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I don't want mastercard supporting crypto. I want the merchants and payment providers supporting crypto so I do not have to use mastercard and their "rules". If

I don't want mastercard supporting crypto. I want the merchants and payment providers supporting crypto so I do not have to use mastercard and their "rules". If I want to pay for porn or send a donation to wikileaks I do not want mastercard/paypal or anyone else other than the government (if it's legal I should be allowed to pay for it) deciding if that is ok.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Bitcoin transaction fees are currently around $8. My credit card pays me 2% to use it. No one wants to use the Bitcoin blockchain for average transactions. No one is buying Bitcoin as anything other than a speculative investment right now.
- vortico 6y ago
  Bitcoin is only good for large transactions, but there are 1000000 cryptocurrencies that solve this problem such as BCH, USDT, and LTC. Use one of them.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    Honestly, why? My credit card pays me 2% to use it. If there’s a problem with my transaction, I click some buttons and the card company reversed the charges. If I lose my card, I call them up and get another one overnight without losing all my money. Why would I give all of that up, pay exchange fees on both ends of a transaction, pay transaction fees (however small), and wait longer for my transactions to clear?
    - exdsq 6y ago
      I regularly invoice internationally. I can get a crypto payment through with a small transaction fee (a few cent for $20k) which clears in ~5 minutes, or I can get a payment that takes several days to clear with a larger fee. Crypto works perfectly for me!
      - joosters 6y ago
        Or you could use any of the far cheaper options for international payments (Transferwise, etc)... why do cryptocurrency enthusiasts think that all international payments need to be done via Western Union?
        exdsq 6y ago
        That's a $7.50 charge, this is cheaper. I do however use those methods if the client won't pay in crypto.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - rkangel 6y ago
      The parent comment is making a philosophical/ethical point - there is a lot of power concentrated into two private companies (Mastercard and Visa). They are the gatekeepers to being able to take payments, without them you can't have consumer income, and they make moral judgements that make it hard to operate certain kinds of (legal) businesses.
      - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
        Sure, but why not use a stablecoin cryptocurrency? Why do we need to invent an all-new alternative currency and asset class just to use these technologies? Why do I have to invest in 1 of 1000s of altcoins just to arbitrary change numbers in a shared ledger?
        Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
        Because the US monetary policy and inflation, and USD not being backed by anything, and because people don't want this power in corruptable governments. This is not even some dispited facts (that this is one of major reasons for why some people want a new currency), this thing has been discussed over and over into oblivion, since the beginning of cryptocurrencies. It is a question that has been answered millions of times at this point. You just haven't researched any of it.
    - ahnick 6y ago
      Most people can't put >$20,000 on their credit card and large money transfers over traditional financial institutions (wires/ACH) at best take many hours or days.
    - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
      Taking the bigger picture, those rewards and disputes aren't free. These things get paid for by transaction fees, cardholders that carry balances, and vendors taking a loss. On the whole, prices for everything go up, but people fortunate enough to have "good" credit cards get a slight discount at the expense of those who don't. I'm not necessarily saying this system is better or worse than some alternative, just pointing out that it's not all upside.
    - artificialLimbs 6y ago
      You can't get deplatformed from $whateverCoin like you can with credit cards.
    - tshaddox 6y ago
      I don't think anyone would argue that you should stop using your credit card if it's working well for you and you're very happy with it. But of course, credit card companies are only solvent because on average they're not paying their users to use it. Miss one or two bills, or make one big purchase that you wouldn't have without the credit line, and you'll likely wipe out all the rewards you've "earned."
- mshumi 6y ago
  Hardfork BTC to use Algorand consensus. Put stablecoins on the same chain. See the magic happen.
- Mc_Big_G 6y ago
  No one wants to buy gold because the fees to move it are currently around $100.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  > My credit card pays me 2% to use it. That's not how it really works, but you're right that $8 is a pretty insane transaction fee.
- maeln 6y ago
  And let's not forget that bitcoin can process on average less than 7 transactions per seconds. That's incredibly slow. It can be used for anything irl as long as this fundamental problem is not fixed. Nobody will spend 10+ minutes in front of the cashier waiting for the transaction to be confirmed. Most cryptocurrencies are plagued by the same issue. Everyone and their mother still come out with their own cryptocurrencies, but none has been proven to have any actual usefulness outside of speculation. I guess Monero and ZCash are at least really used as a transaction method because of the "black market", but, outside of anonymity, they also have the same fundamental issue that btc has.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I have a feeling that traditional cc system are slower than the time user waits for confirmation. Isn't it buffer based like disk io ? the bank has a buffer to accept any card that is legit (for small transactions) and the rare time a problem occurs they deal with it on the side ?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > I have a feeling that traditional cc system are slower than the time user waits for confirmation. Raising this in response to Bitcoin’s limited throughput is a nonsequitur, as this is latency, not throughout. Yes, the time between initiating and settling a credit card transaction is nontrivial, but that doesn't effect the number of transactions the system can process per second. If the credit card system didn't have the throughput to handle transactions at the rate they are initiated, there's be an ever-growing queue, and there isn't.
      - agumonkey 6y ago
        note that I don't promote bitcoin .. i just want to avoid people judging the current credit card system from afar.
- lawn 6y ago
  We shouldn't forget that there are other cryptos that don't have these ridiculous fees. Also, your credit card pays you 2% because they extract a larger fee from the merchant, who will raise prices to cover that expense. So you're not really saving money.
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    Will the merchants give me a 2+% discount and cover the BTC transaction fee if I pay in Bitcoin?
    - 3np 6y ago
      One of the largest consumer electronics merchant in Japan does give you a discount if you pay with bitcoin, coincidentally.
    - sharedfrog 6y ago
      Intellimeds.net gives 8% off.
- stblack 6y ago
  This is so ignorant. Please raise your game. Bitcoin transaction fees are set by the sender. At least, that's true if you aren't a nOOb and you control your own wallet. Transaction fees vary, at this very moment, between 1 satoshi/vbyte to 9,900 satoshi/vbyte. That range is 10^5. See https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/ Last week at this time, a tx could be placed in the very next block for 13 sat/vbyte. But sure, claim it's "$8". But it's better to educate yourself before sprouting off like that. With Bitcoin you pay the fees you want to pay. If you want fast settlement, you pay more. If you want to pay next to zero, you can do that too.
  - loceng 6y ago
    So would these longer settlement times, at a lower cost, then necessitate using a centralized escrow service to verify trustworthiness?
- koonsolo 6y ago
  Nano has 0 fees and 1< second transactions. What is your argument against that?
  - rank0 6y ago
    I've read briefly about nano and its super interesting. I don't really understand how its feasible though. What is the incentive for operating a node in the network? A cryptocurrency that would ACTUALLY be used as a currency needs a resilient network. But if operating a node yields no financial incentive, how is that network supposed to be created?
    - Shoue 6y ago
      The incentive is the exact thing you're worried about: merchants get to avoid fees. If Nano ever takes off as a payment method, then you'd probably see e.g. large grocery chains operating Nano nodes to avoid fees.
      - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
        Cool. But why not just use the nano technology with a USD-backed currency instead? Cut out all of the alternative currency speculation and just let the technology do the work on people's money.
        ketamine__ 6y ago
        Like USDC.
      - jcbrand 6y ago
        It looks to me like Nano will suffer from the free-rider problem. If Nano becomes an established currency, then a grocery chain can just rely on the existing Nano nodes to process its transactions (which will still be free), they don't need to run their own node for it.
        6y ago
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  Made a transaction last week, paid 0.50 $. Transaction went through just fine. What am I doing wrong?
phatfish 6y ago
Hasn't Wikileaks published crypto addresses for a long time? You can send directly to them right now. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a porn site out there taking payment directly though a Bitcoin address too.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Bitcoin transaction fees are currently around $8. My credit card pays me 2% to use it. No one wants to use the Bitcoin blockchain for average transactions. No one is buying Bitcoin as anything other than a speculative investment right now.

vortico 6y ago
Bitcoin is only good for large transactions, but there are 1000000 cryptocurrencies that solve this problem such as BCH, USDT, and LTC. Use one of them.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Honestly, why? My credit card pays me 2% to use it. If there’s a problem with my transaction, I click some buttons and the card company reversed the charges. If I lose my card, I call them up and get another one overnight without losing all my money. Why would I give all of that up, pay exchange fees on both ends of a transaction, pay transaction fees (however small), and wait longer for my transactions to clear?
  - exdsq 6y ago
    I regularly invoice internationally. I can get a crypto payment through with a small transaction fee (a few cent for $20k) which clears in ~5 minutes, or I can get a payment that takes several days to clear with a larger fee. Crypto works perfectly for me!
    - joosters 6y ago
      Or you could use any of the far cheaper options for international payments (Transferwise, etc)... why do cryptocurrency enthusiasts think that all international payments need to be done via Western Union?
      - exdsq 6y ago
        That's a $7.50 charge, this is cheaper. I do however use those methods if the client won't pay in crypto.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rkangel 6y ago
    The parent comment is making a philosophical/ethical point - there is a lot of power concentrated into two private companies (Mastercard and Visa). They are the gatekeepers to being able to take payments, without them you can't have consumer income, and they make moral judgements that make it hard to operate certain kinds of (legal) businesses.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      Sure, but why not use a stablecoin cryptocurrency? Why do we need to invent an all-new alternative currency and asset class just to use these technologies? Why do I have to invest in 1 of 1000s of altcoins just to arbitrary change numbers in a shared ledger?
      - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
        Because the US monetary policy and inflation, and USD not being backed by anything, and because people don't want this power in corruptable governments. This is not even some dispited facts (that this is one of major reasons for why some people want a new currency), this thing has been discussed over and over into oblivion, since the beginning of cryptocurrencies. It is a question that has been answered millions of times at this point. You just haven't researched any of it.
  - ahnick 6y ago
    Most people can't put >$20,000 on their credit card and large money transfers over traditional financial institutions (wires/ACH) at best take many hours or days.
  - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
    Taking the bigger picture, those rewards and disputes aren't free. These things get paid for by transaction fees, cardholders that carry balances, and vendors taking a loss. On the whole, prices for everything go up, but people fortunate enough to have "good" credit cards get a slight discount at the expense of those who don't. I'm not necessarily saying this system is better or worse than some alternative, just pointing out that it's not all upside.
  - artificialLimbs 6y ago
    You can't get deplatformed from $whateverCoin like you can with credit cards.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I don't think anyone would argue that you should stop using your credit card if it's working well for you and you're very happy with it. But of course, credit card companies are only solvent because on average they're not paying their users to use it. Miss one or two bills, or make one big purchase that you wouldn't have without the credit line, and you'll likely wipe out all the rewards you've "earned."
mshumi 6y ago
Hardfork BTC to use Algorand consensus. Put stablecoins on the same chain. See the magic happen.
Mc_Big_G 6y ago
No one wants to buy gold because the fees to move it are currently around $100.
IshKebab 6y ago
> My credit card pays me 2% to use it. That's not how it really works, but you're right that $8 is a pretty insane transaction fee.
maeln 6y ago
And let's not forget that bitcoin can process on average less than 7 transactions per seconds. That's incredibly slow. It can be used for anything irl as long as this fundamental problem is not fixed. Nobody will spend 10+ minutes in front of the cashier waiting for the transaction to be confirmed. Most cryptocurrencies are plagued by the same issue. Everyone and their mother still come out with their own cryptocurrencies, but none has been proven to have any actual usefulness outside of speculation. I guess Monero and ZCash are at least really used as a transaction method because of the "black market", but, outside of anonymity, they also have the same fundamental issue that btc has.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I have a feeling that traditional cc system are slower than the time user waits for confirmation. Isn't it buffer based like disk io ? the bank has a buffer to accept any card that is legit (for small transactions) and the rare time a problem occurs they deal with it on the side ?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I have a feeling that traditional cc system are slower than the time user waits for confirmation. Raising this in response to Bitcoin’s limited throughput is a nonsequitur, as this is latency, not throughout. Yes, the time between initiating and settling a credit card transaction is nontrivial, but that doesn't effect the number of transactions the system can process per second. If the credit card system didn't have the throughput to handle transactions at the rate they are initiated, there's be an ever-growing queue, and there isn't.
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      note that I don't promote bitcoin .. i just want to avoid people judging the current credit card system from afar.
lawn 6y ago
We shouldn't forget that there are other cryptos that don't have these ridiculous fees. Also, your credit card pays you 2% because they extract a larger fee from the merchant, who will raise prices to cover that expense. So you're not really saving money.
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  Will the merchants give me a 2+% discount and cover the BTC transaction fee if I pay in Bitcoin?
  - 3np 6y ago
    One of the largest consumer electronics merchant in Japan does give you a discount if you pay with bitcoin, coincidentally.
  - sharedfrog 6y ago
    Intellimeds.net gives 8% off.
stblack 6y ago
This is so ignorant. Please raise your game. Bitcoin transaction fees are set by the sender. At least, that's true if you aren't a nOOb and you control your own wallet. Transaction fees vary, at this very moment, between 1 satoshi/vbyte to 9,900 satoshi/vbyte. That range is 10^5. See https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/ Last week at this time, a tx could be placed in the very next block for 13 sat/vbyte. But sure, claim it's "$8". But it's better to educate yourself before sprouting off like that. With Bitcoin you pay the fees you want to pay. If you want fast settlement, you pay more. If you want to pay next to zero, you can do that too.
- loceng 6y ago
  So would these longer settlement times, at a lower cost, then necessitate using a centralized escrow service to verify trustworthiness?
koonsolo 6y ago
Nano has 0 fees and 1< second transactions. What is your argument against that?
- rank0 6y ago
  I've read briefly about nano and its super interesting. I don't really understand how its feasible though. What is the incentive for operating a node in the network? A cryptocurrency that would ACTUALLY be used as a currency needs a resilient network. But if operating a node yields no financial incentive, how is that network supposed to be created?
  - Shoue 6y ago
    The incentive is the exact thing you're worried about: merchants get to avoid fees. If Nano ever takes off as a payment method, then you'd probably see e.g. large grocery chains operating Nano nodes to avoid fees.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      Cool. But why not just use the nano technology with a USD-backed currency instead? Cut out all of the alternative currency speculation and just let the technology do the work on people's money.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Like USDC.
    - jcbrand 6y ago
      It looks to me like Nano will suffer from the free-rider problem. If Nano becomes an established currency, then a grocery chain can just rely on the existing Nano nodes to process its transactions (which will still be free), they don't need to run their own node for it.
      - 6y ago
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
Made a transaction last week, paid 0.50 $. Transaction went through just fine. What am I doing wrong?

phatfish 6y ago

Hasn't Wikileaks published crypto addresses for a long time? You can send directly to them right now. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a porn site out there taking payment directly though a Bitcoin address too.