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The number one justification for cryptocurrency in my book, even if it's less safe or convenient or even has small fees. Your business being subject to the whim

The number one justification for cryptocurrency in my book, even if it's less safe or convenient or even has small fees. Your business being subject to the whims of payment processors is ludicrous. Even with this being the justification, they could just say they won't be working with the customer in the future, not literally steal their customer's already earned money.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
Find me a single example of where Stripe kept the money themselves. In some cases they are legally obliged to hold onto funds. The don't get to keep them. You are putting yourself at risk of a lawsuit.
- tonynator 2y ago
  [dead]
sanswork 2y ago
All you're doing is moving the risk from the business to the consumer with crypto which is why it will never succeed. Consumers like all the things businesses hate about credit cards because they can get their money back if something goes wrong and when it comes to payments the customer decides who wins.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Well said. We've offered for many years to our customers to pay by CC, bank transfer or Bitcoin. Exactly 0 people wanted to pay by Bitcoin, while the other two options are at about 50/50.
  - nwienert 2y ago
    What are you selling?
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      I don't want to go into details here, but it is something very traditional and unexciting that all kinds of people buy. We offered Bitcoin payment just as prominent as other forms of payment, but nobody was interested.
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        How are you taking Bitcoin payments? Every time I'm forced to pay for something using crypto it ends up making me want to self-harm and I've been a dev for 40 years. When I have to try and talk friends and relatives through crypto payments it is insanely painful. Just the other day I was buying an NFT and I realized I bought the currency on Ethereum instead of Polygon. Coinbase didn't differentiate. Imagine trying to explain all this shit to your grandma.
        carlosjobim 2y ago
        In the first step, the customer would just select between card, bank transfer and Bitcoin. Nobody selected Bitcoin in the first step.
  - ssijak 2y ago
    I had people asking me if they can pay in crypto for my SaaS. I dont have that option on the website, they just asked. I did allow it
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > All you're doing is moving the risk from the business to the consumer No, most of the merchant's risk with credit cards is from the design of credit cards. You have to give your payment info to every merchant but if any one of them loses it then anyone who gets it can use it at any other merchant. Then some merchant you've never heard of has bad security, criminals get cards from there and use them to buy things from honest merchants and the honest merchants get chargebacks for having done nothing wrong. Cryptocurrency does not have this problem because you don't have to give your private keys to everyone you pay and even if you fail to protect them yourself (something you, rather than someone else, is in control of), as long as you're not trying to use cryptocurrency as a store of value instead of a payment system, your losses are limited to the e.g. $20 you had in your wallet. Customers have no problem with systems that work like this, like cash. Chargebacks are only an issue if the customer expects the merchant to be dishonest and the value of the purchase is large. If you pay $3 for something and get ripped off, the ability to do a chargeback isn't that relevant to your life and you're just not going to patronize them anymore. The reason most customers don't use cryptocurrency is that the government made it high friction for ordinary people to buy it. "Why is this website I don't know asking for my social security number? I'm just trying to make a small purchase." Presumably at the behest of the existing payments industry which wants to keep their vig.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    >No Starting like that, writing that whole paragraph and you completely misread what I said. "No, merchants have risk with credit cards". That is literally what I said in the post you are replying too. Sloppy and rude. >Cryptocurrency does not have this problem because you don't have to give your private keys to everyone you pay and even if you fail to protect them yourself Credit card fraud isn't a problem for consumers because of chargebacks and insurance. If a criminal steals my card and racks up charges I am almost always getting my money back. All the risk is again on the merchants. Consumers like that balance. Trying to convince them to take on more risk just to benefit the merchants is not going to happen ever. >Chargebacks are only an issue if the customer expects the merchant to be dishonest and the value of the purchase is large. If you pay $3 for something and get ripped off, the ability to do a chargeback isn't that relevant to your life and you're just not going to patronize them anymore. This is also completely wrong. People do chargebacks all the time because of a poor outcome that has nothing to do with being dishonest. There are also cases like bankruptcy where a chargeback will get you your money back but if you paid in crypto you'd just be another creditor. The reason most customers don't use cryptocurrencies is because they are stupid and pointless for payments. They make the process worse for consumers unless you're needing to hide your identity. Crypto is like mailing companies envelopes of cash. There is a reason no sane consumer does that anymore.
galdosdi 2y ago
LOL. Being able to reverse transactions and freeze funds is a feature not a bug. With crypto you have no recourse when a criminal does criminal things or you make a mistake. Ransomware only started being a thing thanks to crypto, but governments could easily ban it (serious governments like US, China, Germany, that is) Crypto is useless for anyone but criminals. If you can't use the real, state controlled financial system, then you also can't use the real, state controlled property rights system. Who cares about being able to prove you own some bits if you are not protected by the law when you buy any actual tangible goods with those bits, like a house or a car or a business? Crypto is only useful when it's not needed (ie, you can use the state to enforce your physical property rights) and becomes useless once it's needed (you live in a corrupt or anarchist state that won't enforce your property rights over anything you can actually buy with the crypto) Crypto is becoming a form of government blind-eye-turned corruption, for carrying out corrupt financial practices with less immediate oversight and more ways to overcomplicate the logistics. It will probably cause a financial crisis one day, like in 2008, for the exact same reason complex derivatives did. I never take crypto jobs so my resume will stay clean when the house of cards falls down.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  How does your comment read if you replace "crypto" with "foreign currency"?
  - galdosdi 2y ago
    You are probably unaware of this, but most foreign countries also have governments that enforce laws. It's not just an American thing, believe it or not. Hope this helps. Take care now.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      I found it curious that many uses and abuses of crypto is the same as with foreign currency. But you seem to have killed your curiosity.
arcticbull 2y ago
Instead you should advocate for payment network neutrality. Visa and MasterCard should be required by US law not to discriminate against transactions, and enforcement should move from the private sector to, well, law enforcement. Like with ACH/FedNow. That might actually get us somewhere productive.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  Terrible idea. Plus, banks aren't allowed to just close their eyes and allow all money movement via ACH.
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    Terrible idea on what basis? Why would it be bad to require all lawful transactions to be processed by an infrastructure provider? Private toll roads don't get to discriminate against traffic. Internet providers don't get to discriminate against traffic. Why should payment network providers? Once you're big enough and important enough, you're quasi-state.
    - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
      On the basis of allowing the people who built the companies to deal with customers they want to deal with, rather than be forced to deal with every type of scumbag on earth. Toll roads change price based on type of vehicle and don't allow all types of vehicles. Discrimination. In most jurisdictions internet providers absolutely discriminate on traffic to help resolve congestion, they are allowed to discriminate for VOIP under various circumstances. Discrimination. Visa and Mastercard don't want a bunch of charge backs, some services are more prone to fraud than others, and they flat out don't want their brand associated with various things. Discrimination. With few exceptions (race, gender etc etc), discrimination is a net good for the world. People should be allowed to decide who they want to do business with, socialize with etc.
      - arcticbull 2y ago
nailer 2y ago
current generation blockchain networks will absolutely have lower fees than traditional finance
- cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
  Current-generation blockchain networks also don’t seek to do what “traditional finance” does. The usual list of things that crypto enthusiasts point to tends to be mostly comprised of things that consumers actually want. The entire premise is different. Apples and oranges.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  No chance. This makes zero sense.
  - nailer 2y ago
    Er, it’s a fact. Anything post 2020 is a fraction of a cent.
    - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
      For exactly what? Show the lowest cost provider in "traditional finance" and the cost using some blockchain for an end to end transaction that someone actually wants to do. What you are going to find is that the underlying cost structure for a few updates to a few relational dbs is about zero. The fees paid for some transactions having are a result of using the most convenient method possible. With a little bit of elbow grease you will find very cheap providers of everything in traditional finance, they'll just be a little more annoying to use.
      - nailer 2y ago
        Sure: retail payments or international remittance - find the cheapest tradfi provider and we’ll go from there.
        2y ago

danielmarkbruce 2y ago

Find me a single example of where Stripe kept the money themselves. In some cases they are legally obliged to hold onto funds. The don't get to keep them. You are putting yourself at risk of a lawsuit.

tonynator 2y ago
[dead]

sanswork 2y ago

All you're doing is moving the risk from the business to the consumer with crypto which is why it will never succeed. Consumers like all the things businesses hate about credit cards because they can get their money back if something goes wrong and when it comes to payments the customer decides who wins.

carlosjobim 2y ago
Well said. We've offered for many years to our customers to pay by CC, bank transfer or Bitcoin. Exactly 0 people wanted to pay by Bitcoin, while the other two options are at about 50/50.
- nwienert 2y ago
  What are you selling?
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    I don't want to go into details here, but it is something very traditional and unexciting that all kinds of people buy. We offered Bitcoin payment just as prominent as other forms of payment, but nobody was interested.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      How are you taking Bitcoin payments? Every time I'm forced to pay for something using crypto it ends up making me want to self-harm and I've been a dev for 40 years. When I have to try and talk friends and relatives through crypto payments it is insanely painful. Just the other day I was buying an NFT and I realized I bought the currency on Ethereum instead of Polygon. Coinbase didn't differentiate. Imagine trying to explain all this shit to your grandma.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        In the first step, the customer would just select between card, bank transfer and Bitcoin. Nobody selected Bitcoin in the first step.
- ssijak 2y ago
  I had people asking me if they can pay in crypto for my SaaS. I dont have that option on the website, they just asked. I did allow it
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> All you're doing is moving the risk from the business to the consumer No, most of the merchant's risk with credit cards is from the design of credit cards. You have to give your payment info to every merchant but if any one of them loses it then anyone who gets it can use it at any other merchant. Then some merchant you've never heard of has bad security, criminals get cards from there and use them to buy things from honest merchants and the honest merchants get chargebacks for having done nothing wrong. Cryptocurrency does not have this problem because you don't have to give your private keys to everyone you pay and even if you fail to protect them yourself (something you, rather than someone else, is in control of), as long as you're not trying to use cryptocurrency as a store of value instead of a payment system, your losses are limited to the e.g. $20 you had in your wallet. Customers have no problem with systems that work like this, like cash. Chargebacks are only an issue if the customer expects the merchant to be dishonest and the value of the purchase is large. If you pay $3 for something and get ripped off, the ability to do a chargeback isn't that relevant to your life and you're just not going to patronize them anymore. The reason most customers don't use cryptocurrency is that the government made it high friction for ordinary people to buy it. "Why is this website I don't know asking for my social security number? I'm just trying to make a small purchase." Presumably at the behest of the existing payments industry which wants to keep their vig.
- sanswork 2y ago
  >No Starting like that, writing that whole paragraph and you completely misread what I said. "No, merchants have risk with credit cards". That is literally what I said in the post you are replying too. Sloppy and rude. >Cryptocurrency does not have this problem because you don't have to give your private keys to everyone you pay and even if you fail to protect them yourself Credit card fraud isn't a problem for consumers because of chargebacks and insurance. If a criminal steals my card and racks up charges I am almost always getting my money back. All the risk is again on the merchants. Consumers like that balance. Trying to convince them to take on more risk just to benefit the merchants is not going to happen ever. >Chargebacks are only an issue if the customer expects the merchant to be dishonest and the value of the purchase is large. If you pay $3 for something and get ripped off, the ability to do a chargeback isn't that relevant to your life and you're just not going to patronize them anymore. This is also completely wrong. People do chargebacks all the time because of a poor outcome that has nothing to do with being dishonest. There are also cases like bankruptcy where a chargeback will get you your money back but if you paid in crypto you'd just be another creditor. The reason most customers don't use cryptocurrencies is because they are stupid and pointless for payments. They make the process worse for consumers unless you're needing to hide your identity. Crypto is like mailing companies envelopes of cash. There is a reason no sane consumer does that anymore.

galdosdi 2y ago

LOL. Being able to reverse transactions and freeze funds is a feature not a bug. With crypto you have no recourse when a criminal does criminal things or you make a mistake. Ransomware only started being a thing thanks to crypto, but governments could easily ban it (serious governments like US, China, Germany, that is) Crypto is useless for anyone but criminals. If you can't use the real, state controlled financial system, then you also can't use the real, state controlled property rights system. Who cares about being able to prove you own some bits if you are not protected by the law when you buy any actual tangible goods with those bits, like a house or a car or a business? Crypto is only useful when it's not needed (ie, you can use the state to enforce your physical property rights) and becomes useless once it's needed (you live in a corrupt or anarchist state that won't enforce your property rights over anything you can actually buy with the crypto) Crypto is becoming a form of government blind-eye-turned corruption, for carrying out corrupt financial practices with less immediate oversight and more ways to overcomplicate the logistics. It will probably cause a financial crisis one day, like in 2008, for the exact same reason complex derivatives did. I never take crypto jobs so my resume will stay clean when the house of cards falls down.

carlosjobim 2y ago
How does your comment read if you replace "crypto" with "foreign currency"?
- galdosdi 2y ago
  You are probably unaware of this, but most foreign countries also have governments that enforce laws. It's not just an American thing, believe it or not. Hope this helps. Take care now.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    I found it curious that many uses and abuses of crypto is the same as with foreign currency. But you seem to have killed your curiosity.

arcticbull 2y ago

Instead you should advocate for payment network neutrality. Visa and MasterCard should be required by US law not to discriminate against transactions, and enforcement should move from the private sector to, well, law enforcement. Like with ACH/FedNow. That might actually get us somewhere productive.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
Terrible idea. Plus, banks aren't allowed to just close their eyes and allow all money movement via ACH.
- arcticbull 2y ago
  Terrible idea on what basis? Why would it be bad to require all lawful transactions to be processed by an infrastructure provider? Private toll roads don't get to discriminate against traffic. Internet providers don't get to discriminate against traffic. Why should payment network providers? Once you're big enough and important enough, you're quasi-state.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    On the basis of allowing the people who built the companies to deal with customers they want to deal with, rather than be forced to deal with every type of scumbag on earth. Toll roads change price based on type of vehicle and don't allow all types of vehicles. Discrimination. In most jurisdictions internet providers absolutely discriminate on traffic to help resolve congestion, they are allowed to discriminate for VOIP under various circumstances. Discrimination. Visa and Mastercard don't want a bunch of charge backs, some services are more prone to fraud than others, and they flat out don't want their brand associated with various things. Discrimination. With few exceptions (race, gender etc etc), discrimination is a net good for the world. People should be allowed to decide who they want to do business with, socialize with etc.
    - arcticbull 2y ago

nailer 2y ago

current generation blockchain networks will absolutely have lower fees than traditional finance

cqqxo4zV46cp 2y ago
Current-generation blockchain networks also don’t seek to do what “traditional finance” does. The usual list of things that crypto enthusiasts point to tends to be mostly comprised of things that consumers actually want. The entire premise is different. Apples and oranges.
danielmarkbruce 2y ago
No chance. This makes zero sense.
- nailer 2y ago
  Er, it’s a fact. Anything post 2020 is a fraction of a cent.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    For exactly what? Show the lowest cost provider in "traditional finance" and the cost using some blockchain for an end to end transaction that someone actually wants to do. What you are going to find is that the underlying cost structure for a few updates to a few relational dbs is about zero. The fees paid for some transactions having are a result of using the most convenient method possible. With a little bit of elbow grease you will find very cheap providers of everything in traditional finance, they'll just be a little more annoying to use.
    - nailer 2y ago
      Sure: retail payments or international remittance - find the cheapest tradfi provider and we’ll go from there.
      - 2y ago