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This was thr original intent of thr Satoshi paper, except BTC is probably the worst payment network you can think about, which is why it failed to gain any use

by stymaar 3mo ago

This was thr original intent of thr Satoshi paper, except BTC is probably the worst payment network you can think about, which is why it failed to gain any use as such over the past 18 years…

lesuorac 3mo ago
Worst for whom? Lack of chargeback risk seems nice for businesses.
- atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
  Only if they're on the receiving end. You need to remember that businesses also buy things, and often by credit card. Chargebacks exist in the real world because long, long ago people recognized that electronic payment systems are fertile soil for scammers. The "lack of chargeback risk" that cryptobros keep chirping about is nowhere near the flex they think it is.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    This! And this is why the “crypto” world is full of scams and heists, in a way that anyone with a brain could have foreseen from the start.
  - KetoManx64 3mo ago
    It's a flex when you compare it to a government based currency where the bank or government can freeze your bank accounts or just empty it. Plenty of stories from The USA and Canada from the last decade of that very thing being done.
    - atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
      Sure. The vast majority of those stories being the freezing of proceeds from criminal activity or funds that are part of a legal dispute and for which there is a high probability that the holder of those funds will attempt to illegally hide or move those funds. Again, this is by design. Such safeguards exist for a good reason. They are tools that are as necessary as a policeman's gun. Yes, they are tools that can be (and have been) abused and for which there should also be guardrails and oversight in place. But saying that crypto is better than "government based currency" because crypto has no such safeguards in place is the same thing as saying Wal Mart security officers are better than police officers because they don't carry guns. It is a naive thought at best.
      - KetoManx64 3mo ago
        It comes down to how much you trust the government, central banks, and the institutions of power, especially post Epstein and COVID.
        stymaar 3mo ago
        As much as some amount of defiance towards contemporary governments is warranted, believing that the crypto world is more trustworthy is an insane take. Especially post MtGox and all what followed… The Epstein class and the Bankman-Fried class are the same people (and don't get fooled by their patronyms, it has nothing to do with Jews, and all to do with the American elite). And Trump is both an friend of Epstein and a proponent of cryptocurrencies.
    - stymaar 3mo ago
      Meanwhile with cryptocurrencies you have the choice between getting blocked by your exchange or losing your wallet (from your own negligence or a hack)
      - KetoManx64 3mo ago
        Not all that different from losing your physical wallet with your ID and debit card or giving your bank info to a Nigerian Prince. Pick your poison, do you trust corrupt institutions or yourself more.
        atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
        Dude. You lose your wallet, you make a few phone calls or walk into a bank and get a new card. You lose very little more than some time. Losing your crypto key means you lose your crypto. Those are not at all the same thing.
        stymaar 3mo ago
        “I trust my midwit brain rather than the institutions that makes the modern world work” really isn't the flex you think it is.
        KetoManx64 3mo ago
        > Institutions that make the modern world The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash, the same institutions that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply, the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor and stuck by constantly inflating their savings away? Yes, I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more.
        stymaar 3mo ago
        > The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash You rightly call that a “crash” that is nowhere near the scale of the regular bitcoin price fluctuations! > that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply, Better trust an ecosystem that has created an endless amount of virtual money over the past 15 years instead then… > the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor Did you miss the fact that you now need an entire data center worth of specialized hardware to mine bitcoin? It was supposed to be a democratic hacker currency that anyone can mine, yet it is entirely controlled by a handful of hyperscalers… Pretty much no individual can even hold a full bitcoin now, talk about keeping people poor. > I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more. Delusional.
- stymaar 3mo ago
  Until customers don't want to but because they are afraid they have no way to get their money back if anything goes wrong. (Chargeback exists for a reason, and the reason isn't to piss off businesses).
  - mothballed 3mo ago
    It's nice to have the option either way, but if merchants offer irreversible methods I usually pick them rather than pay a 1+% premium to cover chargebacks from scammer customers. For some customers irreversible is a big plus, if they trust the merchant.
  - stevenicr 3mo ago
    So you become.. Ebay and or Alibaba. People afraid to buy because they are likely to be ripped off. Sure lots of people stop buying there. But they seem to still be doing business every second of the day I assume.
    - stymaar 3mo ago
      > So you become.. Ebay A former tech giant that has seen its dominance being swallowed by competitors and now cornered into numismatist and other collectible. Sure it's a very profitable company for its inveators, but a friend of mine used to work there until recently and he used to describe it as a dead shell that merely lives out of rent-seeking on its legacy. Good luck attracting investors if you have the same business plan today.
dfish 3mo ago
I sent a transfer from the UAE to Spain and another one to the Netherlands. They took 5 days and 7 days respectively. The same transfer takes 10 minutes in Bitcoin. You don't do transfers to pay for stuff at the grocery store, the same way you would not pay using the Bitcoin network. You would use lightning network, which takes less than 2 seconds finality.
- Max-q 3mo ago
  That usage is not a generic payment usage. This is a use case it is good for. But if 8 billion people should use Bitcoin for their everyday shopping, that is a totally different case...
  - swinglock 3mo ago
    Wire transfer is better?
    - atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
      Way to not read the comment. Or at least understand it. Nobody uses wire transfer for "everyday shopping".
  - KetoManx64 3mo ago
    Well you wouldn't use Bitcoin itself to exchange on, you'd use side layers like Lightning payments for the near instantaneous exchange which then gets aggregated into one of the upcoming blocks. MasterCard was around in the 1950's, in 2026 they do not still use the same method of exchanging money as they did back then and have had to make big changes to their systems as time has gone on, Bitcoin does the same thing except it's not controlled by a banking cartel but by all it's userbase.
    - stymaar 3mo ago
      > except it's not controlled by a banking cartel but by all it's userbase. Bitcoin is absolutely not controlled by its user base, but by another cartel (made of mining pools and exchanges). You, as a user have literally no say in any decisions taken by bitcoin except voting with your feet, which is exactly what you're suggesting against Visa & MasterCard's (which aren't banks by the way…)

by stymaar 3mo ago

This was thr original intent of thr Satoshi paper, except BTC is probably the worst payment network you can think about, which is why it failed to gain any use as such over the past 18 years…

lesuorac 3mo ago

Worst for whom? Lack of chargeback risk seems nice for businesses.

atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
Only if they're on the receiving end. You need to remember that businesses also buy things, and often by credit card. Chargebacks exist in the real world because long, long ago people recognized that electronic payment systems are fertile soil for scammers. The "lack of chargeback risk" that cryptobros keep chirping about is nowhere near the flex they think it is.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- stymaar 3mo ago
  This! And this is why the “crypto” world is full of scams and heists, in a way that anyone with a brain could have foreseen from the start.
- KetoManx64 3mo ago
  It's a flex when you compare it to a government based currency where the bank or government can freeze your bank accounts or just empty it. Plenty of stories from The USA and Canada from the last decade of that very thing being done.
  - atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
    Sure. The vast majority of those stories being the freezing of proceeds from criminal activity or funds that are part of a legal dispute and for which there is a high probability that the holder of those funds will attempt to illegally hide or move those funds. Again, this is by design. Such safeguards exist for a good reason. They are tools that are as necessary as a policeman's gun. Yes, they are tools that can be (and have been) abused and for which there should also be guardrails and oversight in place. But saying that crypto is better than "government based currency" because crypto has no such safeguards in place is the same thing as saying Wal Mart security officers are better than police officers because they don't carry guns. It is a naive thought at best.
    - KetoManx64 3mo ago
      It comes down to how much you trust the government, central banks, and the institutions of power, especially post Epstein and COVID.
      - stymaar 3mo ago
        As much as some amount of defiance towards contemporary governments is warranted, believing that the crypto world is more trustworthy is an insane take. Especially post MtGox and all what followed… The Epstein class and the Bankman-Fried class are the same people (and don't get fooled by their patronyms, it has nothing to do with Jews, and all to do with the American elite). And Trump is both an friend of Epstein and a proponent of cryptocurrencies.
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    Meanwhile with cryptocurrencies you have the choice between getting blocked by your exchange or losing your wallet (from your own negligence or a hack)
    - KetoManx64 3mo ago
      Not all that different from losing your physical wallet with your ID and debit card or giving your bank info to a Nigerian Prince. Pick your poison, do you trust corrupt institutions or yourself more.
      - atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
        Dude. You lose your wallet, you make a few phone calls or walk into a bank and get a new card. You lose very little more than some time. Losing your crypto key means you lose your crypto. Those are not at all the same thing.
      - stymaar 3mo ago
        “I trust my midwit brain rather than the institutions that makes the modern world work” really isn't the flex you think it is.
        KetoManx64 3mo ago
        > Institutions that make the modern world The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash, the same institutions that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply, the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor and stuck by constantly inflating their savings away? Yes, I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more.
        stymaar 3mo ago
        > The same institutions that caused the 2008 crash You rightly call that a “crash” that is nowhere near the scale of the regular bitcoin price fluctuations! > that in the last 5 years have printed 50% more of the total US dollar supply, Better trust an ecosystem that has created an endless amount of virtual money over the past 15 years instead then… > the institutions that keep the poorest and lowest classes perpetually poor Did you miss the fact that you now need an entire data center worth of specialized hardware to mine bitcoin? It was supposed to be a democratic hacker currency that anyone can mine, yet it is entirely controlled by a handful of hyperscalers… Pretty much no individual can even hold a full bitcoin now, talk about keeping people poor. > I think I will trust Bitcoin and my hardware wallet more. Delusional.
stymaar 3mo ago
Until customers don't want to but because they are afraid they have no way to get their money back if anything goes wrong. (Chargeback exists for a reason, and the reason isn't to piss off businesses).
- mothballed 3mo ago
  It's nice to have the option either way, but if merchants offer irreversible methods I usually pick them rather than pay a 1+% premium to cover chargebacks from scammer customers. For some customers irreversible is a big plus, if they trust the merchant.
- stevenicr 3mo ago
  So you become.. Ebay and or Alibaba. People afraid to buy because they are likely to be ripped off. Sure lots of people stop buying there. But they seem to still be doing business every second of the day I assume.
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    > So you become.. Ebay A former tech giant that has seen its dominance being swallowed by competitors and now cornered into numismatist and other collectible. Sure it's a very profitable company for its inveators, but a friend of mine used to work there until recently and he used to describe it as a dead shell that merely lives out of rent-seeking on its legacy. Good luck attracting investors if you have the same business plan today.

dfish 3mo ago

I sent a transfer from the UAE to Spain and another one to the Netherlands. They took 5 days and 7 days respectively. The same transfer takes 10 minutes in Bitcoin. You don't do transfers to pay for stuff at the grocery store, the same way you would not pay using the Bitcoin network. You would use lightning network, which takes less than 2 seconds finality.

Max-q 3mo ago
That usage is not a generic payment usage. This is a use case it is good for. But if 8 billion people should use Bitcoin for their everyday shopping, that is a totally different case...
- swinglock 3mo ago
  Wire transfer is better?
  - atomic_cowprod 3mo ago
    Way to not read the comment. Or at least understand it. Nobody uses wire transfer for "everyday shopping".
- KetoManx64 3mo ago
  Well you wouldn't use Bitcoin itself to exchange on, you'd use side layers like Lightning payments for the near instantaneous exchange which then gets aggregated into one of the upcoming blocks. MasterCard was around in the 1950's, in 2026 they do not still use the same method of exchanging money as they did back then and have had to make big changes to their systems as time has gone on, Bitcoin does the same thing except it's not controlled by a banking cartel but by all it's userbase.
  - stymaar 3mo ago
    > except it's not controlled by a banking cartel but by all it's userbase. Bitcoin is absolutely not controlled by its user base, but by another cartel (made of mining pools and exchanges). You, as a user have literally no say in any decisions taken by bitcoin except voting with your feet, which is exactly what you're suggesting against Visa & MasterCard's (which aren't banks by the way…)