7 ms·

This is a good argument for BitCoin - no one can ban you from the blockchain. It's extra work and expences, but it's worth supporting at least two payment proc

This is a good argument for BitCoin - no one can ban you from the blockchain. It's extra work and expences, but it's worth supporting at least two payment processors. Keep in mind that some people can't pay with PayPal - e.g. register a credit/debit card with PayPal, PayPal account gets locked - you can't pay with that card any more through PP.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PurpleRamen 4y ago
> no one can ban you from the blockchain. Except, then you have even bigger problems than just PayPal.
mdasen 4y ago
I think that Bitcoin has many similar issues in the real world, though you might argue that these are more under the user's control. For example, it seems like most people don't hold their own keys. I know, "not your keys, not your coins," but it does mean that Bitcoin doesn't provide that kind of safety for most of its users. Even if you do hold your own keys, there's a decent potential that you'll lose your keys. I've known people who have lost Bitcoin that way. If you're holding your keys yourself, how are you keeping them safe? You certainly need off-site backup and probably a weak enough password protecting them to be sure that you won't forget the password. People have those key safes that only allow a certain number of tries: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408. That guy has $240M locked away. Sure, PayPal feels unaccountable when you're a tiny player who uses PayPal for thousands of dollars, but a lawyer would be able to get that $240M. From that article, "Currently, about $140bn worth of Bitcoin is lost or left in wallets that cannot be accessed, according to cryptocurrency-data company Chainanalysis." Given that Bitcoin had around a $700B market cap back then, we're talking about 20% of the total Bitcoin out there simply being lost. Yes, in theory, these are things that you as a user have control over. But human life is tough. If you get in an accident that impacts your memory, do you lose access? If there's a fire, do you lose access? If you die, have you prepared a way of transmitting those Bitcoin to your heirs - and a way that doesn't give them access currently? How would you do that? "Here's how you access the private keys, but pinky swear that you won't until I'm gone." > no one can ban you from the blockchain I'm not so sure about that. Bitcoin are traceable. The government could blacklist certain coins they determine are the proceeds of criminal activity. Sure, the person holding those coins could still transmit them to others and then those people could transmit them to more people, but if the US/EU blacklisted certain coins, people would refuse to take them as payment. For example, Mt. Gox froze accounts that deposited Bitcoins that were known to have been stolen. Let's say that the US says, "no business under our jurisdiction can do business with any wallet that has held Coin-X after today." The value of that coin becomes much lower than any other coin. You can't accept that coin as payment if you're looking to change it (or any other Bitcoin you own) into dollars in the future. Coinbase and other companies couldn't do business with you. Let's say the US takes it one step farther and says "any coin held by Wallet-X today is tainted and any wallet that accepts any of the coins held by Wallet-X (no matter how many transactions removed from Wallet-X) is also tainted along with all their coins." That means that everyone in the Bitcoin network needs to treat the coins in Wallet-X as radioactive. If you accept payment from Wallet-X, you now can't convert your money to dollars at Coinbase or similar companies. Even if you accept payment from Wallet-Z who got the coin from Wallet-Y who got it from Wallet-X, you're still compromised. There'd need to be an updating blacklist of coins that couldn't be used by US companies - a list that would expand over time. If Wallet-X had Coin-X and sent it to Wallet-Y, it would taint Coin-A and Coin-B in Wallet-Y which means even more Bitcoin are now blacklisted by the US. Even if you never want an off-ramp from Bitcoin, others do. Maybe you dream of making every transaction with Bitcoin for the rest of your life. Still, the value drops hard if others don't share that dream. Even if you never want US dollars, let's say you want to buy a house with Bitcoin. The US sees the purchase and seizes the home as the proceeds of illegal activity. The Bitcoin network generally treats all coins as the same kinda like how we treat all dollar bills the same, but our dollar bills all have unique serial numbers and similarly different Bitcoins can be differentiated from each other. If the US government starts blacklisting coins, they aren't technically banning you from the blockchain, but they kinda are for all practical purposes. Sure, there are ways to get US dollars that don't involve Know-Your-Customer US-jurisdiction rules. However, the value of Bitcoins that are blacklisted like that, especially if they taint your other Bitcoin, goes way down. Sure, you can't be banned from the blockchain. However, if the US government bans all coins in your wallet, you're going to effectively lose those coins since others aren't going to want to accept those coins.
epgui 4y ago
Or at least it would be, assuming you didn't care too much about its fluctuations and had the ability to use it directly to pay for most goods and services in your daily life.
Ekaros 4y ago
But any big player can certainly just confiscate your coins once they hit their own address. Or any coins that seem tainted enough... And you do not really have much recourse...
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  If you have coins in your own wallet, no one can move them without the secret keys. US sanctions work by tainting and tracing wallets, they've been proven useless against monero.
- mattdesl 4y ago
  If held non-custodially, “big players” cannot confiscate your coins.
raincole 4y ago
A fun fact: Patreon had hold a survey for creators, asking which features they need. https://blog.patreon.com/the-first-ever-patreon-creator-census https://blog.patreon.com/the-first-ever-patreon-creator-cens... Crypto is the only one creators voted *against*. Yes, Patreon creators, where a lot NSFW content comes from, voted against cryptos. I wonder how they'll think when Visa/Mastercard threat Patreon to ban them (which is just sooner or later).
- themitigating 4y ago
  Why would they vote against a feature? Why not just say it's not a priority or "would be nice"
  - raincole 4y ago
    Crypto fearmongering is as true as crypto frenzy.
    - grumple 4y ago
      Name a cryptocurrency that provides fraud protection, recovery of stolen funds/accounts, and whose value is close to the dollar in stability.
    - hnbad 4y ago
      It's not fearmongering to point out that association with crypto can be detrimental in itself, especially back then when every brand was trying to get onto the crypto and NFT hype train. Features are never purely additive, they can also be transformative or even detrimental. Adding crypto support to Patreon would have changed what Patreon is by attracting different people. Regardless of whether any of the people already using Patreon might have benefited from crypto, it would also have attracted people who would specifically be interested in Patreon because of the crypto support. Like it or not "people whose adoption of Patreon hinges on it adding support for crypto" is a very specific demographic and mostly people they probably didn't want to be associated with. You can call it guilt by assocation or digital NIMBYism but it would have changed a lot more than just having another option for payouts and donations.
janandonly 4y ago
Interesting fact is that a wallet like https://www.bbw.sv/ https://www.bbw.sv/ allows you to sent payment requests in US$ denominated amounts, not even in bitcoin amounts. In the background, the payment rails are bitcoin and lightning, but all the user needs to see is US$.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
That's the theory. In practice, if your wallet address gets marked, nobody will want to deal with it anymore; exchanges won't accept transfers, and any other address you transfer to will get marked as well. See e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60661763 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60661763
- hot_gril 4y ago
  The way Bitcoin works at least, you don't just have one wallet address. You can generate new ones whenever you want, and nobody else can predict what they'll be. But yes it's generally more traceable than something like Monero.
- malka 4y ago
  Soooo, let's say you find the address of the cold wallet of a big exchange, you could destroy it by sending them coin from a marked address ? Good to know :)
Sakos 4y ago
No, it's a good argument for better regulating organisations like PayPal that function as banks but pretend they're anything but.
- jdietrich 4y ago
  Paypal Europe have a banking license. The problem is regulation, or at least the interaction between strict KYC/AML regulations and a business model that allows basically anyone to accept electronic payments. Banks and money transmitters are substantially deputised to enforce a raft of laws regarding the conduct of their customers. Either you're choosy in who you accept as a customer, or you're liberal in who you accept as a customer but have a hair-trigger response to any transaction that looks even vaguely suspect. Any alternative strategy will eventually lead to jail time.
- zajio1am 4y ago
  These kind of issues are mostly because of regulation (KYC laws).
- Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
  In this case they are acting as a payment processor. Payment processors are not banks usually. More regulation can only help in forcing PP to have a human that you can talk to after the algorithms have banned you.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    Payment processors also don't usually hold funds on your behalf. Visa can refuse to process your transaction, but they can't hold your money hostage because they never have it the first place. IIRC, in order to avoid banking regulations, Paypal claims that legally the balance you hold with them is owned by them. So if they want to close your account and just keep your money then they can (and do). Which is bullshit and a state of affairs should absolutely be regulated out of existence.
- gobip 4y ago
  Yes, those same banks, that are "regulated" yet they decide what they do with your money, just like PayPal. Bonus: they collapse.
PeterisP 4y ago
For Bitcoin payments, the equivalent of Paypal or some other payment processor is not the blockchain but the entity where you convert Bitcoin to actual money, as on-chain BTC is not practically usable for your business expenses without that. And that entity can ban you and restrict your payments, so you have pretty much the same considerations.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

PurpleRamen 4y ago

> no one can ban you from the blockchain. Except, then you have even bigger problems than just PayPal.

mdasen 4y ago

I think that Bitcoin has many similar issues in the real world, though you might argue that these are more under the user's control. For example, it seems like most people don't hold their own keys. I know, "not your keys, not your coins," but it does mean that Bitcoin doesn't provide that kind of safety for most of its users. Even if you do hold your own keys, there's a decent potential that you'll lose your keys. I've known people who have lost Bitcoin that way. If you're holding your keys yourself, how are you keeping them safe? You certainly need off-site backup and probably a weak enough password protecting them to be sure that you won't forget the password. People have those key safes that only allow a certain number of tries: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408. That guy has $240M locked away. Sure, PayPal feels unaccountable when you're a tiny player who uses PayPal for thousands of dollars, but a lawyer would be able to get that $240M. From that article, "Currently, about $140bn worth of Bitcoin is lost or left in wallets that cannot be accessed, according to cryptocurrency-data company Chainanalysis." Given that Bitcoin had around a $700B market cap back then, we're talking about 20% of the total Bitcoin out there simply being lost. Yes, in theory, these are things that you as a user have control over. But human life is tough. If you get in an accident that impacts your memory, do you lose access? If there's a fire, do you lose access? If you die, have you prepared a way of transmitting those Bitcoin to your heirs - and a way that doesn't give them access currently? How would you do that? "Here's how you access the private keys, but pinky swear that you won't until I'm gone." > no one can ban you from the blockchain I'm not so sure about that. Bitcoin are traceable. The government could blacklist certain coins they determine are the proceeds of criminal activity. Sure, the person holding those coins could still transmit them to others and then those people could transmit them to more people, but if the US/EU blacklisted certain coins, people would refuse to take them as payment. For example, Mt. Gox froze accounts that deposited Bitcoins that were known to have been stolen. Let's say that the US says, "no business under our jurisdiction can do business with any wallet that has held Coin-X after today." The value of that coin becomes much lower than any other coin. You can't accept that coin as payment if you're looking to change it (or any other Bitcoin you own) into dollars in the future. Coinbase and other companies couldn't do business with you. Let's say the US takes it one step farther and says "any coin held by Wallet-X today is tainted and any wallet that accepts any of the coins held by Wallet-X (no matter how many transactions removed from Wallet-X) is also tainted along with all their coins." That means that everyone in the Bitcoin network needs to treat the coins in Wallet-X as radioactive. If you accept payment from Wallet-X, you now can't convert your money to dollars at Coinbase or similar companies. Even if you accept payment from Wallet-Z who got the coin from Wallet-Y who got it from Wallet-X, you're still compromised. There'd need to be an updating blacklist of coins that couldn't be used by US companies - a list that would expand over time. If Wallet-X had Coin-X and sent it to Wallet-Y, it would taint Coin-A and Coin-B in Wallet-Y which means even more Bitcoin are now blacklisted by the US. Even if you never want an off-ramp from Bitcoin, others do. Maybe you dream of making every transaction with Bitcoin for the rest of your life. Still, the value drops hard if others don't share that dream. Even if you never want US dollars, let's say you want to buy a house with Bitcoin. The US sees the purchase and seizes the home as the proceeds of illegal activity. The Bitcoin network generally treats all coins as the same kinda like how we treat all dollar bills the same, but our dollar bills all have unique serial numbers and similarly different Bitcoins can be differentiated from each other. If the US government starts blacklisting coins, they aren't technically banning you from the blockchain, but they kinda are for all practical purposes. Sure, there are ways to get US dollars that don't involve Know-Your-Customer US-jurisdiction rules. However, the value of Bitcoins that are blacklisted like that, especially if they taint your other Bitcoin, goes way down. Sure, you can't be banned from the blockchain. However, if the US government bans all coins in your wallet, you're going to effectively lose those coins since others aren't going to want to accept those coins.

epgui 4y ago

Or at least it would be, assuming you didn't care too much about its fluctuations and had the ability to use it directly to pay for most goods and services in your daily life.

Ekaros 4y ago

But any big player can certainly just confiscate your coins once they hit their own address. Or any coins that seem tainted enough... And you do not really have much recourse...

matheusmoreira 4y ago
If you have coins in your own wallet, no one can move them without the secret keys. US sanctions work by tainting and tracing wallets, they've been proven useless against monero.
mattdesl 4y ago
If held non-custodially, “big players” cannot confiscate your coins.

raincole 4y ago

A fun fact: Patreon had hold a survey for creators, asking which features they need. https://blog.patreon.com/the-first-ever-patreon-creator-census https://blog.patreon.com/the-first-ever-patreon-creator-cens... Crypto is the only one creators voted *against*. Yes, Patreon creators, where a lot NSFW content comes from, voted against cryptos. I wonder how they'll think when Visa/Mastercard threat Patreon to ban them (which is just sooner or later).

themitigating 4y ago
Why would they vote against a feature? Why not just say it's not a priority or "would be nice"
- raincole 4y ago
  Crypto fearmongering is as true as crypto frenzy.
  - grumple 4y ago
    Name a cryptocurrency that provides fraud protection, recovery of stolen funds/accounts, and whose value is close to the dollar in stability.
  - hnbad 4y ago
    It's not fearmongering to point out that association with crypto can be detrimental in itself, especially back then when every brand was trying to get onto the crypto and NFT hype train. Features are never purely additive, they can also be transformative or even detrimental. Adding crypto support to Patreon would have changed what Patreon is by attracting different people. Regardless of whether any of the people already using Patreon might have benefited from crypto, it would also have attracted people who would specifically be interested in Patreon because of the crypto support. Like it or not "people whose adoption of Patreon hinges on it adding support for crypto" is a very specific demographic and mostly people they probably didn't want to be associated with. You can call it guilt by assocation or digital NIMBYism but it would have changed a lot more than just having another option for payouts and donations.

janandonly 4y ago

Interesting fact is that a wallet like https://www.bbw.sv/ https://www.bbw.sv/ allows you to sent payment requests in US$ denominated amounts, not even in bitcoin amounts. In the background, the payment rails are bitcoin and lightning, but all the user needs to see is US$.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

That's the theory. In practice, if your wallet address gets marked, nobody will want to deal with it anymore; exchanges won't accept transfers, and any other address you transfer to will get marked as well. See e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60661763 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60661763

hot_gril 4y ago
The way Bitcoin works at least, you don't just have one wallet address. You can generate new ones whenever you want, and nobody else can predict what they'll be. But yes it's generally more traceable than something like Monero.
malka 4y ago
Soooo, let's say you find the address of the cold wallet of a big exchange, you could destroy it by sending them coin from a marked address ? Good to know :)

Sakos 4y ago

No, it's a good argument for better regulating organisations like PayPal that function as banks but pretend they're anything but.

jdietrich 4y ago
Paypal Europe have a banking license. The problem is regulation, or at least the interaction between strict KYC/AML regulations and a business model that allows basically anyone to accept electronic payments. Banks and money transmitters are substantially deputised to enforce a raft of laws regarding the conduct of their customers. Either you're choosy in who you accept as a customer, or you're liberal in who you accept as a customer but have a hair-trigger response to any transaction that looks even vaguely suspect. Any alternative strategy will eventually lead to jail time.
zajio1am 4y ago
These kind of issues are mostly because of regulation (KYC laws).
Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
In this case they are acting as a payment processor. Payment processors are not banks usually. More regulation can only help in forcing PP to have a human that you can talk to after the algorithms have banned you.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Payment processors also don't usually hold funds on your behalf. Visa can refuse to process your transaction, but they can't hold your money hostage because they never have it the first place. IIRC, in order to avoid banking regulations, Paypal claims that legally the balance you hold with them is owned by them. So if they want to close your account and just keep your money then they can (and do). Which is bullshit and a state of affairs should absolutely be regulated out of existence.
gobip 4y ago
Yes, those same banks, that are "regulated" yet they decide what they do with your money, just like PayPal. Bonus: they collapse.

PeterisP 4y ago

For Bitcoin payments, the equivalent of Paypal or some other payment processor is not the blockchain but the entity where you convert Bitcoin to actual money, as on-chain BTC is not practically usable for your business expenses without that. And that entity can ban you and restrict your payments, so you have pretty much the same considerations.