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If you think visa,MasterCard and PayPal do shit all you are probably super ignorant of the payments space. Again you thinking banks don't make much from credit

If you think visa,MasterCard and PayPal do shit all you are probably super ignorant of the payments space. Again you thinking banks don't make much from credit cards reenforces that you are just ignorant of the space. Remittance only saves money with Bitcoin if almost no one does it because the end country can absorb the inflow of Bitcoin without needing to worry about selling it back the other way. If it ever got popular the costs would go back to where they are with traditional services only with the addition of an extra currency exchange in the middle. That said it doesn't matter though because they aren't popular and don't have traction. As for the discounts same thing it only works while it's rarely used and it continues to work because it is.

aianus 11y ago
> If you think visa,MasterCard and PayPal do shit all you are probably super ignorant of the payments space. I'd love to hear what incredible value Visa adds to my purchases over Bitcoin (remember, rewards and fraud protection are offered by the issuer, not the card network) > If it ever got popular the costs would go back to where they are with traditional services only with the addition of an extra currency exchange in the middle. No, if it ever got popular Citi and Goldman would have arbitrage bots running on every exchange and they don't pay retail for fiat FX or transfers. Joe Blow exchanging $10 would finally get a better rate than BigCo exchanging $1 million, just as simple economics would have you expect (the smaller the order, the smaller the slippage). > As for the discounts same thing it only works while it's rarely used and it continues to work because it is. The merchant is just passing on his payment processing savings so there's no reason this wouldn't work indefinitely (there's already evidence consumers like it judging by the number of gas stations in the US with cash discounts)
- sanswork 11y ago
  Visa runs a network that today can support 15,000-45,000 times as many transactions per second as Bitcoin. So the first answer would be a network that can handle success. Secondly they do the fraud management and detection. It doesn't matter since even arb bots require the movement of non-Bitcoin resources. Going from cash in hand to cash in hand with Bitcoin is almost never cheaper than traditional remittance today anyhow. We have lots of Bitcoin merchants now and except for the ones supporting the carding industry like fold and purse almost one offer discounts for using Bitcoin.
  - aianus 11y ago
    > Visa runs a network that today can support 15,000-45,000 times as many transactions per second as Bitcoin. Visa says it's capable of 24,000 tps. I could write a centralized system to handle that by myself in a couple of days; it's not impressive and certainly not a $10B/year value. I don't know if Bitcoin itself will ever scale that high but it's irrelevant because I'm not advocating anyone buy their morning Starbucks or related penny-ante stuff on the blockchain. > even arb bots require the movement of non-Bitcoin resources Yes, and Goldman can do it $10m at a time for peanuts. Hell, any VC-funded startup with just a few tens of millions could do it too. > almost no-one offer discounts for using Bitcoin. That's true today, but no reason that can't or won't change in the future.
    - sanswork 11y ago
      Search for visa stress test they can handle over 56,000 tps. You could write a centralized system that interfaces with millions of partners handles tens of thousands of transactions per second and does fraud detection? Do it. You sound like the basecamp is a weekend project people. You aren't? But you just said its good for shopping because of discounts so now it's not good for shopping because it won't scale? Bitcoin couldn't even handle worldwide remittance volume at the moment. And the only scaling solutions that make sense involve not using Bitcoin. And so can remittance companies now. Moving money isn't the expensive part of remittance it's the last mile. Even one of the former directors of rebit.ph posted a large article on why Bitcoin doesn't make remittance cheaper. Some edge cases sure but only if they remain unpopular. You talk about avoiding forex but all you're doing is adding another one. This is what people have been saying for years though. If you're depending on merchants investing in the cost of supporting your new currency you can't also expect them to hand all the savings over. They do it for the savings not to lower prices.

aianus 11y ago

> If you think visa,MasterCard and PayPal do shit all you are probably super ignorant of the payments space. I'd love to hear what incredible value Visa adds to my purchases over Bitcoin (remember, rewards and fraud protection are offered by the issuer, not the card network) > If it ever got popular the costs would go back to where they are with traditional services only with the addition of an extra currency exchange in the middle. No, if it ever got popular Citi and Goldman would have arbitrage bots running on every exchange and they don't pay retail for fiat FX or transfers. Joe Blow exchanging $10 would finally get a better rate than BigCo exchanging $1 million, just as simple economics would have you expect (the smaller the order, the smaller the slippage). > As for the discounts same thing it only works while it's rarely used and it continues to work because it is. The merchant is just passing on his payment processing savings so there's no reason this wouldn't work indefinitely (there's already evidence consumers like it judging by the number of gas stations in the US with cash discounts)

sanswork 11y ago
Visa runs a network that today can support 15,000-45,000 times as many transactions per second as Bitcoin. So the first answer would be a network that can handle success. Secondly they do the fraud management and detection. It doesn't matter since even arb bots require the movement of non-Bitcoin resources. Going from cash in hand to cash in hand with Bitcoin is almost never cheaper than traditional remittance today anyhow. We have lots of Bitcoin merchants now and except for the ones supporting the carding industry like fold and purse almost one offer discounts for using Bitcoin.
- aianus 11y ago
  > Visa runs a network that today can support 15,000-45,000 times as many transactions per second as Bitcoin. Visa says it's capable of 24,000 tps. I could write a centralized system to handle that by myself in a couple of days; it's not impressive and certainly not a $10B/year value. I don't know if Bitcoin itself will ever scale that high but it's irrelevant because I'm not advocating anyone buy their morning Starbucks or related penny-ante stuff on the blockchain. > even arb bots require the movement of non-Bitcoin resources Yes, and Goldman can do it $10m at a time for peanuts. Hell, any VC-funded startup with just a few tens of millions could do it too. > almost no-one offer discounts for using Bitcoin. That's true today, but no reason that can't or won't change in the future.
  - sanswork 11y ago
    Search for visa stress test they can handle over 56,000 tps. You could write a centralized system that interfaces with millions of partners handles tens of thousands of transactions per second and does fraud detection? Do it. You sound like the basecamp is a weekend project people. You aren't? But you just said its good for shopping because of discounts so now it's not good for shopping because it won't scale? Bitcoin couldn't even handle worldwide remittance volume at the moment. And the only scaling solutions that make sense involve not using Bitcoin. And so can remittance companies now. Moving money isn't the expensive part of remittance it's the last mile. Even one of the former directors of rebit.ph posted a large article on why Bitcoin doesn't make remittance cheaper. Some edge cases sure but only if they remain unpopular. You talk about avoiding forex but all you're doing is adding another one. This is what people have been saying for years though. If you're depending on merchants investing in the cost of supporting your new currency you can't also expect them to hand all the savings over. They do it for the savings not to lower prices.