Both sides are bad
Yep. Just because one side is bad, it doesn’t mean the other is any good.
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling. Credit card companies are still a private owned government branch with no concern for human rights and criminals-enabling.
I learned recently FedNow is a payment processor ran by the Federal Reserve, with a fee of $0.043 per transaction. Making it much, much cheaper than every other payment processor out there.
It just launched two years ago; I’m wondering if this might become more of a thing moving forward for digital payments.
Say that any louder and it’ll be DOGEd overnight.
It’s also a heck of a lot quicker to process, (effectively instant) and works even on holidays.
And of course, banks like Bank of America, Capital One, and tons of other financial institutions simply refuse to use it, because that would mean spending money on changing their infrastructure, and making it more convenient for people to also use accounts outside of theirs.
Seriously, it’s been ages, and they’ve refused to use it at all, even though it’s purely a financial and technical upside for every user once it’s implemented.
Nice but floundered. Call me when consumers and small businesses can use it.
Criminals-enabling is what they call VPNs, E2EE encrypted communication etc.
more and more good people are being called criminals
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling.
As we all know, Visa and MasterCard have never been used by criminals. As soon as a criminal touches a card, the card turns into ash.
Reading isn’t your strong suit, is it?
This. Corporate shit weasels or supporting human trafficking.
“We should restrict the free use of oxygen because terrorists can breath it to sustain themselves.”
C’mon. Crypto has issues, but this ain’t one of them. Pandering to people’s fear is how fascist seize power for themselves and perpetuate the horrors we feared in the first place.
Ugh, the “both sides” argument again… /s
Lmao, crypto tech bros coming out of the woodwork trying to get popularity for their bag holder’s game…
Also pretending that shit hasn’t been bought up by wall street
What? They have like 5%. You should revisit your stance
Crypto remains a pyramid scheme masquerading as a resistance against tyranny
Ironically you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Ask a Brazilian about pix. Super low fees (often feeling non existant). And transactions can’t be invalidated on the whims of a corporate board. For something to not be buyable by pix it has to be illegal, thus having to go through every layer of checks and balances a democracy has.
The problem with visa and their ilk is that finance has been privatised. Too much power in the hands of corporations that have deftly dodged regulation that would keep them neutral and honest. Thinking privatising things further and turning everyone into a fully unregulated petty digital landlord is gonna solve anything rather than make it worse is foolhardy.
Adding a few more points to fully kill crypto as a “freedom currency”
- Generating crypto requires capital; people with computers and access to energy will instantly get the ability to outgenerate any other crypto participant
- Energy-centric currency just empowers the same rich lobbies; oil and gaz lobbies are delighted to see that there’s an uptick in energy demand
- People with right material (read, capital) can track you, but low chance to track anyone doing crime at a national level (due to odds of them having a competent IT (baring the Hegseth drunkards out there))
Also because the entire thing is backed financially by energy wasted, crypto has actually been slowing down the adoption of cheaper, safer renewable energy.
People spend x dollars on generating crypto, they expect to sell it for x+profit
Ergo if energy became cheaper, crypto would devalue and we can’t have that.
Your post applies to Bitcoin specifically, not crypto in general.
So according to you, there’s a crypto that 1. doesn’t need any capital (computers), 2. doesn’t need wastable energy (power that wouldn’t otherwise be used) and 3. is actually impossible to track across the board?
From a user perspective yes to all 3.
From a infrastructure perspective,
-
You need capital to keep people honest. Nothing at risk means people can lie
-
Some power is still needed, but Ethereum has gone from the consumption of Chile to a single windfarm.
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ZK proofs now allow anyone to create an anonymous token. Most blockchains are opt in for anonymity.
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What keeps people from looking at point 1 and not totally stopping there, you think? The game is statistically unwinnable and the more rubes play, the bigger the leech gets.
I looked into crypto seriously several years ago when a friend got interested. I had to inform them it was still a casino where Have’s print the cash and make the rules, specifically so the currency returns to them with interest off someone else’s(our) brow. ie, same scam as wall street stonks. Just reiterating Point 1.
Pretty pointless unless there is an anti-fascist buying collective or something. Remember when reddit saved gamestop for a few years and, uh, very suddenly a lot of common investment apps ‘stopped working’ that week?
As soon as you get a hand in their game, they’ll show you right away you were meant to die slaving for them, not participating in decisionmaking (money AND politics).
You’ve done it! You’ve fully killed Bitcoin! Now it will certainly become irrelevant! In 5 years, the top answer for “what would you do if you had a time machine and went back 5 years?” definitely won’t still be “Buy more Bitcoin.”
Have you heard of the lottery?
Whole-ass time travel to “buy more bitcoin”, what a clown.
Yeah but I don’t already know the winning lotto numbers
With time machine you can create the first lotto and be John Lotto himself
Of course cryptocurrencies will exist in the future. Same as simpler pyramid schemes, corruption, human trafficking, and banging your finger on a corner of a table. It’s not an indication of any positive quality of those things.
It’s Avon for Cis Dudes that make fun of Avon ladies
It’s the Lottery for STEM Majors that make fun of grandpas that play the lottery.
I’d say ‘it’s religion for reddit atheists’, but it’s not. AI is religion for reddit atheists. “
The raptureAGI is right around the corner and when it comes aroundGod will save the righteous and punish the sinnerswe will live in post-scarcity utopia. Just please ignore all thepriests committing horrid crimes on childrenactual AI copmanies being owned by technocrats with fascist leanings who seem very horny for the idea of never having to pay a worker again. Until then we just need topray and proselytize very hardkeep investing on DA FUTER”
As far as I know monero didn’t really have that issue, of being a pyarmid scheme, while also being privacy-respecting way more than Bitcoin.
Which is also why it’s starting to get banned in Europe. As far as I know, most brokers don’t even sell it.
you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Only if the government is democratic, many governments seems to be autocratizing these days, which wouldn’t help when they start enacting puritan policies and refuse payment transfers. Not to mention, even some democracies banned porn (South Korea, for example).
When I heard elon is the primary holder of bit, I knew it was to be trusted. He’s a liar and insecure. Plus his penis looks like a sick dogs vomit.
Yeah, but one is extra bad for our enviroment while being a scam.
That’s what i thought, too. I would never believed if someone telled me some years ago that there will be another scam (ai) that wastes even more power.
Just wait until somebody proposes an AI powered blockchain…
💀. Thats darker than anything else.
Stop giving them ideas
totally agree re bitcoin, and also am very sceptical of crypto as a mass-adopted currency in general
however there are plenty of networks that don’t use proof of work to validate their chains, and they aren’t bad for the environment to nearly the same degree
Why use them and not… normal fiat currency?
No bank or goverment can control it. It is the benefit of being able to send money to anyone around the world while maintaining ownership of your money as if it were cash in hand.
And therefore no recourse if you are robbed, scammed, etc. Try going to your local, or even federal authorities and explain to them that you lost the digital equivalent of $10000 and they won’t do a thing.
To an extent cryptos only value is it can be turned into currency.
Banks or governments as opposed to who though? There’s a reason we usually want those publicly owned and regulated institutions to handle our transactions. Obviously, it depends what country you live in, and what currency you’re talking about. But I don’t think Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency actually solves the problem it purports to.
Ideally, no one controls it. It’s just exists as a medium for exchange.
There are both good and bad points to currency have value that can be adjusted by gov’ts; crypto currency solves one set of problems, but has it’s own, inherent issues.
That is exactly the problem. It has no real value as the entire thing is propped up by chaos. It could be worth a trillion dollars one day and then nothing the next.
i do think they hold some value for things like bank to bank, where each party is kiiiiind of untrusted and unrelated (not on a public chain - it’s just a private consensus between collaborating parties)
it also undeniably provides payment outside of standard card networks and the finance sector (people have been using crypto to buy drugs for decades now), so can be used to circumvent things like this mastercard/visa morality police garbage… i think in that, it’d be useful to have a strongish cryptocurrency somewhere at least to be able to provide uncensorable competition (the alternative to that being some global EU network that everyone accepted in the same manner)
but i think the value in blockchain in general is minimally about currency: that was just the first implementation… it’s a distributed, trustworthy log between untrusted individual entities. the benefits of that are honestly pretty niche, but i think it does solve some valuable problems… just most people should never even know that blockchain was involved
- You’re a criminal who wants to evade tracking by law enforcement
- You live in a country subject to sanctions and need to move a large sum of money transnationally
- You are the tinfoil-hat type who doesn’t trust Government-issued money for one of many real or imagined reasons
- You want to make digital purchases while staying relatively anonymous
- You’re a gambler who went all-in on crypto and are hoping it will increase in value later on
- You just think it’s more fun to pay with futuristic magic Internet money (yes, some people actually do it for this reason)
- You are a business in a (the) country whose laws legally require the acceptance of Bitcoin
- You want to get rich
They are still very unstable and rely on some sort of consensus. It is flat out a bad design. It would be safer to pay with stocks.
consensus is basically what all modern databases rely on… it’s not unstable; it has properties that need to be well known and accounted for
The problem is using that for something world wide with no backing by anything material.
It is unstable by nature
Over 52% of the bitcoin network is renewable energy and growing. Y’all need to update your info, damn
Yes, but that still means that the other half is fossil fuel.
Bitcoin mining’s distribution makes it difficult for researchers to identify the location of miners and electricity use. It is therefore difficult to translate energy consumption into carbon emissions. As of 2025, a non-peer-reviewed study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) estimated that bitcoin consumed 138 TWh (500 PJ) annually, representing 0.5% of the world’s electricity consumption and resulting in annual greenhouse gas emissions of 39.8 Mt CO2, representing 0.08% of global emissions and comparable to Slovakia’s emissions.
I think people should really reconsider using PoW cryptocurrencies. Ethereum was able to reduce their energy consumption by 99.95% by switching to PoS and it’s still doing fine. IMO Bitcoin is outdated technology that is just used as a pyramid scheme due to its name recognition.
Compared to our current system though? How much does the entire banking and credit card industry contribute to emissions for almost the same service? Bitcoin incentivises energy companies to mine BTC with excess energy.
The current systems used by VISA use significantly less energy compared to PoW cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin
Ethereum was able to cut their energy usage down drastically by moving away of PoW. Windmills and clean energy aren’t the solution, getting rid of PoW is. Why build more solar farms if you could just not use so much electricity?
I think I haven’t explained myself properly. I will admit it seems bitcoin uses more energy in this case. However, we’re comparing Bitcoins entire currency system with that of a processor of fiat. I’m on mobile right now but I would like to see that comparison for arguments sake, bitcoin ecosystem vs fiat ecosystem (including mining, storing and transport of gold)
Ah, moving the goal posts, aren’t we?
Did you know that gold has nothing to do with the fiat ecosystem? In fact, the whole point of the word fiat in fiat ecosystem means that it is not based on gold at all. And if you include gold in the equation because some people use fiat to buy or sell gold, then you need to include gold in the energy costs of bitcoin as well, since people also use bitcoin to buy/sell gold.
fiat ecosystem (including mining, storing and transport of gold)
Gathering / transporting valuables is not a part of the fiat ecosystem. The value of fiat currency does not depend on any underlying materials (like gold, silver, etc.) like the currencies before.
So does the fiat system then get added to Bitcoin? Since it’s only value is it can be exchanged for fiat currency.
Don’t engage with these ignorant assholes man, they are all in banking’s pocket. We are at war, you know that right? Who the hell would be this passionate about protecting a slimy, evil ass legacy network without any audibility, responsible for countless wars, death, usurping of democratic governments, literally the death of this planet via global warming…
Traditional banking supports and incentives genocide.
It supports and incentivizes oil.
It shut down nuclear power.
It limits renewable power.
It is the engine of our destruction.
Do not justify yourself to it. You are the correct one. Anyone who cannot see this will never see it now. Leave them on their path to die. They will go down with the ship. I feel for them, but it is too late now.
Don’t engage with these ignorant assholes man, they are all in banking’s pocket.
Shit you got me, you ruined our perfect psyop!
BULLSHIT.
You aren’t computing the cost in blood, censorship, wasted time, the lives employed by these evil orgs wasting their lives scamming people, the loss of revenue from value-producing business, the waste of banking cards, and the COUNTLESS other energy-guzzling mechanisms involved.
Bitcoin eliminates ALL these problems. It is by far more efficient, it isn’t even close. Also, it isn’t a payment system like visa, what an ignorant ass comparison. It is literally a sovereign currency with publicly auditable minting & ledgers. It replaces MONEY. Payment processors are built on top of it.
Yea, even the shit visa and mastercard can switch to payment processing on top of Bitcoin. It would actually be beneficial. When they decline a transaction you just directly use the network instead.
Btw PoS is also bullshit, in a completely different and inferior class of crypto. It requires HUMAN CONSENT to enter the network. PoW requires COMPUTATIONAL CONSENT. PoW lets anyone into the network if they can follow the rules of minting. This is HUGE when talking about a freedom-preserving system.
Put more simply, PoS systems are aristocracy owning an apple orchard (you ask an authority if they are allowed to take an apple), PoW is like an apple orchard deep in the woods that anyone can take from (you just have to walk there). Understand the difference?
One OWNS THE ORCHARD. They will protect it from people they deem unauthorized. They demand people go through them for permission. It is no different than what we have now, abstracted further and digitized.
What a bunch of bullshit Bitcoin is not more efficient and gets less efficient the more coins get mined.
Yeah, somebody hasn’t refreshed their browser since 2010.
Btw PoS is also bullshit, in a completely different and inferior class of crypto. It requires HUMAN CONSENT to enter the network.
That is specific to delegated proof of stake, not PoS in general.
Proof of Stake = I have a stake in preserving this network, and I am rewarded by receiving an increased stake in the network.
You cannot organically enter a PoS network without having a stake in it. That requires acquiring the network’s token somehow. That means you must use a different token to purchase it, do work for someone who will pay you in it, or otherwise perform an operation organized by people in order to acquire the token to have a stake.
That’s what I mean by human consent.
I think what I’d suggest is that the entire global banking and credit card industry is likely to contribute more in total to our climate catastrophe, just due to the difference in scale between that and a relatively small and lesser-used alternative like Bitcoin.
I do see where you’re coming from for sure. I just think it’s worth noting where it is and where it’s going given it’s managed to grow to 52% in an anti bitcoin world. If bitcoin allows to be “legitimatised” I think those goals are achievable
Bitcoin well never be legitimized it is to volatile.
There is no excess energy though. They wouldn’t be making that energy if it wasn’t for Bitcoin.
It should also be noted, that using more power isn’t fine just because it’s renewable. It’s still worse for the environment, and especially not until it’s 100%
The ASICS also produce e-waste, the electricity could have been used for other things, and the energy use puts more strain on the energy grid when that is already an issue in many countries.
I agree, but it’s still early days. I’ll keep pushing for a greener development of the network, too
You cryptobitches have been saying it’s “early days” since 2009
It’s been 16 years. That bullshit don’t fly anymore.
It’s wasting useful energy, and you think that’s a good thing?
Benefits of centralization: Someone can counteract harmful interactions.
Drawbacks of centralization: Someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful.
It does suck when the “harmful interaction management system” goes haywire. But I’m not sure it sucks enough that I’d rather simply not have one.
I used to be one of the people firmly on the “someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful, thus they should not ever exist” side of the argument, and I think this is certainly a good way of putting it.
For a lot of people heavily into crypto, they see the drawbacks of the existing system, but instead of pushing for reform and legal changes, they try technological abolition of the entire mechanism altogether, without then realizing the tradeoffs that brings (e.g. how a lot of people will go “it’s instant! Sellers don’t have to worry about chargebacks! Nobody can take away your money from you!” yet don’t think about how that also means a scammer taking your money is a permanent loss you can never reverse. (or if they do think about it, will argue that risk can be reduced to a point it is less harmful than the alternative, centralized companies)
I don’t deny crypto can be useful sometimes, or even be more beneficial when the centralized companies do eventually do something bad and people need an alternative payment mechanism, but I think a lot of people into crypto overestimate how beneficial it truly is compared to the tradeoffs.
About the “nobody can take your money” part.
Etherium Classic exists because somebody hacked an extremely valuable wallet and funneled 13% of all eth into their wallet. The people who control the mining pools, (rich assholes) wanted that transaction reversed, so they hard forked. Classic is the main fork that didn’t reverse that transaction. It’s much less popular, despite being run by people who are demonstrably more principled.
Paraphrased from Dan Olson’s video “line goes up” about crypto’s history and affect on the world. Spoiler: it’s a scam, and a tool for the wealthy to get even richer. Computing power can be bought with dollars.
Technically true, but chains nowadays aren’t really vulnerable to that same kind of attack just due to their sheer scale and diversification of controlling stakes compared to what they used to be, so I wouldn’t consider it a particularly relevant issue today.
The relevant part isn’t which mistake happened, but that the fact that no mistake can be reversed.
Fixing one mistake is great and all, but it’s still a method of accounting whose ledger — by design — cannot be revised.
Yeah it’s a personal level of comfort sort of thing. Some people value one side of the equation while some people value the other side. Strong case for vendors accepting both cards and crypto instead of just one.
Yeah. They do such a good job of stopping nazis and csam.
I trust completely in the central bank to fight fascism. It is necessary. The central bank fights for the laborer, not the capitalist. The central bank fights for freedom, not authoritarianism. The central bank ensures democracy, not an oligarchy. Without a central bank, our entire society would be doomed to fall to fascism. A centralized currency is a major facet between a free society and one with a corrupt dictator surrounded by crooked cronies where the wealthy have all the power and the common man is reduced to crumbs.
The central bank is divine and good.
“someone can decide you have zero dollars”
free speech until your bank account goes away
Regulation prevents that. You can’t regulate decentralized currencies, meaning you have zero protection 100% of the time.
Ah, the regulations that judges can just deem not legal? You do understand that checks and balances, right now, are pretty much gone? I’m not for a decentralized currency, I am just against irrationally worshiping centralization with zero concerns. Regulation capitalism is putting a band aid over a gaping wound, the real cure is socialism and socialism isn’t regulations, it’s a complete and total change of the system. If you think regulation is how we achieve socialism, you are wrong. Money shouldn’t even exist, IMO, so I don’t really care for the ‘centralized’ argument of something I fundamentally don’t want to exist. Unless you can tell me how centralized banks are going to bring about socialism, I’m not sure what you’re arguing in favor of if not capitalism. I’m sure there are ways of achieving gift economies and the like without centralized authorities and the possibility of unchecked executive power.
yes, however the regulations will always have some corruption
Same for unregulated systems, only without transparency, limits or recourse
uhhh… so the logic here is that if regulation isn’t even an option then… what exactly? What’s better, wearing a helmet so your head doesn’t get broken in, but leave your arms and legs uncovered, or just not wearing any protection at all?
Communism. Start small, connect networks.
Nah man, you have to want fiat currency! Fiat currency is necessary, man! It’s the only way for a safe and civil society! You want a gift economy? Who the fuck wants to give away shit haha. If I have money, I can keep my community safe by blasting away people who want to take it. In a gift economy or any other kind of anti-capitalist economy people would be incentivized to care for one another, which is unrealistic. We just have to regulate the people who want to kill over their money in a way that they can only kill for their money in socially acceptable ways like through cops and the criminal justice system. People need to know that money is deadly but we don’t need to let them see the blood on the streets. As long as we get to say some people are criminals, people are happy that they got their money in a safe and legal way and followed all the regulations.
Also the trump admin did abolish finality of payments.
you can prevent getting scammed with crypto by using something like escrow
Oh honey…
Doesn’t protect against:
- Social engineering
- Contract code vulnerabilities
- Untrustworthy/Compromised controlling stakes in that escrow, whether they be people or autonomous systems
- False reversal claims made against the escrow
It has the same possible issues for your financial sovereignty as a regular, centralized financial institution, plus technical issues with the way the underlying infrastructure is built.
valid points. i see the problem with that
Crypto is still a scam.
And specifically bad for this.
Only way out is communism. Pick yoir flavor.
What…
The only way out of crypto is full blow communism? Those are the two options?
Bitcoin is not crypto
it’s literally called a “cryptocurrency”.
Yes but they are still very different things.
only if you change the definition of “crypto”.
Many would argue that there needs some distinction between them. The ongoing joke is “Shitcoin” as many have abandoned the benefits of bitcoin.
Wtf are you talking about??? Bitcoin is THE cryptocurrency.
Part of me wonders if this is all a play to boost crypto values by the execs in these industries.
Devil’s advocate, it’s a play to get crypto banned cause it’s only used for illegal/disapproved activities.
Feasible but it’s a long con. Although big corporations can play these games i guess
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Yeah, I’m going to buy my games with bitcoin now.
Oh shit, the fee is higher than the price of the game, can I use Litecoin ?
The current Bitcoin transaction fee is $0.67. Which means for a purchase larger than $34, Bitcoin is cheaper than the average credit card transaction fee.
I only buy games at $30 or cheaper. So that won’t work for me 🤷♂️
I don’t have a credit card. If you pay per transaction, is there at least no monthly base fee?
There are are no other fees for holding crypto, you only pay when you move it from one place to another, those fees change depending on time of day/week as well. Though some services (like coincards) may take additional processing fees.
A credit card, in the US, has a transaction fee for the vendor, 1-3% of the purchase price, sometimes with a flat few cents fee on top.
The consumer has no transaction fee, but does pay interest (around 28% annually) if they don’t pay off the full balance every month (if they do pay it in full at the end of the month, there is no interest charge). Usually there will be a 1-2% cash back for the consumer as well.
Some credit cards also have an annual fee for the consumer. These generally have higher cash back rewards and higher vendor transaction fees than those that don’t.
Don’t forget secured cards, which require an upfront deposit, and cards with regular monthly or annual fees, simply for having them, regardless of whether you use them or not.
Thats the kind of credit cards you get offered if you are bad with credit cards (cough most Americans are cough thats kinda the whole business model cough), or, if someone steals your identity and you either don’t have enough time or money or otherwise can’t sufficiently prove to credit reporting agencies / banks that that is what happened.
Cumrocket is the way!
Thanks for the tip, I’m putting all my life savings into it then.
This exists too ::: spoiler spoiler https://coinstats.app/coins/8fZL148nnC168RAVCZh4PkjvMZmxMEfMLDhoziWVPnqf_solana/ :::
Bitcoin is pretty old, newer cryptocurrencies are more efficient.
I’m glad we’re spending the equivalent of a couple dozen million households of electricity on it
You’re so right, environmental impact has not been assessed by any cryptocurrency ever made. Literally zilch. None. Nada.
Meanwhile the US military’s energy budget eclipses global crypto mining essentially to maintain petrodollar dominance and American residents pay for it.
Let’s not ask how much power Visa and MasterCard use for their global monopoly.
Literally orders of magnitude less? Are you not familiar with how proof of work crypto operates? Being energy inefficient is the whole point.
Lightning network exists too
Litecoin is cool.
the fee might be higher at some points but you’re just blabbering. check mempool.space and actually look at what fees are at rn + consider that there are many chains and l2s that can be used for payment. B)
A dollar in fees is a dollar more than with fiat for the person paying. That and do you expect enough normal people to learn about L2s and chains to make it worthwhile for Valve or whoever to implement support for anything besides the main chains of 2-3 major cryptos and stablecoins on ethereum main?
A dollar in fees is a dollar more than with fiat for the person paying.
Average credit card transaction fee is ~2%. So a dollar of Bitcoin fees makes Bitcoin cheaper for any purchase over $50.
The transaction fee is not paid by the consumer (directly), and lord knows sellers are not going to lower prices based on payment method.
It depends, I have shopped at places where they will discount up to 15% by paying cash.
sellers are not going to lower prices based on payment method
Mullvad actually does this for their VPN service, which I think is great. For a VPN company that doesn’t want to store identifiers about you, taking crypto makes sense because that also doesn’t necessarily have identifiers about you attached that they could read or be required to store, unlike a card that requires your name, address, and card number.
Other than that though, no larger companies are going to do anything of the sort, let alone be likely to even implement it as a payment method to begin with. Tons of additional technical complexity for little to no benefit.
I hope the EU to come up with their own payment process to compete against and be a mainstream alternative to the US based ones.
Sadly, this is probably true. Unless they’re trying to steer customers away from more troublesome payment providers.
People who use credit cards don’t pay the transaction fee. If the product is priced at 10 Stanly nickle they only play 10 Stanley nickle. Lot of credit cards also offer cash back so people might get 1-5% back depending on what the category for the month is.
When it comes to transaction fees you are going to have to sell the vender on it than the consumer since they are the one paying.
Oh you’re definitely paying the credit card fee too, but since it’s the vendor who gets billed it’s just priced into the product. That’s why the product costs 10 Stanly nickle instead of 9 Stanly nickle.
Pay same in cash or credit. Priced in or not what the company asks for is what the consumer pays, so point being these crypto transaction arguments make no difference when it comes to fees. Like you said end retail price is already priced in.
Company wants 10 Stanley nickles consumer is charged 10 Stanley nickles regardless of payment method.
Yeah good point, they’re not discounting the credit increase for the crypto buyers. That might even be against their credit processor contract.
But it’s not variable so the seller prices it in. Switch to Bitcoin and you have to pay it while prices likely stay the same. Also lately most of my games have been under 30 EUR tbh
I mean either you care enough about payment processor censorship to go around them or you don’t. If the extra dollar isn’t worth it to you then that is what it is.
Nobody is going to rush to implement a payment system where the fees can change 5x hour to hour because that’s just customer dissatisfaction waiting to happen.
I honestly never understood how Lemmy, a privacy and decentralisation focused community, is so vehemently anti-crypto. It’s worse than genAI. Every time it is mentioned, everyone goes “crypto is a scam”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any good faith discussion around it, just “scam”, “pyramid scheme”, and “only criminals use it”.
Let’s get something out of the way immediately: shitcoins are a literal pyramid scheme and a scam. Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency in an evening, and anyone who throws money at them is either a fool or a gambler.
But I really don’t understand what people mean when they say Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Monero are a scam. Sure they can be used to scam you, just like Amazon gift cards can. Maybe it’s about the price volatility, but the price of all 3 mentioned before is up on a day, week, month, 6 months, year, and 5 year scale. It’s volatile, but is not a scam. If you bought and sold at two random points in time, it’s more likely you made a profit than “got scammed”. You know what actually is a scam? Credit scores, overdraft fees, having to pay to check your balance, and so many other fucked up practices in the US banking system.
“Criminals use them” is just the worst fucking argument, especially in a space like this. Are PGP, VPNs and TOR for criminals too? Do you think getting rid of crypto would stop crime?
And yes, proof of work fucking sucks. The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining is a problem. I am not a cryptobro who spends all his time making trades and is here to tell you that crypto is the salvation. They are far from being “good” for everyday use. I just wanted to point out how it seems that critical thought gets shut down at the sight of those 6 letters, and I hope someone can explain to me what they find so terrible about crypto (aside from environmental concerns and shitcoins)
Lemmy is quite left-leaning, and the impetus behind creating Bitcoin was right-wing Austrian school economics. Now, it’s being pushed by literal fascists.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen fascists pushing Bitcoins, but then again I don’t frequent those spaces. I struggle to see how they are ideologically similar though. Doesn’t seem like a very authoritarian concept
And can we really say we know what brought about the publication of the bitcoin whitepaper?
Trump, Bukele, Milei, Orban, Thiel, Musk, etc. It’s the “Dark Enlightenment” and “Network State” type of fascists that want to replace democratic government with stuff like corporate-controlled city-states, and crazy shit like that. They see it as a means to starve the government so they can run their own corporation-like governments.
The message in the genesis block alludes to the ideology (as that kind of stuff was a major talking point for right-wingers back then), though I guess it’s not definitive proof. The early community was definitely Austrian-school adjacent right-wingers though.
I don’t know any crypto bros who aren’t also MAGA/libertarian/fascist
Many MAGA/libertarian/fascists love ice cream. Does that mean ice cream is bad? We should be able to make up our own minds about things instead of turning everything into a partisan issue. A broken clock is right twice a day.
They aren’t pushing pro-ice cream laws, this is a disingenuous take.
Have you noticed that people who work in tech tend to be less excited about cool new flashy tech developments than the average person?
It’s similar to how people who have worked in fast food aren’t quite as keen on eating out than the average person.
Same as watching your co-worker who hasn’t washed his hands after his last shit collect the pieces of a burger that dropped on the dirty floor to sell them to a customer isn’t exactly appetizing, knowing what goes on behind the scenes with tech developments doesn’t really get you on board for that either.
I think it’s because we get excited super early, and by the time it goes mainstream we’re tired of seeing it shoved into every place it doesn’t belong
And it’s probably still not being used for what we looked forward to about it
I think it’s because, at least in the case of bitcoin, it has no practical real world use other than hoarding like beanie babies, and therefore no real value. As a currency it’s entirely useless.
I have a bit more sympathy for ETH, maybe someday DeFi will produce something truly useful enough to justify the money in crypto, but it hasn’t so far.
After a few cycles people start to realize blah blah blah explanation is really just when is the price going up. We’ve all heard it all by now. It starts feeling like being sold on a timeshare. We aren’t new clients to try to sell this topic too
We already know all the explaination and blockchain crap. We know the spiel and sat through it all through multiple cycles. It’s at this point like trying to sell a car to a car salesperson using tactics they already know.
So that’s the lack of enthusiasm. We are less likely to be new to this.
But then why still be anti bitcoin?
Because (like genAI) crypto-coin people as a general population will not shut up and it gets annoying to keep hearing the same spiel. And it’s an insulting one, about how everyone not on the Bitcoin train is a stupid loser and we’ll be kissing their ass and wishing we were them when the whole thing really rockets off. Sometimes that part isn’t entirely explicit, but I hear it in almost every pro-Bitcoin rant.
I think the Lemmy userbase is too small and its easy for a few vocal voices to dominate the conversation.
There are often contradicting points that the Lemmy hivemind holds.
Like Lemmy wants to abolish the police but also wants to empower the police to take away people’s guns??? (Talking about the US btw)
Lemmy loves their doublethink
You forgot shoes! Criminals use shoes, too! So everyone wearing shoes must be a criminal. Either that, or they were scammed into wearing shoes.
Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
Your local government-backed currency does not have this problem, because you get paid with it, you pay taxes with it and vendors in your country have to accept it.
The entire concept is fundamentally flawed
You are basing a economy with real economic stakes on something that is massively unstable and very resource intensive.
I was excited for Bitcoin but the more I learned and the more the public used it, the more I hated it.
EDIT: FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS A BADLY PHRASE EXPLANATION, PLEASE READ MY COMMENT BELOW TO UNDERSTAND MY POINT
Bitcoins timestamp only supports dates up to 2106 because they decided on an UNSIGNED value. You don’t need negative values… You know when the network starts, that is 0. Without network, no Bitcoin.
That is how bad it is engineered.
And we are not even talking proof of work or whatever. Crypto is a scam because the creators made it very obvious that they didn’t really care about the project and the community is just gambling.
I don’t get why using an unsigned value is bad in this context. Like you’ve said yourself, why would you add support for dates that happened before the creation of the network?
Sorry my phrasing was bad and made it confusing. Let me explain it in detail.
They correctly choose a unsigned int for the time but they based it on Unix time, and Unix time is signed. So they choose a system that would require an conversion from Unix time to Bitcoin time (or the other way around) anyway. But you don’t need to be able to have a timestamp for 1970, which their timestamp system supports, because instead of counting from 2008 (the invention of Bitcoin) they count from 1970. Wasting 38 years and as you know Unix time is hitting a limit in 2038, 68 years after its start, Bitcoin time is unsigned and so it gets to 2106. 2106-1970= 136 years. And they are wasting 38 years!!! Why? You need a conversion between both after 2038 anyway. And if they really care for cheap conversion, a signed 64bit value would be much better, because after 2038, that will probably be the standard. So they chose to waste 38 years for compatibility which will break after 2038, instead of choosing compatibility after 2038 for 292 billion years.
And if size was the reason and 64bit timestamps would have been too big, just start counting from 2008 (or better 2009 when the network started) and get all those juicy 136 years instead of 98 years.
It is stupid.
Honestly, what’s the point of a credit card? Why don’t people mostly use debit cards? It gets just directly wire transferred from your account. No sort of junk fees or monthly subscription needed. Genuine Question.
Fiscally responsible people do it because of the cash back/perks and 0% interest.
Fiscally irresponsible people do it because ‘free money’ (ignoring the 28% annual interest).
Credit cards also offer better consumer protections than debit cards. Ex: chargebacks.
This is not true for many countries. Debit cards in my country have equal or even better consumer protections than credit cards and are also cheaper.
Fiscally irresponsible
I mean, there are people who just don’t have the money for a needed “purchase” (like medical care, transportation, or food), and hope they’ll be able to get a better job or make more money in the future to pay it off later. Been there.
I live off a credit card, my money sits inside an offset account against my home loan the interest charged on that is calculated every 30 days at the end of the month so the more cash I have in there the less interest I pay on my mortgage.
The credit card is free with no fees or interest provided I pay it off on time with that date being every 30 days from the 15th of the month.
Thus at the end of the month when interest is calculated on my home loan I have more cash in my account then I would if I had of spent 2k that month on bills etc.
The other benefit is I earn points that the bank will exchange for cash with me so it’s kinda like free money.
For context I’m Australian with an Australian bank.
This set up is great if you’re disciplined for anyone due to the points etc however if you screw up spend beyond your means etc you will incur interest and that’s not good.
I make sure to never spend more then I actually have and it has worked wonders for me.
In the past 10 years I’ve probably been made about 7k back in points value.
Cash flights etc all for spending exactly as I do.
I should note the card is provided to me as part of my home loan package hence it has no fees attached as I pay an upfront cost for the “home loan wealth package”
i’ll add an extra to this on the cashback etc
credit card companies charge stores processing fees, and then give consumers cash backs to encourage them to spend using their cards
stores add credit card processing into their cost of doing business… you’re charged that in the cost of things you purchase
if you pay with a credit card, you get some of that back. if you don’t pay with a credit card, you’re still charged the fees - you just don’t get any of the benefits
The latest that drives me mad is the 1.5 surcharge they’re putting on pay wave transactions now.
They pushed it free convenient etc etc and now charge extra for it regardless of debit or credit card
whaaaat? where is doing this? i haven’t seen it, and would ABSOLUTELY boycott the shit out of it
If someone steals your debit card, they can directly take money out of your account. With credit cards, there’s a buffer between the product and the bank account, and it makes it easier to stop fraud
I’ve had my debit card information stolen before. My bank knew before I did, cancelled the fraudulent charges, and refunded my money without any action on my part. Doesn’t seem like a credit card would have been any advantage in my [admittedly anecdotal] case.
Banks can, but they’re not legally obligated to. With a credit card they are. (US)
This problem could be solved.
It’s not fraud, it’s interest.
If you use a debit card and can’t cover a transaction, it just doesn’t go through. If you have a credit card then the bank pays and now you owe them, and they’ll charge you extra for that privilege.
You could just pay off your balance by the due date and you won’t be charged any interest.
Well not to stop it before it happens, surely, but an easier time reclaiming your money due to the buffer.
Debit cards typically have PIN numbers.
I know these can be defeated in various ways, but its not usually as simple as, just steal someone’s card.
Also, you can just go to your bank or credit union, call them, report online or w/e: Hey, my card got stolen, these txns are fraud.
Might not be as streamlined or as fast as a payment challenge with a credit card, but its not that much worse.
But is it really worth all of the junk that you have to accept? I like the credit scoring, the monthly subscription, and, if you miss the date for paying back, the absurdly high fees. Well, yes, with the debit card you have, technically speaking, the risk of someone being able to make about 100€ worth of RFID payments, and then the code is needed again for the next 100€ RFID payments. For everything else that doesn’t involve RFID, the code is needed always.
The US implementation of chip and PIN left off the PIN. The reason given was “no one wants to put in a PIN every time” so for the vast majority of transactions you just hold up your card to the sensor or put it in the chip reader. PIN is only required for cash withdrawals in my experience.
Jesus Christ, that is absolutely moronic. No wonder people are so obsessed with losing their card.
What junk? Works same as a debt card but just not directly tied to a checking account, so less a big deal if it is lost or false charges made on it with companies reversing it. Get cashback on purchases, additional warranty on items, and able to do charge backs if company isn’t giving you a refund for whatever reason.
Most people who run into trouble are because they don’t realize credit cards aren’t free money so go beyond their budget. If you spend what you can afford and pay back each month question becomes more why should a debit card be used over a credit card?
Tons of cards have zero fees. Some offer rewards and benefits at no real cost. I have for nearly a decade used a card with 1% back on purchases and 1% back on payments. Running all my usual spending through that and then just paying it off has net me a lot of money in that time that I just use for statement credit.
It’s easy to dispute charges should I ever need to. Rare since I’m cautious anyways, but the extra layer before my actual bank account is nice.
It has also built up a hell of a credit rating for me as well.
I am usually cautious with claims of free money. There is no free money for working class people. So, who’s paying it in that case and for what reason? I reckon the company who is running the platform does it, such that they can get market share to coerce sellers into using their product.
Or am I seeing this wrong?
I will agree that a credit card only really made any sense as I began to finally gain more financial independence. Before then, it was pointless.
The claim is that they are giving you a portion of the merchant fee for utilizing said credit cards.
I’m sure they also make money by selling all your info.
My debit card is a master card.
They still need to go through a payment processor, using a debit instead of credit card isn’t really the solution to the current problems.
Because I have to. A lot of platforms literally don’t support debit cards.
A lot of platforms literally don’t support debit cards.
You can get a Visa debit card from your bank; everyone takes Visa.
I’m EU based. We don’t have visa debit cards
The EU has Visa debit cards.
I’m in France. Pretty much everyone has a Visa debit card.
I am in EU, but likely a different country. I dont think we do Visa credit cards here, the only credit card around is Mastercard, all Visas are debit. Weird how that’s different
Because many people don’t actually have the money on hand. Some do but me and many others are spending money we don’t have yet. It’s a negative feedback loop of debt because capitalism sucks
I buy stuff for work with my personal card and I’ve made probably thousands of dollars from the cash back. Even on my regular cards I get a couple hundred back off of stuff I normally buy.
There’s other benefits too like using points to buy plane tickets, fancy lobbies in the airport with free food, etc.
Because people are reliant on debt because wages haven’t kept pace with expected standards of living.
Of for more ago well off people some cards offer perks like cash back or air miles and it’s free if you pay it off in full each month.
Also, in my country at least, you get more protection if you have an issue with the goods you’ve bought. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/section75-protect-your-purchases/
I’ve just got rid of my credit card after 10 years in NA. Yes it can come in handy if you need a couple grand all of a sudden but damn, what a ball and chain, I hated it
Bitcoin bros are acting like little pushed around victims now?
Credit card companies should be nonprofits under democratic control.
Euro has PSD2 which seems to be a step in the right direction
Could’ve would’ve should’ve
So many things could be so much better.
Poverty could end tomorrow if we wanted to.
War could end tomorrow if we wanted to
Healthcare could be free if we wanted to
Same for schools and education in general
“If we wanted to”
Let me rephrase that: if either the top 1% would let us, or if the 99% would just stand up and take what’s theirs, we could…
Isn’t that kind of what a credit union issued card is?
also gnu taler should be next to bitcoin (ik not as widespread)
It’s not quite the same as a traditional cryptocurrency but I look forward to seeing the results of the EU trial
It’s not quite the same as a traditional cryptocurrency but I look forward to seeing the results of the EU trial
yeah its more like “Open source visa/mastercard”
Mostly yeah, but AFAIK it did have additional privacy advantages
Cash is King.
I’m in Germany and people believe this. I say, if I have my credit card stolen, I can stop the card with my bank app and be refunded for the purchases the thief made.
If they have their 500€ of cash stolen, that’s it. It’s gone. No amount of crying about how cash is king will bring it back.
So then don’t carry 500 in cash then. You only need enough cash in your wallet to cover the expenses you might encounter in a single day. And having cash on you doesn’t mean you can’t have cards too in case you need more money
So less king and more part of a council?
Yeah, something like that. Maybe cash should be the chair of the council
You are only considering half the issue. If you manage to “aquire” 500 in cash…
Paying in cash doesn’t cost extra, by card does
No it doesn’t. Shops pay transaction fees and pass that cost into all customers equally whether they’re paying cash or card.
Taking physical cash, counting it, loss of cash through error or malace, buying change, physically banking it (taking it themselves or using a cash collection company) costs businesses too. So actually maybe they’re passing on the cost of this rather than the transaction fees.
I’ve almost never seen irl stores charge more for paying by card, definitely not anything that wasn’t a small family business. The only place I see it is sometimes on webshops
I’ve almost never seen irl stores charge more for paying by card
It’s a violation of visa/mastercard’s TOS, but also smaller stores get much higher transaction fees so they have further incentive to do so.
It costs for the business, but handling cash costs time so money as well…
And Monero is digital cash
Cash is dead deserped from its place by alternative means far before we invented crypto
And those alternatives would be what, exactly?
Checks and credit The US hasn’t been backed by hard currency since the mid-60s. Once we moved off the gold standard, it all became Fiat based on exchange rates
So you don’t actually understand what the phrase “cash is king” really means.
A paper check is not cash. A credit score is not cash. Physical backed up currency in your hand is cash. And I don’t think you can get cash anymore. Only Fiat
And guess what cash doesn’t need to actually work, unlike credit, checks and crypto.
An economy?
paper checks are cash
No
If by mid-60s you mean 1971…?
I seem to have gotten the beginning of the process and the final cutoff date. Confused. That would be the cutoff date, not when they started to restrict the ability to convert
The main reason I don’t care for bitcoin is I have to count a bunch zeros after the decimal point, before reaching a useful number. $1 = 0.000006128921 btc? Really? Screw those zeroes. Bitcoin is inefficient in so many ways.
It was far less valuable when it first started becoming trendy. 1 BTC for a pizza, or whatever. Now it’s turned into a hyperinflation wheelbarrow kind of situation.
1 BTC for a pizza, or whatever
10 000 BTC for 1 pizza…
hyperinflation
Deflation . This is literally what happens to any volute that cannot be printed indefinitely. The situation is complicated by the fact that many wallets are simply lost and bitcoins will never be recovered from them.
They should bring in subunits like an MMO. 1 bitcoin (118905USD) = 100 bitsilver 1 bitsilver (1189.05USD) = 100 bitcopper 1 bitcopper = 11.89USD
It doesn’t even make any different to the number of bitcoin used, its just a more user friendly way of displaying it for small purchases.
This already exists. 1 bitcoin = 1,000 mBTC = 100,000,000 satoshi. The exchange rate as of writing is about 846 satoshis = 1 USD or 982 satoshis = 1 EUR. The current usage is thusly:
- Transaction fees on the main network are measured in sats/B (satoshis per [virtual] byte [of transaction size]).
- Transactions on the Lightning Network, a lower-fee instant payment network that runs on top of the ordinary Bitcoin network, are all denominated in respect to satoshis. So a payment on the Lightning Network is traditionally regarded as, for example, 50,000 satoshis rather than 0.5 mBTC or 0.0005 BTC. And the fee on that payment is usually in the range of 50-100 satoshis.
- Goods sold on the Lightning Network are typically priced in satoshis.
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1 dollar is currently worth .0000084 BTC; or, 840 Satoshi if zeros scare you.
What if foreign words scare me more?
If that’s the biggest complaint you have about it, it’s probably not that bad.
I don’t mind Bitcoin itself, but I do hate NFTs and pump and dump scams, obviously
Bitcoin is its own worst enemy. It’s deflationary, speculative, and largely interacted with by centralized entities. Those things means its unlikely to be successful as an actual currency; even one it hopes to be.
It’s one of the least bad things about it, and if not for approximately twelve thousand bad things about it, would be easily fixable.
Monkey brain no like small numbers. Monkey brain like big numbers.
But for real, Bitcoin was the first decentalized currency to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem. Its worth something because its transparent, unmutable, and the original digital currency. It was birthed via grassroot origins in depths of the housing crash. It calls out the Federal Reserve (and any other human institution that seeks to expand their money supply).
If you’re paying for small good (25-50$) you usually pay in “Satoshis” 0.00000001 BTC. If you convert it to dollars, 10 satoshis is 1 cent.
Things are often measured in mBTC or µBTC for this exact reason.
Just as you don’t measure the length of an ant in meters, you measure it in millimeters.
But you never see milliBTC or µBTC. Your post is literally the first time I see µBTC. No normal person knows how to type µ, let alone knowing what it means or how many eggs that buys. My crypto currency converter doesn’t even use µBTC.
mBTC and satoshis (10^-8) are more common indeed, but are used pretty much everywhere. It’s not 2015 anymore
