BITCOIN

Section62

HCIMbtw said:

Why would retailers use BTC over standard GBP payment? better payment fee's is the most obvious reason for me. I'm not sure on the detail of visa/mastercard/amex rates for companies being paid, but there is big opportunity to disrupt here for crypto in general (not necessarily BTC). 

How can you assess it as a 'big opportunity' if you don't know the detail of real-world card charges?

The amount charged by the card companies/banks is trivial in comparison to the potential variation in value of bitcoin through the course of the day.

A few months ago the theme of this thread was Bitcoin is a store of value, not a method of paying for your coffee.  Now the discussion seems to have swung back to paying for coffees.  Has something happened to prompt that change of direction?

Malthusian

Section62 said:

A few months ago the theme of this thread was Bitcoin is a store of value, not a method of paying for your coffee.  Now the discussion seems to have swung back to paying for coffees.  Has something happened to prompt that change of direction?

It dumped 60% so swapping it for a coffee seems like less of a loss. If it was rocketing in value then it would be crazy to exchange BTC for coffee and miss out on future gains, rather than offloading some worthless fiat onto the barista. You'd be the guy who paid 10,000 BTC for a couple of pizzas all over again. 
This is of course the exact opposite of how successful long term investment works, but it's easy to say "you shouldn't sell at the bottom of the market, even if you need caffeine" when you're an MSE-reading long term investor. Most people think that it makes more sense to sell low and buy high, that's why we have crashes and bubbles.

DannyCarey

Section62 said:

HCIMbtw said:

Why would retailers use BTC over standard GBP payment? better payment fee's is the most obvious reason for me. I'm not sure on the detail of visa/mastercard/amex rates for companies being paid, but there is big opportunity to disrupt here for crypto in general (not necessarily BTC). 

How can you assess it as a 'big opportunity' if you don't know the detail of real-world card charges?

The amount charged by the card companies/banks is trivial in comparison to the potential variation in value of bitcoin through the course of the day.

A few months ago the theme of this thread was Bitcoin is a store of value, not a method of paying for your coffee.  Now the discussion seems to have swung back to paying for coffees.  Has something happened to prompt that change of direction?

Visa and Mastercard is at least 2.5% isn't it? Payments on lighting at something like "1 sat" i.e. fractions of a penny. Presumably if doing it through a 3rd party provider like Strike, then they will have a competitive fee, like 0.5 - 1%. In the end it neither matters if the shop owner takes Bitcoin or fiat currency, what matters to them is paying less of a merchant fee every time someone comes into their shop. 

It doesn't matter what people here attempt to define Bitcoin as.. you could say it is money that can be spent on milk, or held for the long term with a 13 year history of going up in value dramatically. Whether that continues to be as aggressive remains to be seen...

HCIMbtw

Section62 said:

HCIMbtw said:

Why would retailers use BTC over standard GBP payment? better payment fee's is the most obvious reason for me. I'm not sure on the detail of visa/mastercard/amex rates for companies being paid, but there is big opportunity to disrupt here for crypto in general (not necessarily BTC). 

How can you assess it as a 'big opportunity' if you don't know the detail of real-world card charges?

The amount charged by the card companies/banks is trivial in comparison to the potential variation in value of bitcoin through the course of the day.

A few months ago the theme of this thread was Bitcoin is a store of value, not a method of paying for your coffee.  Now the discussion seems to have swung back to paying for coffees.  Has something happened to prompt that change of direction?

They vary based on the contract for company I think and the format of card, they are either a % of transaction value either 1-3% or minimum transaction value, hence why you get shops applying 50p charge per card 

lots of articles about people moaning that visa have them over a barrel, paying thousands a year and for a small business that can be material... you even have the biggest companies in the world weighing into this as an issue - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/17/amazon-visa-resolve-credit-card-dispute-global-deal-payments - I don't need the 'detail' to know that it's an opportunity 

Visa market cap $500bn, to help one person pay another when software can do it for $0.. 

Also note my comments aren't bitcoin related, just generally about crypto opportunity, it is disruptive to traditional finance.. so you can conflate points around bitcoin and coffee, but your missing the point 

Regarding BTC, I absolutely see it as store of value. I think it can work as a payment service with stuff like the lightning network, that might happen but its not why I back it or how I see its use case...

Section62

DannyCarey said:

In the end it neither matters if the shop owner takes Bitcoin or fiat currency, what matters to them is paying less of a merchant fee every time someone comes into their shop.

HCIMbtw said:

They vary based on the contract for company I think and the format of card, they are either a % of transaction value either 1-3% or minimum transaction value, hence why you get shops applying 50p charge per card 

lots of articles about people moaning that visa have them over a barrel, paying thousands a year and for a small business that can be material... you even have the biggest companies in the world weighing into this as an issue - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/17/amazon-visa-resolve-credit-card-dispute-global-deal-payments - I don't need the 'detail' to know that it's an opportunity 

Visa market cap $500bn, to help one person pay another when software can do it for $0..

Paying less of a merchant fee isn't the most important thing.

Businesses pay the fees (not withstanding the grumbling) because they want as much certainty they will get paid for their goods/services with the least admin overhead.

Card payments through the Visa/Mastercard system represent a sweet spot between cost and certainty of getting paid the value of the goods/services.  Businesses also need reliability, so when a customer wants to pay they can pay.

Saving a transaction fee (I'd accept somewhere in the 1% to 3% range) doesn't make any sense if it means using an alternative system whose characteristics are such that by the end of the day the £1-equivalent you took in the morning could be worth 5, 10, 20, 50% less than when you accepted payment.

You can't know whether something is an opportunity without having a good understanding of the detail of the thing you aim to replace.  Lord Sugar would be excoriating of a candidate whose brilliant idea was based on a lack of understanding of how the current business arrangement works.

If there were a massive opportunity for some kind of alternative to Visa/Mastercard then the market would already be flooded with those alternatives and/or we'd be crushed in the retailer stampede to adopt crypto payments.

The reality is the current system - as expensive as it is - ticks the important boxes for the people using it.

HCIMbtw said:

Also note my comments aren't bitcoin related, just generally about crypto opportunity, it is disruptive to traditional finance.. so you can conflate points around bitcoin and coffee, but your missing the point

I wasn't missing the point. Paying for a coffee (or pizza) is a shorthand for utility.  Technology can't be disruptive if it doesn't have utility.

HCIMbtw

Section62 said:

DannyCarey said:

In the end it neither matters if the shop owner takes Bitcoin or fiat currency, what matters to them is paying less of a merchant fee every time someone comes into their shop.

HCIMbtw said:

They vary based on the contract for company I think and the format of card, they are either a % of transaction value either 1-3% or minimum transaction value, hence why you get shops applying 50p charge per card 

lots of articles about people moaning that visa have them over a barrel, paying thousands a year and for a small business that can be material... you even have the biggest companies in the world weighing into this as an issue - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/17/amazon-visa-resolve-credit-card-dispute-global-deal-payments - I don't need the 'detail' to know that it's an opportunity 

Visa market cap $500bn, to help one person pay another when software can do it for $0..

Paying less of a merchant fee isn't the most important thing.

Businesses pay the fees (not withstanding the grumbling) because they want as much certainty they will get paid for their goods/services with the least admin overhead.

Card payments through the Visa/Mastercard system represent a sweet spot between cost and certainty of getting paid the value of the goods/services.  Businesses also need reliability, so when a customer wants to pay they can pay.

Saving a transaction fee (I'd accept somewhere in the 1% to 3% range) doesn't make any sense if it means using an alternative system whose characteristics are such that by the end of the day the £1-equivalent you took in the morning could be worth 5, 10, 20, 50% less than when you accepted payment.

You can't know whether something is an opportunity without having a good understanding of the detail of the thing you aim to replace.  Lord Sugar would be excoriating of a candidate whose brilliant idea was based on a lack of understanding of how the current business arrangement works.

If there were a massive opportunity for some kind of alternative to Visa/Mastercard then the market would already be flooded with those alternatives and/or we'd be crushed in the retailer stampede to adopt crypto payments.

The reality is the current system - as expensive as it is - ticks the important boxes for the people using it.

HCIMbtw said:

Also note my comments aren't bitcoin related, just generally about crypto opportunity, it is disruptive to traditional finance.. so you can conflate points around bitcoin and coffee, but your missing the point

I wasn't missing the point. Paying for a coffee (or pizza) is a shorthand for utility.  Technology can't be disruptive if it doesn't have utility.

Cash is a very simple way to avoid merchant fees 

The transfer of crypto can essentially be the digital transfer of cash, keys in your wallet, no greater level of security required.. you have the keys you have the currency

This can happen with stable coins, pegged to currency and no volatility 

This could also theoretically happen with central bank digital currencies if a country was to create one 

Amazon made 485bn in turnover last year.. if 0.75% of that turnover was merchant fee's, that is $3.6bn in missed profit.. that can literally be circumvented with cryptography and coding 

"If there were a massive opportunity for some kind of alternative to Visa/Mastercard then the market would already be flooded with those alternatives and/or we'd be crushed in the retailer stampede to adopt crypto payments."

its almost like we are in early stages of adoption for a disruptive technology? oh wait... 

Adyinvestment

The biggest companies in the world are investing billions into blockchain

Section62

HCIMbtw said:

Cash is a very simple way to avoid merchant fees

Cash is also a very expensive way to accept payments.  Which is why organisations are rushing to find alternative methods of accepting money (e.g. cashless parking)

That is one of my points - if you focus on avoiding merchant fees you miss the bigger picture.  It can cost more to use an avoidance method than it does to just stump up the fees.

HCIMbtw said:

The transfer of crypto can essentially be the digital transfer of cash, keys in your wallet, no greater level of security required.. you have the keys you have the currency

This can happen with stable coins, pegged to currency and no volatility

This could also theoretically happen with central bank digital currencies if a country was to create one

So why not wait until a central bank launches a digital currency, rather than being an early adopter of a dead-end method? 

HCIMbtw said:

Amazon made 485bn in turnover last year.. if 0.75% of that turnover was merchant fee's, that is $3.6bn in missed profit.. that can literally be circumvented with cryptography and coding

If Amazon could literally make an extra $3.6bn a year with "cryptography and coding" then why didn't they do that last year?

Bitcoin has been around 13 years, if a disruptor like Amazon hasn't cracked it in that time, why not?

HCIMbtw said:

If there were a massive opportunity for some kind of alternative to Visa/Mastercard then the market would already be flooded with those alternatives and/or we'd be crushed in the retailer stampede to adopt crypto payments."

its almost like we are in early stages of adoption for a disruptive technology? oh wait...

Is 13 years still "early stages"?  If so, this isn't a very disruptive technology, is it?  Why so glacial?

Type_45

Canada has brought in limits to how much crypto citizens are allowed to have.

Canadian citizens are allowed as much BTC, BCH, ETH and LTC as they like (which might say, if one has discernment, that these coins are not considered a threat).

But other coins have restrictions.

Frequentlyhere

I've just been reading about Ethereum's forthcoming switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. Probably as a result, ETH is +7% this month whilst BTC is -8%. 

Now, longtime readers will know I'm deeply sceptical at present about the value of Crypto as a whole to society, so this isn't me bigging up ETH exactly, but if I was forced at gunpoint to invest in Crypto, it seems to me that Ethereum is actually making 'useful' progress in becoming significantly less environmentally damaging through this change. 

Moreover, It's actually being led by somebody, being changed, whilst BTC seems stuck exactly where it has been for a decade. As a result, It seems to me that ethereum is by far the better bet for ever evolving into anything of actual use, simply because it actually is significantly evolving whilst the only thing Bitcoin people ever tell me is about lightning network, which seems quite a flawed concept in itself.

Maybe it'll all go disastrously wrong when they do make the change, but I'd still say the capability of changing is a significant advantage. Despite the noise from bitcoin fans, I'm just not seeing any significant change/enhancements.

Agree? Disagree?