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Some light self-promotion but also longer term thoughts: A large part of the promise of crypto and stablecoins was to displace Visa and Mastercard rent-seeking
by montenegrohugo 28d ago
Some light self-promotion but also longer term thoughts:
A large part of the promise of crypto and stablecoins was to displace Visa and Mastercard rent-seeking. This didn't seem to happen. Most modern neobanks, our own included (https://peanut.me https://peanut.me), actually seem to EMBRACE Visa and Mastercard. Almost all offer an actual Fiat card within their app, instead of boldly saying "No, pay with crypto, the future of money!"
This is somewhat disappointing in the short term, but longterm i believe it offers a clear transitory path to full decentralized money adoption. Already today we're seeing a growth in direct peer to peer payments in peanut, and merchants slowly starting to adopt it as well. I imagine the same is happening across the industry. In a competitive economy, the better currency (read: crypto, stablecoins) wins and eventually absorbs adoption.
my 2 cents
- gwbas1c 28d agoThe problem is that bitcoin (and similar) are so computationally intense to run, that the transaction cost is much higher than Visa's. Furthermore, a currency needs a government (or similar kind of body) to manage its stability, by printing (and buying) money. Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin.
- simonmales 28d agoTrue on the main chain of Bitcoin. Bitcoin payments on the lightning network are not computationally intense.
- topranks 28d agoHahaha haven’t heard that one in a long time. Cracked me up.
- dfish 27d agoguy who doesn't know what peer-to-peer technology is, laughs at man who does! please stop using the internet! it might be slow and expensive to run! it requires insanely big cell towers and submarine cables! it won't scale!!11!! kind of guy
- montenegrohugo 27d agoBitcoin is not suited for payments. Bitcoiners use lightning. But to be clear, all payment innovations in crypto happen on EVMs and L2s. And in 2026, stuff is extremely scaleable and computationally cheap.
- dfish 27d agoBitcoin and similar are computationally intensive to run because of a thing called decentralization. Visa and Mastercard don't need consensus to perform payments, but they for sure don't have a single server running, I am sure they have more servers than bitcoin nodes, without counting on stripe, paypal, ... and other payment providers IN THE WORLD :) There is something called lightning, which is p2p payments through bitcoin! > Furthermore, a currency needs a government (or similar kind of body) to manage its stability, by printing (and buying) money. Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin. call the economists! a currency needs a government! But only from 1971 onwards, before that people didn't have currencies! Oh, you don't want to use the US dollar? the best currency ever!? I guess we'll have to bomb your country and neighboring ones to change your mind. > to manage its stability aka lose 2-4% of purchasing power per year. Thank you central bank! you saved us! > Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin Oh no! The horror! A currency that can also go up!!! I guess we need a central bank for oil! to keep the price of oil stable! And food too!
- topranks 28d agoCrypto is in no way better money. It’s slow and expensive and doesn’t scale. The real answer is an alternative that relies on a centralised provider - or set of them - who use traditional databases and the like, but do things in a modern efficient way and don’t charge the same fees as the current card providers do.
- montenegrohugo 27d ago> It’s slow and expensive and doesn’t scale. This is 2020 speak. In 2026, crypto scales and its extremely cheap. it costs less than a hundredth of a cent to do a transfer today.
- GJim 27d ago> In 2026, crypto scales and its extremely cheap. And is helping fry the planet. No thanks.
- dfish 27d ago[dead]
- montenegrohugo 27d agoNo? Proof of Stake is extremely energy efficient and wastes way less resources than whtv resources hordes of burocrat central bankers consume.