banking regulations.
|
| But it's now a payment provider that allows businesses in
| the UK to engage in what surely must be considered high-
| risk crypto business by the bank (NFT marketplaces).
|
| This is the sort of thing that gets businesses denied
| banking service.
| muttantt wrote:
| So now you can sell NFTs using Stripe, but still VOIP
| business startups competing with RingCentral, 8x8, etc. get
| their Stripe accounts cancelled...
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Maybe Stripe is using the adapter pattern -- once fiat is
| deprecated, they can remove the technical debt around
| business restrictions. ;)
| harel wrote:
| To be honest, I thought your refusal was probably well
| justified considering the disproportionate levels of credit
| card fraud involved in anything to do with crypto. I'd love
| to see your end of year statistics now...
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| > disproportionate levels of credit card fraud involved in
| anything to do with crypto
|
| I'm really curious what your source is for this. Anyone
| legit in crypto who's taking fiat is doing way more KYC
| than your average ecommerce store.
| harel wrote:
| My personal observation. A large proportion of credit
| card payment were fraud, or flagged as such. It was such
| a huge number (% wise) that I (thought I) understood why
| stripe pulled the rug out. And in another project I
| observed a very large and sudden increase at attempted
| fraud right after elements of crypto were introduced
| (including attempts at impersonating me, and someone else
| involved).
|
| But honestly, when it comes to the crypto world, I'm that
| guy who laughed at that other guy for buying bitcoin at
| 20 cents. There was a lesson there somewhere.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| That's way a huge amount of NFT's don't end up as rug
| pulls and scams right?
| stu2b50 wrote:
| I mean that's different from the kind of fraud the parent
| post was talking about. If a user used their credit card
| to buy an NFT that quickly went to zero, that's not a
| fraudulent credit card transaction still - the user
| authorized that transaction. CC fraud would be if someone
| stole your credentials and bought something before the
| card was revoked.
| trulyme wrote:
| Besides, why commit credit card fraud when there are so
| many scam options available in the crypto world. :)
| harel wrote:
| There are always scams of different flavours around -
| that doesn't stop anyone from picking one or another. The
| appearance of easy money attracts those who seek easy
| money.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| > disproportionate levels of credit card fraud involved in
| anything to do with crypto
|
| Source?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Did anything necessarily change? I imagine there can be a
| different answer between the two questions "are crypto
| businesses bad risks as a payment provider?" and "is
| cryptocurrency a bad risk as a payment mechanism?"
| rewtraw wrote:
| while the crypto community wants to avoid as much regulation as
| possible, it's important to realize that _sensible_ regulation
| is a boon to the industry as it clears a path to allow
| institutions and traditional FinTech companies to hop onboard.
|
| So, the timing of this Stripe announcement could be related to
| the Biden EO: https://apnews.com/article/biden-cryptocurrency-
| executive-or...
| otikik wrote:
| Noooo Stripe not you.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Just recently moved from Stripe to Paddle after realizing their
| new tax collection stuff locked out a bunch of my customers--it
| only supports credit card transactions, not Apple Pay or Google
| or any of the EU payment options, and Stripe has no ETA on fixing
| this. With the tax bits, I still have to file and worry about
| thresholds too, so I switched to Paddle. On top of completely
| eliminating the tax remittance crap, I also have PayPal support
| now (highly requested by customers, especially international).
| ksec wrote:
| Is Paddle still Only open to SaaS only ?
|
| Last time I check they won't even accept any other business.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I am a SaaS but I sell a lifetime subscription as a
| standalone product, works fine with Paddle.
| mherrmann wrote:
| If by SaaS you mean subscription, then no. I sell one-time
| software purchases through them.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| I'm trying to run a marketplace, would that be possible through
| paddle?
| ttoinou wrote:
| > their new tax collection stuff
|
| Couldn't you turn that off ?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Well, yeah, but I need it so I'm not sure what you're getting
| at? I didn't just turn it on for funsies, tax remittance
| sucks. There are APIs you can use, but they're more
| expensive/complicated than stripe's tax solution that they
| acquired. Paddle (or some other merchant of record) makes it
| even easier.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I know, that for setting up my stripe account, I HAD to
| provide a credit card number, which I did not had, as they
| are not needed in EU.
| rosndo wrote:
| My European debit card number worked just fine (as it
| basically always does when someone asks for a "credit
| card")
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I only had a EC card, but now have a credit card as well.
|
| (all those different standards are a bit annoying)
| rosndo wrote:
| By choosing to only have an EC card you're making a
| deliberate choice to make your life difficult by using an
| incredibly obscure method of payment, no?
|
| You can hardly expect those to work even in other EU
| countries, much less with an US based online business.
|
| Almost everybody else in the world has a visa or a
| mastercard (or unionpay)
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "By choosing to only have an EC card"
|
| That was the standard card, I had ever since with that
| account - but it does work all across europe.
| atlantas wrote:
| I find the sheer volume of anger and hatred surrounding this and
| other related announcements completely unhinged. Why are so many
| people threatened by services that give their users options?
| root_axis wrote:
| Is your honest interpretation of cryptocurrency critics that
| they feel "threatened by services that give their users
| options"?
| [deleted]
| izzydata wrote:
| Groupthink has decided that crypto is evil and killing the
| planet and any opinion to the contrary is wrongthink. This is
| the world we live in now.
| eclipxe wrote:
| HN hates everything.
| knownjorbist wrote:
| It's wild, considering the cryptopunk thing is happening
| _now_, not in the 90s.
| o_____________o wrote:
| The tech world is full of dreamers and know-it-alls. Proto-
| HN Slashdot is a great historical document of our malignant
| naysaying.
| stimpson_j_cat wrote:
| It would be great to have a place to have engaging discussion
| regarding Y-Combinator-backed startups that good hackers
| would find interesting.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I feel like I am engaging with a bad faith critique for the
| purposes of good faith discussion, which is a mistake, but OK,
| here goes:
|
| Some businesses in the UK have banks that say they will close
| their accounts if they accept cryptocurrency payments. Mine
| does! I would without hesitation lose my business bank account
| if I did, because I am a trifling small customer.
|
| Stripe was safe and reputable, but now it is a place where you
| can accept cryptocurrencies.
|
| _Edit: see note below._
|
| I'm not currently clearing payments via Stripe for my own
| business, but the way I understand it, it's now likely to mean
| increased scrutiny from my bank about those payments when I do.
|
| I'm not sure if it has rolled out in the UK yet. But if it has,
| will my bank be clearly informed when a payout was _*not*_ the
| result of a cryptocurrency transaction? I 've not read that far
| yet.
|
| Either way it's reputational damage hassle people do not need.
|
| And before you ask: I am of course comfortable with that bank
| policy. Because cryptocurrency is consistently crime-adjacent
| and fraud-adjacent. And it's not like banks are that well-
| equipped at dealing with old-fashioned frauds that have been
| around a century, let alone new frauds that have been around
| mere days.
|
| --
|
| Edit to add: apparently this document is not meant to
| communicate that cryptocurrency payments can be accepted. Which
| is not what the screenshots in the page do, IMO.
|
| Though the fact that Stripe will allow NFT exchanges is more
| than enough to create reputational risk.
|
| I still expect to have more difficulty when I add Stripe
| payments.
| dbmikus wrote:
| Just want to say that I had the POV of the grandparent
| comment, but your answer was a very useful and real
| description of a particular problem of accepting crypto-
| currency. So thanks for sharing!
| danuker wrote:
| > Because cryptocurrency is consistently crime-adjacent and
| fraud-adjacent.
|
| So are banks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Notable_cases
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| That's as may be.
|
| But I have to deal with my bank, don't I? And there is
| regulation to protect my business.
| rosndo wrote:
| Actually not really, I've switched banks used by my UK
| based business a couple of times. It has never been
| difficult.
|
| I would certainly want to switch banks if I started
| hearing complaints about me using _Stripe_.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Perhaps I am overcautious.
|
| But today _Stripe changed its Twitter icon to an NFT_ ,
| which is like a Belisha Beacon for idiocy, isn't it?
|
| Why any business that is serious would -- in March 2022
| -- produce publicity or support materials that mention
| being able to sell NFTs, I do not know.
|
| It's very stupid.
| rosndo wrote:
| While I largely share your feelings about NFTs, I think
| the general population outside of HN sphere does not.
|
| I'd hedge my bets on this one, I've interacted
| extensively with the massive art market and NFTs really
| seem like a natural fit.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > While I largely share your feelings about NFTs, I think
| the general population outside of HN sphere does not.
|
| I don't know. I know a fair number of
| artists/musicians/photographers and I can tell you that
| among those artists, the impression of NFTs is almost
| universally negative.
|
| I would bet that more people think NFT is close to a
| "giant, planet-killing scam", which is hyperbole but on
| the side of caution.
| rosndo wrote:
| I think the "planet-killing scam" is very HN-sphere
| thinking. Most people have no idea. Most non-technical
| artists I interact with seem very excited about NFTs,
| often asking me to help them create their own
| (unfortunately I'm not interested).
|
| And what about when ETH2 goes live in some months and the
| main NFT chain moves to proof-of-stake? The "planet-
| killing" problem is already solved, that tech is going
| live this year. Seems like a fairly fragile criticism.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > I think the "planet-killing scam" is very HN-sphere
| thinking
|
| It's not, at all. I've heard that phrasing or similar
| (that it's a pyramid scheme, that cryptocurrencies are
| wasteful) from people who don't even know how to find HN.
|
| In the photography world in particular, mentioning your
| NFT is likely to get you laughed out of any forum in
| which you bring it up.
|
| IMO if you encounter any non-technical artist "excited"
| about NFTs, tell them to stay the hell away, or risk
| being seen a bad friend. I tell people I will not help
| them, that I am very happily uninterested, and urge them
| not to do it at all.
|
| It would be irresponsible _not_ to.
| rosndo wrote:
| >IMO if you encounter any non-technical artist "excited"
| about NFTs, tell them to stay the hell away, or risk
| being seen a bad friend.
|
| Fuck that, despite me being incredibly skeptical of NFTs
| I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge the fact that some
| of my non-technical artist friends have earned 6-7 figure
| amounts selling NFTs.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| 6-7 figure amounts selling something of no worth to
| people who on average do not have any comprehension of it
| and which opens them up to fraud and scams. Great.
|
| If an artist friend of mine sells an NFT I am going to
| struggle with continuing to see them as a friend, because
| it's morally bankrupt.
|
| If a non-technical artist comes to you and asks for help
| selling an entirely phantom product to their presumably
| only-averagely-technically-aware fans, why would you get
| involved?
|
| Anything that introduces non-technical users to crypto --
| which is really the main function of NFT exchanges at
| this point -- is a moral hazard.
|
| This is why I am so shocked to see Stripe involved with
| it.
| makeee wrote:
| Would you consider an artist who sells a series of
| limited edition prints to be morally bankrupt? How is
| doing this via the blockchain any different (besides
| catering to a customer base who prefers a digital
| format)?
| rosndo wrote:
| I don't get it. How are my friends morally bankrupt for
| selling NFTs to people like Will Smith or Dubai royalty?
| Same people who are buying their art to hang on their
| walls.
|
| It's not like NFTs brought them a whole new audience,
| it's just that their existing audience wanted NFTs.
|
| You might think NFTs are worthless, but the exact same
| argument goes for easily reproduced physical works of
| art.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Because if Bitcoin specifically takes off it will force
| governments to balanced budgets, exposing a lot of hidden
| corruption. Detractors cherry-pick concerns about energy usage,
| but never show the energy usage of the existing system for
| comparison.
| tehnub wrote:
| You're suggesting that these HN readers are criticizing
| crypto because they're trying to keep government corruption
| under the rug?
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| I really never know how to read comments like this anymore.
|
| Are you serious? Are you joking?
| quaunaut wrote:
| Are you for real?
|
| Crypto right now, while being used by under 1% of population
| use, uses 40% of the energy of the global banking system[1].
|
| In other words, if it were to increase to even 10% of the
| population using it, it would use over 4x the energy of the
| global banking system. If that increased to 50%, it would be
| 20x.
|
| This would be somewhat mitigated in the case of Proof of
| Stake, but would simultaneously give major players in the
| market complete control of said market. Y'know, like a
| government.
|
| 1. Research report from Galaxy Digital, a decidedly pro-
| crypto source, page 8:
| https://docsend.com/view/adwmdeeyfvqwecj2
| infamouscow wrote:
| That report says the data used for the banking system is
| derived from a computer model because they lack sufficient
| empirical evidence.
| [deleted]
| rank0 wrote:
| Things like this where companies reinvent traditional payment
| processing "but with crypto" is the antithesis of what crypto
| used to stand for.
|
| As a former believer in the original goal of private p2p digital
| cash, I am saddened by what crypto has become in practice.
|
| Crypto is just centralized as the traditional financial system.
|
| Oh and nobody actually uses it as a currency. I feel like I'm one
| of few who's actually purchased goods/services.
| jazzkingrt wrote:
| There are still crypto projects whose primary focus is privacy
| (eg monero). But unsurprisingly, it's difficult to spend that
| money without going through a KYC process.
|
| I think the "dream" of truly private transactions was always
| unrealistic. Governments have many tools at their disposal to
| get what they want.
|
| Even cash is only so private. In the USA cash purchases over
| $10,000 require a report to the IRS.
| rank0 wrote:
| Monero is my favorite crypto project and the only token I
| still use today. Their randomX pow protocol is brilliant and
| the anonymity is opaque as you can get! Requiring those huge
| memory pages for efficient mining is a great solution for
| deterring mining botnets.
|
| > I think the "dream" of truly private transactions was
| always unrealistic. Governments have many tools at their
| disposal to get what they want.
|
| Unfortunately you may be right. I sure hope not.
| nprateem wrote:
| Particl.io has built a marketplace for this. It hasn't taken
| off yet but the 'dream' seems to be their dream too
| erulabs wrote:
| Am very glad to see this - was considering adding Coinbase's
| Commerce product due to quite a few requests to accept BTC
| payments for our hardware at https://kubesail.com - I suppose we
| have an extremely privacy focused user-base currently. Since we
| already use Stripe, I would be very glad to simply "enable
| bitcoin" as a payment method and leave it at that.
|
| Somewhat sadly, I was quite involved in web3 several years ago
| when the web3.js project was very young - so I have mixed
| feelings about being glad "someone else is gonna handle it for
| me". I suppose in the last 5 years I've gone from "Not your keys,
| not your coins!" to "I just don't want to spend a ton of time on
| this". Does that mean crypto has failed to live up to the dream
| or does that mean it's finally boring enough for old-business-
| owner-me to make use of it? I can't quite decide!
|
| I am a former Stripe employee, so I am _quite_ biased, but I 'll
| just say: In my experience, if the Collison brothers do anything
| - you'd be a fool to think it's not extremely well thought out.
| If I hear a rhyme I assume there is a damn good reason.
| ludamad wrote:
| For businesses in times of gold-based commerce, reliable bank
| notes were greatly welcome. Gold was heavy and hard to
| validate, whereas crypto is easy to validate but also so light
| that without proper key management it will float away :). I
| don't blame you for not also wanting to perform high stakes
| private key keeping on top of a business
| pastor_bob wrote:
| I don't think this allows for crypto payments nor for
| 'discreet' transactions
|
| See: https://support.stripe.com/questions/crypto-
| supportability-a...
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Really? The OP link does not make this at all clear.
|
| If the text says one thing, the opposite is suggested by the
| screenshots in the page.
|
| I do not expect it to be clear to the people reviewing
| transactions at crypto-phobic banks.
|
| I would prefer a payments provider that will have absolutely
| nothing to do with these businesses, but either way, the way
| this is being communicated looks like an attempt to split a
| hair too finely.
| traveler01 wrote:
| If you want to accept cryptocurrency payments and want a
| privacy focused service you can try Cryptapi...
| rsstack wrote:
| Not to be negative, but when evaluating financial services
| CryptAPI are failing most checks:
|
| - Three employees on LinkedIn, none with a background in
| finance, security, accounting, etc. - No audited security
| certifications (PCI DSS doesn't directly apply, but there
| should be _something_ that shows that _someone_ checked their
| processes/code/infrastructure for reasonable best practices)
| - No fraud protection or anything like that.
|
| This could be nice for a crypto-only side-business that
| someone is running, but it can't be used by a serious company
| that needs to supplement their non-crypto payments with a
| crypto payments option.
| lawn wrote:
| > I suppose we have an extremely privacy focused user-base
| currently.
|
| If you're serious about this, you should _strongly_ consider
| Monero.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| > Am very glad to see this
|
| Am very _sad_ to see this.
|
| I suppose it is inevitable but it could even present problems
| for businesses in the UK where their banks are allergic to
| payment platforms that accept cryptocurrency.
|
| _It is bonkers to be downvoted for this, but I explained my
| reasoning in more detail in another comment if credulous people
| care to reflexively downvote me there too:_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30629808
| henning wrote:
| kyletns wrote:
| This is an obvious but very powerful move by Stripe. Stripe is
| attempting to allow any business to become a place you can buy
| crypto, which will be really important to remove Coinbase and
| other CEXs as the only consumer-facing platforms where you can
| get into the ecosystem.
|
| Of course, that just means replacing those CEXs with Stripe as
| the fully centralized service on the backend, and you can bet
| they'll be taking their cut! But anything that moves more money
| into crypto is good for the Web3 ecosystem. Which would, of
| course, only be a good thing if you considered growth of the Web3
| ecosystem a good thing :)
| samch wrote:
| Slight tangent: Maybe it's just me, but I'm somewhat
| uncomfortable with the label "crypto" being co-opted as official
| shorthand for cryptocurrencies. I see how it's a natural
| truncation of a long term, but to many of us the word crypto can
| mean many other things. When I saw the headline, I wondered if
| they had released their own cryptographic library or something
| else to that effect.
| [deleted]
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| It's really unfortunate. But I guess it's better than
| shortening it to "currency" because that would imply it has
| actual value.
| danuker wrote:
| What is actual value to you personally?
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Can be exchanged for goods and services.
| knownjorbist wrote:
| So crypto qualifies.
| dybber wrote:
| Why isn't this new Stripe thing then about being able to
| use Bitcoin when buying things?
|
| Or how do I use Coinbase for buying things? Try go to the
| coinbase website and look for how to buy things with your
| Bitcoin. What I read from the site is that it's all about
| investing in the value going up, not about making
| payments to other people or businesses for services or
| purchases.
| danuker wrote:
| My question also.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > how do I use Coinbase for buying things
|
| Download TOR, go to dark.fail, go to one of the onion
| sites, send them crypto from coinbase, purchase products.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I would have some difficulty paying my mortgage, my
| mechanic, and my grocery bill with crypto.
| dorianmariefr wrote:
| It has value on the tor market places
| buu700 wrote:
| Here's how I rationalize it:
|
| * "Crypto" means "cryptography"
|
| * "Cryptocurrency" is a subset of "cryptography"
|
| * Using "crypto" to mean "cryptocurrency" is valid as a
| synecdoche
|
| So basically I use it both ways. That also makes more sense to
| me because "currency" feels like an overly narrow description
| of the current crypto ecosystem.
| divbzero wrote:
| It is not just you. 'Crypto' is an odd shorthand for digital
| currencies.
|
| Looking back at the initial whitepaper, Satoshi actually uses
| the word just once: "What is needed is an electronic payment
| system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing
| any two willing parties to transact directly with each other
| without the need for a trusted third party." [1] The remainder
| of the paper uses terms like 'hash' and 'digital signature'.
|
| [1]: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
| fossuser wrote:
| This battle has been fought and lost and the language has
| changed.
|
| I've learned to just accept the new meaning and imo it's better
| that way (otherwise you'll end up being the person correcting
| everyone who writes linux to write gnu/linux for the rest of
| your life).
|
| Crypto implies cryptocurrency now (especially in public facing
| writing), cryptography is the less common usage.
| skrebbel wrote:
| The problem is, words mean what most people think they mean.
| This means that sometimes, meanings change. I'm totally with
| you but you gotta admit that the people who think "crypto"
| means "cryptography" are a tiny, tiny minority right now.
|
| Crypto means internet money. Cryptography is how it's built.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Kinda like Hacker. Ship's probably sailed though...
| rewtraw wrote:
| that ship sailed a long time ago.
|
| but tbh, some of the most exciting cryptographic problems are
| being worked on in the cryptocurrency industry (zk tech, for
| example).
| [deleted]
| atlantas wrote:
| It's unfortunate, but what would be a good alternative?
| wjdp wrote:
| Yes it does, but that ship has sadly sailed. Though, on
| reflection, if I was on the other side of the argument I'd
| probably be for it.
| rvz wrote:
| This doesn't come as surprising since they have timed this with
| Biden's executive order on regulating cryptocurrencies, so this
| is probably why you are seeing Stripe pushing Crypto right now.
|
| Also, all smaller cryptocurrency on ramp businesses are doomed.
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