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i'm still unclear what the crypto really adds to this play. stripe customers need to move their money around, and they need a trusted source to hold money. st

i'm still unclear what the crypto really adds to this play. stripe customers need to move their money around, and they need a trusted source to hold money. stripe could just do that. why add crypto into the mix?

anthonypasq 1y ago
total shot in the dark, but im assuming there is much lower regulatory burden to holding lots of crypto than trying to be a bank
- smoovb 1y ago
  Said another way, much lower legacy technical debt than trying to be a bank.
brendanfinan 1y ago
Some of the customer's money is already crypto though
TechDebtDevin 1y ago
There's over 75 billion in daily tether turnover... do the math. Not everyone is a boomer..
- kiitos 1y ago
  wash trades go in, wash trades go out, you can't explain that!
- kemotep 1y ago
  There’s an estimated 7,500 billion dollar turnover of fiat currency in forex markets daily.
alchemist1e9 1y ago
So many of the crypto skeptic comments on this story are massively out of touch with the products and sophistication of the crypto industry. For those of us who aren’t, the question has basically been flipped to “what does a bank add to this situation?” . I’m typing this shortly after buying my groceries with a visa debit card that was funded 30 seconds before the transaction over Lightning Network with Bitcoin that was sold at a 0.1% fee for USD and immediately then transacted on Visa debit payment network. The reason banks are lobbying so hard recently to close “loopholes” in latest US legislation is because with stablecoins you even need them less and less to hold dollar exposure. The days of traditional banks are likely numbered and the crypto skeptics commenting on HN have their world models upside down. At least that is my view currently.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- threetonesun 1y ago
  Unless I read this wrong there were likely two "traditional" banks in this process you just described? At the very least it sounds at least twice as complicated as how I pay for groceries with no obvious benefit.
  - alchemist1e9 1y ago
    What banks are those? The debit card issuer is a non-bank issuer on the Visa payment network. LN coins are self custody origin coins. No banks I see, except the grocery store’s on the other side of me. But soon they will accept LN directly in a few years or less.
    - anthem2025 1y ago
      Why would they ever bother? To serve a tiny percentage of their customer base that just ends up finding an already supported method anyway? Where exactly is the value for them?
      - alchemist1e9 1y ago
        You are obviously completely unaware of the popularity of Paypal, CashApp, Venmo within the general US population and of Square for POS by vendors. The value proposition for everyone, consumer and vendors is both lower fees and ability to easily diversify their income/assets into non depreciating digital assets. Somewhere there is a Steak n Shake presentation that explains their investment into accepting Bitcoin (via LN) has already paid for itself in fees.
        fnordpiglet 1y ago
        The issue is that for Steak ‘n Shake it’s fine because in the card network scheme they’re generally on the hook for repudiated transactions. So they pay fees and on top of that have charge backs from fraud. For you as a Visa card holder you benefit from that situation though because if your card is stolen you can claim fraud or theft and the merchant is often loss liable. In your world you would be the one holding the loss if your card is compromised in some way. This is of course beneficial to merchants. But as a customer I would always prefer a card network backed transaction all things being equal as my personal loss liability risk is considerably lower - almost non existent. This is why credit cards are generally better for the payer. I have no incentive other than ideological to use any crypto payment method. PayPal, Venmo, Cash App tend to not be merchant based transactions but cash like transactions by either people that are unbanked for whatever reason, or doing business person to person, or transacting with a merchant who doesn’t accept credit cards. Stripe (and square) make the logistical side of that less an issue than it was, and today it’s mostly about fees and loss liability transfer back to the originator of the money (as in a theft scenario it’s not the payer whose money is at risk).
mondrian 1y ago
The GENIUS act enables tech companies to become reserve holders -- buy US Treasuries with customers' money. Stripe offers a "transactional ecosystem" to the customer in stablecoins, the customer gives USD to Stripe in exchange for stablecoins, Stripe buys short-term Treasuries and makes a shitload of money on interest. Part of the very high level play is the US Govt seeks to diversify away from depending on nation states for borrowing, and to promote tech companies to the status of reserve holders. This doesn't add much to the consumer however. I think in fact we are looking at a "fragmented currency" future where you hold like 36 different stablecoins in your wallet because certain platforms accept certain stablecoins. The GENIUS act doesn't offer strict guarantees for getting out of a stablecoin into USD, so I predict dark patterns and "incentives" to make it hard to get out of a stablecoin.
- boringg 1y ago
  So then by using this product you are de facto buying short term US debt lowering the debt costs in a way? Is that what you are describing? And Stripe makes money on that short term carry.
  - asats 1y ago
    Still doesn't answer why you would need any crypto here. Why can't the USD transferred to stripe just be a record in an SQL database saying customer X has N USD in the account, and transferring that around could be done instantly at zero cost by changing an sql row.
    - Ekaros 1y ago
      That sounds like banking or payment processing. Albeit with later Paypal has proven that you do not always need to return funds, but still there is regulatory history on that... Stable coins are new enough and have not catastrophically crashed yet so there is less oversight.
      - DrBrock 1y ago
        The Terra-Luna stablecoin crash wiped out $50 billion of notional value https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1544612322005359 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15446... It's also a very open secret that the largest Tether stablecoin is not actually 1:1 backed with USD, as they very often claim https://paymentexpert.com/2025/07/24/tether-stablecoin-regulation-history-problems/ https://paymentexpert.com/2025/07/24/tether-stablecoin-regul...
monkeywork 1y ago
The first thing that came to mind to me - and maybe I'm a million miles off here - but all the recent drama around visa / mastercard / etc pressuring sites like Steam to modify their terms of use... maybe Stripe is thinking they can come in and be an alternative by doing it via crypto and hoping their name brings enough trust to cause users to jump on board.

anthonypasq 1y ago

total shot in the dark, but im assuming there is much lower regulatory burden to holding lots of crypto than trying to be a bank

smoovb 1y ago
Said another way, much lower legacy technical debt than trying to be a bank.

brendanfinan 1y ago

Some of the customer's money is already crypto though

TechDebtDevin 1y ago

There's over 75 billion in daily tether turnover... do the math. Not everyone is a boomer..

kiitos 1y ago
wash trades go in, wash trades go out, you can't explain that!
kemotep 1y ago
There’s an estimated 7,500 billion dollar turnover of fiat currency in forex markets daily.

alchemist1e9 1y ago

So many of the crypto skeptic comments on this story are massively out of touch with the products and sophistication of the crypto industry. For those of us who aren’t, the question has basically been flipped to “what does a bank add to this situation?” . I’m typing this shortly after buying my groceries with a visa debit card that was funded 30 seconds before the transaction over Lightning Network with Bitcoin that was sold at a 0.1% fee for USD and immediately then transacted on Visa debit payment network. The reason banks are lobbying so hard recently to close “loopholes” in latest US legislation is because with stablecoins you even need them less and less to hold dollar exposure. The days of traditional banks are likely numbered and the crypto skeptics commenting on HN have their world models upside down. At least that is my view currently.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
threetonesun 1y ago
Unless I read this wrong there were likely two "traditional" banks in this process you just described? At the very least it sounds at least twice as complicated as how I pay for groceries with no obvious benefit.
- alchemist1e9 1y ago
  What banks are those? The debit card issuer is a non-bank issuer on the Visa payment network. LN coins are self custody origin coins. No banks I see, except the grocery store’s on the other side of me. But soon they will accept LN directly in a few years or less.
  - anthem2025 1y ago
    Why would they ever bother? To serve a tiny percentage of their customer base that just ends up finding an already supported method anyway? Where exactly is the value for them?
    - alchemist1e9 1y ago
      You are obviously completely unaware of the popularity of Paypal, CashApp, Venmo within the general US population and of Square for POS by vendors. The value proposition for everyone, consumer and vendors is both lower fees and ability to easily diversify their income/assets into non depreciating digital assets. Somewhere there is a Steak n Shake presentation that explains their investment into accepting Bitcoin (via LN) has already paid for itself in fees.
      - fnordpiglet 1y ago
        The issue is that for Steak ‘n Shake it’s fine because in the card network scheme they’re generally on the hook for repudiated transactions. So they pay fees and on top of that have charge backs from fraud. For you as a Visa card holder you benefit from that situation though because if your card is stolen you can claim fraud or theft and the merchant is often loss liable. In your world you would be the one holding the loss if your card is compromised in some way. This is of course beneficial to merchants. But as a customer I would always prefer a card network backed transaction all things being equal as my personal loss liability risk is considerably lower - almost non existent. This is why credit cards are generally better for the payer. I have no incentive other than ideological to use any crypto payment method. PayPal, Venmo, Cash App tend to not be merchant based transactions but cash like transactions by either people that are unbanked for whatever reason, or doing business person to person, or transacting with a merchant who doesn’t accept credit cards. Stripe (and square) make the logistical side of that less an issue than it was, and today it’s mostly about fees and loss liability transfer back to the originator of the money (as in a theft scenario it’s not the payer whose money is at risk).

mondrian 1y ago

The GENIUS act enables tech companies to become reserve holders -- buy US Treasuries with customers' money. Stripe offers a "transactional ecosystem" to the customer in stablecoins, the customer gives USD to Stripe in exchange for stablecoins, Stripe buys short-term Treasuries and makes a shitload of money on interest. Part of the very high level play is the US Govt seeks to diversify away from depending on nation states for borrowing, and to promote tech companies to the status of reserve holders. This doesn't add much to the consumer however. I think in fact we are looking at a "fragmented currency" future where you hold like 36 different stablecoins in your wallet because certain platforms accept certain stablecoins. The GENIUS act doesn't offer strict guarantees for getting out of a stablecoin into USD, so I predict dark patterns and "incentives" to make it hard to get out of a stablecoin.

boringg 1y ago
So then by using this product you are de facto buying short term US debt lowering the debt costs in a way? Is that what you are describing? And Stripe makes money on that short term carry.
- asats 1y ago
  Still doesn't answer why you would need any crypto here. Why can't the USD transferred to stripe just be a record in an SQL database saying customer X has N USD in the account, and transferring that around could be done instantly at zero cost by changing an sql row.
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    That sounds like banking or payment processing. Albeit with later Paypal has proven that you do not always need to return funds, but still there is regulatory history on that... Stable coins are new enough and have not catastrophically crashed yet so there is less oversight.
    - DrBrock 1y ago
      The Terra-Luna stablecoin crash wiped out $50 billion of notional value https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1544612322005359 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15446... It's also a very open secret that the largest Tether stablecoin is not actually 1:1 backed with USD, as they very often claim https://paymentexpert.com/2025/07/24/tether-stablecoin-regulation-history-problems/ https://paymentexpert.com/2025/07/24/tether-stablecoin-regul...

monkeywork 1y ago

The first thing that came to mind to me - and maybe I'm a million miles off here - but all the recent drama around visa / mastercard / etc pressuring sites like Steam to modify their terms of use... maybe Stripe is thinking they can come in and be an alternative by doing it via crypto and hoping their name brings enough trust to cause users to jump on board.