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.
also gnu taler should be next to bitcoin (ik not as widespread)
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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.
Crypto is still a scam.
And specifically bad for this.
Only way out is communism. Pick yoir flavor.
Bitcoin is not crypto
Wtf are you talking about??? Bitcoin is THE cryptocurrency.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?
I don’t know any crypto bros who aren’t also MAGA/libertarian/fascist
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 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.
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
well i am all here for it as i recently started to save money via crypto
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.
Yeah. They do such a good job of stopping nazis and csam.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
Also the trump admin did abolish finality of payments.
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.
Criminals-enabling is what they call VPNs, E2EE encrypted communication etc.
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.
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.
Say that any louder and it’ll be DOGEd overnight.
Nice but floundered. Call me when consumers and small businesses can use it.
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?
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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)
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.
This problem could be solved.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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/
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 ?
Lightning network exists too
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.
Thanks.
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
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.
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.
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?
yes I expect l2s to catch on in different ways and yes I hope that a lot of places like steam or whatever properly implement at least bitpay or something similar in house.
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.
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
what
Crypto grifters trying to capitalize on the payment processor censorship drama (by portraying it as pushing people towards crypto)
Which is funny because many crypto people don’t spend it like currency because to them it is another asset they hope rises in value like stocks to get rich like the early bitcoin holders. And it’s why many if they spend it go and rebuy the same amount to not get spenders remorse in the future spending what could have been a house on a video game.
Now I know the decentralized value of crypto and the tech is cool. Just more sick of the overall greedy culture around it of people wanting to get rich quick off it, but masquerading around as though they actually care about the tech or are anti-capitalist. When it really is just about trying to get rich.
Steam and itch have had to remove porn games because Mastercard and Visa don’t like them
Not even that. It was because a disingenuous psychopath raised a big stink to the payment processors that Steam and itch rely on. As long as they want to process payments they unfortunately need the companies and have to appease them. The best thing we could do is raise a bigger opposite stink.
I think the best thing we can do is create long-term alternatives. But I do think that the most reasonable, effective, productive thing we can do is to just collectively harass the credit card companies harder than some outspoken religious nuts do to prevent them from caving to censorship demands.
Yeah I don’t understand the meme
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
Crypto has its issues, but when used as an actual payment system, it’s a great alternative for online payments, and can give more privacy and anonymity if used correctly
Perhaps, but bitcoin isn’t exactly the best example of that.
Yes, I believe bitcoin is not a good crypto overall. It’s only the oldest and most famous one, but fails on many sides
except for the insane fluctuations in currency value and the immense inefficiency of the whole system and all the fraud even in “stable” coins and all the lack of regulation
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“Insane fluctuations in currency value”: Someone who makes most of their payments in crypto is likely doing it with a stablecoin, which is a cryptocurrency pegged 1-to-1 to a fiat currency, like the US dollar. So, no more wild fluctuations than the 10% decrease in value the USD has experienced over the past year. Speaking of which, the 100% increase in BTC value this past year certainly is wild, but I don’t think any of it’s holders would consider that a problem.
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“Immense inefficiency of the whole system”: If you consider the US military to be the value security for the world’s dominant fiat currency [which you would be foolish not to] Proof of Work security is a large improvement on energy use. Proof of Stake security, which most stablecoins use these days, doesn’t really use any energy worth noting.
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“All the fraud”: Credit cards suffer far more fraud than crypto. Perhaps that’s a product of their wider adoption, but that’s where 99% of the fraud is happening.
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“The lack of regulation”: One of the hottest topics in US congress over the past several years, for both Biden and Trump regimes, has been crypto regulation. It’s a moving space right now but it seems myopic to call lack of regulation when it’s certainly going to be a moot point by 2028.
Sorry I don’t really consider myself to be some crypto warrior but I do really dislike these decade+ old off the cuff relatively low-information talking points. This is not how you argue against crypto, if you want a strong argument against crypto come at it from an explicitly anti-capitalist lens and accuse it of accelerating global financialization, which it is, like a gas can poured on a campfire. Go big or go home. If you don’t oppose capitalism and you’re just looking for a better money, crypto is not your boogeyman.
As someone who used to be (but no longer is) into crypto: These statements are all technically accurate to some degree, but are missing extremely important nuance.
The stablecoins part is accurate. Most purchases made in crypto are with stablecoins.
What’s missing here is the fact that these stablecoins are issued and controlled by private companies, or would be influenced by them otherwise. For example, Circle issues USDC, one of the most popular dollar stablecoins. (as well as EURC for Euros)
Circle holds real dollars in real bank accounts to back USDC. Circle can also freeze your balance and blacklist addresses, because they don’t want their banks to stop working with them. That’s it. They can unilaterally stop you from using your USDC.
Other mechanisms for keeping a stablecoin at $1, such as algorithmic pegs, failed spectacularly many times, the most famous of which being the Terra disaster.
Some other stablecoins use centralized coins as backing to then issue new coins. (e.g. 1 STABLECOIN is backed by 1 USDC, and can be exchanged freely) These coins could then be in trouble if they’re used enough for fraud, and Circle just blocks the coin itself from exchanging between itself and USDC to maintain the peg, making it worthless. This is an inherent risk. You either use a centralized platform less accountable than card companies, or you use a third party backed by that centralized asset that could face peg issues.
As for the inefficiency, it’s actually true that PoW is being phased out by most chains other than Bitcoin for PoS, which is incredibly energy efficient by comparison. Truly, it’s actually just pretty energy efficient. This isn’t missing much nuance, though you could argue that the financial mechanisms used by the systems running on top of a PoS consensus mechanisms are still complex in their own right.
For the fraud part, this is only half accurate. Fraud in crypto has been on the rise, and while it’s maintained itself at a level lower than credit card fraud, this is also because of the limited scope in which crypto operates. If crypto were to be used in more situations like credit cards are, then there would be more opportunities to be defrauded in the first place.
The majority of activity in crypto operates within speculative markets, protocols offering yield farming and staking, liquidity pooling, vote bribing, and an untold number of other mechanisms that exist. As such, scammers are mostly limited to tricking people in the field of investments.
If crypto was also used to pay your bills, for your purchases at the store, for every rideshare and food delivery app, and to pay friends back for dinner, then the scope of fraud becomes much larger.
Crypto does not have less fraud because it is fundamentally better at preventing it, crypto has less fraud because it’s used in less circumstances.
(There is also an argument to be made that many investments in crypto that don’t work out because of rugpulls, failed promises, unaccountable DAO leaders, etc, aren’t counted in fraud statistics, and that the number should be much higher)
Now, finally, as for regulation, it’s true that crypto has seen much more regulation than it used to have, but it’s only getting a bit stronger, and is nowhere near the sheer quantity of regulations that financial corporations have to follow, though some are technically not necessary for crypto as most crypto is already transparent via the blockchain’s very structure, and thus doesn’t require some of the transparency regulations corporations often follow.
Crypto still lags far behind, and there’s a degree to which it physically can’t be regulated in the first place. For example, you can’t regulate how the Uniswap exchange handles user funds, because the code for Uniswap has already been immutably deployed to its respective chains.
If a system is built on rejecting authority, there will always be a degree to which justifiable authority that could protect people becomes impossible by its very nature.
I’m not wholly against any possible use of crypto. If someone being, say, censored by payment processors is able to use crypto to send money home to their family, or pay for a thing the corporations currently deem to not be nice for their brand image, that’s all well and fine.
But as a whole, crypto is nowhere near being more beneficial than harmful.
Stronger argument is that deflationary currency is not something someone with an investment mind wants to spend. Which is why there is the same price fixation and attempts to hype up crypto like stocks because most people got into it not to spend it, but hold onto it like an asset. Its why people encourage rebuying crypto if you use it to buy something to replenish their balance to not regret having wasted what could be a house to get a slice of pizza.
Now sure there are stable coins but that is more used by investors to move assets around exchanges to then go and buy other crypto that they believe will return a profit or move into when they believe a dip is occuring so they can reenter later to expand their assests by buying low. Pretty much most crypto communities are highly fixated on price as opposed to treating it like currency that should be spent. It’s always this is the next big thing, it is going to moon, hodl, etc.
So I guess point is as much as people like to act like they are anticapitalist the culture of crypto once prices started going up is pursuit of capitalism and wealth hording. The values people claim to have was most present when crypto was new and people were giving it away, having fun spending it, and transacting it. But, then greed took over as people saw people becoming millionaires and billionaires for holding what they got early.
It’s ironic looking at it now given the state of dogecoin but that maintained the original spirit of crypto for a really long time before it too skyrocketed in price and got pulled into the same asset category.
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The lack of regulation is pretty much a goal. When a government controls or regulate a currency, your liberty is attacked.
Fraud? What are you talking about?
How is the system inefficient though? Compared to what? I don’t believe it’s fair to compare a decentralized system to a centralized one. Lemmy is much more expensive to run per user than Reddit for example
Fluctuations suck indeed, though they vary, it depends of the crypto
By inefficiency I just mean transactions per kWh. It’s insane how expensive cryptocurrencies can get.
Sadly true for PoW cryptos. Luckily, PoS exists, but it might not work with every crypto.
More kWh = more secured chain, that’s currently how it works. At this point blocks are going to be mined anyways, so let’s fill those blocks
The lack of regulation is pretty much a goal. When a government controls or regulate a currency, your liberty is attacked.
If your argument hinges on avoiding regulation, then it’s guaranteed to fail. Having oversight is not a bad thing.
The idea of positive self-regulation, especially of a currency in a capitalist system, is pure fantasy.
If you’re gonna pick a cryptocurrency, go with the one that actually keeps your identity encrypted, and is intentionally designed to make it unfeasible to farm with a huge crypto mining operation:
Monero.
