13 ms·

OneBit – Mastercard PayPass Integrated Bitcoin Wallet

64 points by tobyai 12y ago

Navarr 12y ago
1. This isn't possible on an iPhone unless you jailbreak, right? 2. Aren't those Android screenshots in that iPhone frame?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
adamkochanowicz 12y ago
Love hearing the phrase "Let's face it. Today, it is still ridiculously difficult to spend Bitcoin in the real world." I love Bitcoin but I can't integrate it into my life because it is just way to complicated in most of my transactions, not due to my lack of understanding of how to use it.
- litaph91 12y ago
  The issue really is that bitcoin isn't suited for retail transactions. I work in the payments industry and we took a long hard look at integrating bitcoin payments into our point-of-sale and determined that it was effort we would get no reward for. Merchants wont use it. They love no chargebacks and no real fees, but we can't guarantee they will ever get the money for the sandwich they just sold. Working with risk levels and calculations around zero confirmation transactions work but they still pose an element of risk that isn't necessarily present with cash and credit. On the processing side, we're scared to death by anti-retail thinking and things like replace-by-fee which, in our opinion, would outright kill off retail transactions using bitcoin. There's just way too much uncertainty that someone will decide a patch like that is needed and start deploying it even if it isn't in the core. It's the upside and downside of decentralized systems really.
  - toomim 12y ago
    > Merchants wont use it. They love no chargebacks and no real fees, but we can't guarantee they will ever get the money for the sandwich they just sold. A guarantee isn't what you want. Cash and card isn't guaranteed either — the cash might be counterfeit; the credit card might be stolen. What you want is to reduce the rate of fraud. So let's compare the rates of fraud between bitcoin and cash/card. Credit card transactions are fraudulent around .1% of the time. [1] But I've never even heard of retail bitcoin fraud with zero-confirmation transactions. Have you? You seem to be afraid of the wrong thing, and you don't seem to be basing your opinion any facts or statistics. It sounds like you're just untrusting of new technology. Yet you're on hacker news? This confuses me. How did you get here? Similarly, your fear of replace-by-fee is very strange — that proposal is never going to happen. You don't have any faith in the bitcoin community, but you have faith in credit card companies not to raise fees or block your business? Why is that? Do you only trust old boys' clubs? Are you from the east coast? Are you a luddite? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud
    - etingel 12y ago
      > How did you get here? It seems to me that this is the wrong question to ask. What you should be saying is "Thank you so very much for bringing us your prospective. How can we go about better informing people like you in the payments industry?" What litaph91 described is a very real fear. Sure, all of us on Hacker News know that the fear is unfounded, but the general public doesn't know or understand everything that we do. Instead of arguing with one person, let's try to solve the wider problem, shall we?
      - toomim 12y ago
        You're right. I apologize. Thanks for calling me out.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - this_user 12y ago
      > But I've never even heard of retail bitcoin fraud with zero-confirmation transactions. Then you are simply not very well informed. Problems with BTC transactions have happened repeatedly. Here is a great example of a successful 10k double spend during a chain fork: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5372956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5372956 It was was made possible buy slightly different behaviours in the different client versions. The core developers had to get on IRC with the miner using the 0.8 version and talk them into giving up their (correct) chain to resolve this problem. Currency of the future!
  - vanzard 12y ago
    > they still pose an element of risk that isn't necessarily present with cash and credit. The element of risk is ALWAYS present with cash and credit. You could be handed counterfeit bills. You could be hit with chargeback fees (even when the CC processor will let you keep the money because it was a card-present transaction). But somehow merchants accept these risks... so why not Bitcoin? Sounds like your employer isn't as confident/competent as other point-of-sale manufacturers who have been able to support Bitcoin, like point-of-sale giant NCR http://www.ncr.com/news/news-releases/small-business/ncr-silver-offers-small-businesses-payment-options http://www.ncr.com/news/news-releases/small-business/ncr-sil...
agorabinary 12y ago
Is it possible to read the amount and currency type from the NFC terminal rather than typing it manually? I think that would be a sticking point for credit-card users who are used to just sliding and having the proper amount deducted without user input.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
atiffany 12y ago
I like the product. I just want to offer you feedback that some of the copy reads awkwardly. Consider replacing "Tap & pay anywhere where there are credit-cards. Interested in early access?" with "Tap & pay anywhere credit cards are accepted. Interested in early access?"
litaph91 12y ago
I sincerely wonder why companies are wasting their effort on the contactless market, especially smaller companies. This product will be stillborn in the U.S. as NFC terminals are fairly rare and even after the education delivered by Google Wallet and ApplePay, 43% of people who attempt to use ApplePay at a terminal that supports it fail and the clerk provides no meaningful assistance. If they won't support ApplePay, they won't support this.
- NeutronBoy 12y ago
  > This product will be stillborn in the U.S. as NFC terminals are fairly rare Meanwhile in Australia, over 70% of CC purchases at supermarkets (and 50% overall) under $100 are contactless, signatures have been phased out (PIN is required for transactions), and Chip & PIN cards have been the norm for 5+ years.
- BillinghamJ 12y ago
  It may not be big in the US market yet, but I can tell you for sure - here in the UK, it's huge. Almost all transactions I do in chain stores are done with contactless. I believe it's a similar story in Canada.
  - TylerE 12y ago
    Keep in mind that in the US chip-and-pin is still virtually unknown.
    - BillinghamJ 12y ago
      Exactly. It will come along, and soon. And while all the terminals are being upgraded to support ICC, most of them are being bundled with NFC.
- Nursie 12y ago
  I'm not hopeful that contactless will take-off in the US either. The USA is finally moving to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of using smart cards rather than the archaic mag-stripe, as the liability shift that took place in Europe 10 years ago is swinging into force now. But it might be too late, and you might be right, the likes of ApplePay may well take over entirely in the USA. Elsewhere, where Apple have less market share this may not be true, and the US may end up in a ghetto of 1, again, with its own market dynamics and tech that's not applicable in the rest of the world.
mightypirate 12y ago
This clearly is a landing page of a non existent product.
latchkey 12y ago
Please allow people to sign up with a + in their email address.
Sujan 12y ago
Anybody knows who is behind this product/company/website? Can anybody integrate with Mastercard PayPass or does Mastercard choose integration partners?
- Sujan 12y ago
  Ok, found the guy behind it: https://twitter.com/tobyai https://twitter.com/tobyai And about the integration with Mastercard: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/onebit-app-enable-bitcoin-wherever-mastercard-paypass-accepted/ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/onebit-app-enable-bitcoin-wh...
- litaph91 12y ago
  You can view their list of apis here https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API but they do require you to go through some exercises before you can get to some of them. With the PayPass program i'm not sure on the specifics but I would assume a fairly strenuous look at your business and what you intend to do.
zyrthofar 12y ago
Isn't that exactly what we shouldn't want, that the credit card companies also record our financial transactions made via a currency created to be decentralized? This basically ends as a bit of convenience for us, at the cost of them keeping the near monopoly on world-wide transactions... What's the point of bitcoins if VISA, MasterCard, etc. still know everything we buy world-wide, conveniently accessible in their databases?
- pilgrim689 12y ago
  Lower fees for everyone (merchant, user, CC company). Most people will gladly give away their privacy to pay less.
- aqme28 12y ago
  Recording financial transactions has nothing to do with decentralization. I see nothing wrong with this.
  - zyrthofar 12y ago
    Recording financial transactions has everything to do with centralization, when only a handful of companies control world-wide purchases. These new electronic currencies are inherently untied from anything. What happens when the same handful of companies control them also? Wasn't it Russia who was denied its own credit card by the same US companies? That's way too much power to have over the world. If we finally have a chance to decentralize some of these transactions, to remove some of that power they currently have, we certainly should take that chance.
- superuser2 12y ago
  >Isn't that exactly what we shouldn't want, that the credit card companies also record our financial transactions made via a currency created to be decentralized? Yes, actually. I want my budgeting and spend tracking tools to continue to work.
- pjc50 12y ago
  If you pay in bitcoin, every one in the world can see that transaction. It's not trivial to tie to a person, but de-anonymisation can happen at any time later.
abrkn 12y ago
One of the founders has made some comments[1] on r/bitcoin [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/31qlwx/onebit_mastercard_paypass_integrated_bitcoin/cq409ij http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/31qlwx/onebit_maste...
schmichael 12y ago
This product helps people who already have bitcoin convert it to fiat more easily and offload the bitcoin->fiat conversion fees onto the merchant. Is there a market for this? It simply uses bitcoin as a store-of-value instead of fiat in a bank. Unless you're in the tiny minority of people who can acquire bitcoin but cannot acquire a bank account, I don't see the benefit to consumers or merchants. Not to mention with bitcoin's current volatility it is rarely appealing as a store of value. (NFC seems to be another problem, but other commenters have discussed that well.)
manymany 12y ago
With this scheme, the merchant still has to pay for swipe fees (which are ultimately transferred to the customer through higher prices -- the ultimate hidden fee!). Swipe fees are evil.

64 points by tobyai 12y ago

1. This isn't possible on an iPhone unless you jailbreak, right? 2. Aren't those Android screenshots in that iPhone frame?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

adamkochanowicz 12y ago

Love hearing the phrase "Let's face it. Today, it is still ridiculously difficult to spend Bitcoin in the real world." I love Bitcoin but I can't integrate it into my life because it is just way to complicated in most of my transactions, not due to my lack of understanding of how to use it.

litaph91 12y ago
The issue really is that bitcoin isn't suited for retail transactions. I work in the payments industry and we took a long hard look at integrating bitcoin payments into our point-of-sale and determined that it was effort we would get no reward for. Merchants wont use it. They love no chargebacks and no real fees, but we can't guarantee they will ever get the money for the sandwich they just sold. Working with risk levels and calculations around zero confirmation transactions work but they still pose an element of risk that isn't necessarily present with cash and credit. On the processing side, we're scared to death by anti-retail thinking and things like replace-by-fee which, in our opinion, would outright kill off retail transactions using bitcoin. There's just way too much uncertainty that someone will decide a patch like that is needed and start deploying it even if it isn't in the core. It's the upside and downside of decentralized systems really.
- toomim 12y ago
  > Merchants wont use it. They love no chargebacks and no real fees, but we can't guarantee they will ever get the money for the sandwich they just sold. A guarantee isn't what you want. Cash and card isn't guaranteed either — the cash might be counterfeit; the credit card might be stolen. What you want is to reduce the rate of fraud. So let's compare the rates of fraud between bitcoin and cash/card. Credit card transactions are fraudulent around .1% of the time. [1] But I've never even heard of retail bitcoin fraud with zero-confirmation transactions. Have you? You seem to be afraid of the wrong thing, and you don't seem to be basing your opinion any facts or statistics. It sounds like you're just untrusting of new technology. Yet you're on hacker news? This confuses me. How did you get here? Similarly, your fear of replace-by-fee is very strange — that proposal is never going to happen. You don't have any faith in the bitcoin community, but you have faith in credit card companies not to raise fees or block your business? Why is that? Do you only trust old boys' clubs? Are you from the east coast? Are you a luddite? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud
  - etingel 12y ago
    > How did you get here? It seems to me that this is the wrong question to ask. What you should be saying is "Thank you so very much for bringing us your prospective. How can we go about better informing people like you in the payments industry?" What litaph91 described is a very real fear. Sure, all of us on Hacker News know that the fear is unfounded, but the general public doesn't know or understand everything that we do. Instead of arguing with one person, let's try to solve the wider problem, shall we?
    - toomim 12y ago
      You're right. I apologize. Thanks for calling me out.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - this_user 12y ago
    > But I've never even heard of retail bitcoin fraud with zero-confirmation transactions. Then you are simply not very well informed. Problems with BTC transactions have happened repeatedly. Here is a great example of a successful 10k double spend during a chain fork: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5372956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5372956 It was was made possible buy slightly different behaviours in the different client versions. The core developers had to get on IRC with the miner using the 0.8 version and talk them into giving up their (correct) chain to resolve this problem. Currency of the future!
- vanzard 12y ago
  > they still pose an element of risk that isn't necessarily present with cash and credit. The element of risk is ALWAYS present with cash and credit. You could be handed counterfeit bills. You could be hit with chargeback fees (even when the CC processor will let you keep the money because it was a card-present transaction). But somehow merchants accept these risks... so why not Bitcoin? Sounds like your employer isn't as confident/competent as other point-of-sale manufacturers who have been able to support Bitcoin, like point-of-sale giant NCR http://www.ncr.com/news/news-releases/small-business/ncr-silver-offers-small-businesses-payment-options http://www.ncr.com/news/news-releases/small-business/ncr-sil...

agorabinary 12y ago

Is it possible to read the amount and currency type from the NFC terminal rather than typing it manually? I think that would be a sticking point for credit-card users who are used to just sliding and having the proper amount deducted without user input.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

atiffany 12y ago

I like the product. I just want to offer you feedback that some of the copy reads awkwardly. Consider replacing "Tap & pay anywhere where there are credit-cards. Interested in early access?" with "Tap & pay anywhere credit cards are accepted. Interested in early access?"

litaph91 12y ago

I sincerely wonder why companies are wasting their effort on the contactless market, especially smaller companies. This product will be stillborn in the U.S. as NFC terminals are fairly rare and even after the education delivered by Google Wallet and ApplePay, 43% of people who attempt to use ApplePay at a terminal that supports it fail and the clerk provides no meaningful assistance. If they won't support ApplePay, they won't support this.

NeutronBoy 12y ago
> This product will be stillborn in the U.S. as NFC terminals are fairly rare Meanwhile in Australia, over 70% of CC purchases at supermarkets (and 50% overall) under $100 are contactless, signatures have been phased out (PIN is required for transactions), and Chip & PIN cards have been the norm for 5+ years.
BillinghamJ 12y ago
It may not be big in the US market yet, but I can tell you for sure - here in the UK, it's huge. Almost all transactions I do in chain stores are done with contactless. I believe it's a similar story in Canada.
- TylerE 12y ago
  Keep in mind that in the US chip-and-pin is still virtually unknown.
  - BillinghamJ 12y ago
    Exactly. It will come along, and soon. And while all the terminals are being upgraded to support ICC, most of them are being bundled with NFC.
Nursie 12y ago
I'm not hopeful that contactless will take-off in the US either. The USA is finally moving to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of using smart cards rather than the archaic mag-stripe, as the liability shift that took place in Europe 10 years ago is swinging into force now. But it might be too late, and you might be right, the likes of ApplePay may well take over entirely in the USA. Elsewhere, where Apple have less market share this may not be true, and the US may end up in a ghetto of 1, again, with its own market dynamics and tech that's not applicable in the rest of the world.

mightypirate 12y ago

This clearly is a landing page of a non existent product.

latchkey 12y ago

Please allow people to sign up with a + in their email address.

Sujan 12y ago

Anybody knows who is behind this product/company/website? Can anybody integrate with Mastercard PayPass or does Mastercard choose integration partners?

Sujan 12y ago
Ok, found the guy behind it: https://twitter.com/tobyai https://twitter.com/tobyai And about the integration with Mastercard: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/onebit-app-enable-bitcoin-wherever-mastercard-paypass-accepted/ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/onebit-app-enable-bitcoin-wh...
litaph91 12y ago
You can view their list of apis here https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API but they do require you to go through some exercises before you can get to some of them. With the PayPass program i'm not sure on the specifics but I would assume a fairly strenuous look at your business and what you intend to do.

zyrthofar 12y ago

Isn't that exactly what we shouldn't want, that the credit card companies also record our financial transactions made via a currency created to be decentralized? This basically ends as a bit of convenience for us, at the cost of them keeping the near monopoly on world-wide transactions... What's the point of bitcoins if VISA, MasterCard, etc. still know everything we buy world-wide, conveniently accessible in their databases?

pilgrim689 12y ago
Lower fees for everyone (merchant, user, CC company). Most people will gladly give away their privacy to pay less.
aqme28 12y ago
Recording financial transactions has nothing to do with decentralization. I see nothing wrong with this.
- zyrthofar 12y ago
  Recording financial transactions has everything to do with centralization, when only a handful of companies control world-wide purchases. These new electronic currencies are inherently untied from anything. What happens when the same handful of companies control them also? Wasn't it Russia who was denied its own credit card by the same US companies? That's way too much power to have over the world. If we finally have a chance to decentralize some of these transactions, to remove some of that power they currently have, we certainly should take that chance.
superuser2 12y ago
>Isn't that exactly what we shouldn't want, that the credit card companies also record our financial transactions made via a currency created to be decentralized? Yes, actually. I want my budgeting and spend tracking tools to continue to work.
pjc50 12y ago
If you pay in bitcoin, every one in the world can see that transaction. It's not trivial to tie to a person, but de-anonymisation can happen at any time later.

abrkn 12y ago

One of the founders has made some comments[1] on r/bitcoin [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/31qlwx/onebit_mastercard_paypass_integrated_bitcoin/cq409ij http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/31qlwx/onebit_maste...

schmichael 12y ago

This product helps people who already have bitcoin convert it to fiat more easily and offload the bitcoin->fiat conversion fees onto the merchant. Is there a market for this? It simply uses bitcoin as a store-of-value instead of fiat in a bank. Unless you're in the tiny minority of people who can acquire bitcoin but cannot acquire a bank account, I don't see the benefit to consumers or merchants. Not to mention with bitcoin's current volatility it is rarely appealing as a store of value. (NFC seems to be another problem, but other commenters have discussed that well.)

manymany 12y ago

With this scheme, the merchant still has to pay for swipe fees (which are ultimately transferred to the customer through higher prices -- the ultimate hidden fee!). Swipe fees are evil.