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Topic: Bitcoin can replace the credit card today - page 3. (Read 5171 times)

member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
Bitcoin cannot replace the credit card today, simply because of it's 10 minute transaction time. Impractical in real world situations especially since it takes a few seconds(1-3) for you to be able to transfer money on a credit card, unlike Bitcoins 10-40minute wait...

This.
sr. member
Activity: 350
Merit: 250
Confirmation speed, transactions per second, volatility, non-reversible payments, and absence of credit... not there yet.

I love the idea of non-reversible payments, but it represents a major transition for consumers. Consider the most successful Bitcoin markets, black market sites, and their reliance on escrow. Although reversible payments can be a source of fraud, they are also used for consumer protection. I see the fraud limiting aspect of non-reversible payments benefiting sellers more than buyers. Mass scamming is incredibly easy for merchants, in absence of consumer protection. FE (finalizing early: releasing funds from escrow before the exchange of goods or services has been completed) has been a cornerstone of fraud in many marketplaces.

Credit is also valued by many people. It is out of philosophical alignment with the Bitcoin community, but not the majority of consumers.

Affecting cultural change is just as vital as making technical improvements. Bitcoin also does not have a stellar reputation, yet, and that is part of the change that needs to occur.

Beyond just 'can Bitcoin replace X?', clearly explaining why Bitcoin is better than X is necessary. Libertarian platitudes do not hold widespread traction.

Does Bitcoin offer a better end-user experience than a Starbucks mobile payment app? Mass adoption includes those users.

I think Bitcoin has potential to be enormously successful---without immediate need to overthrow and replace alternate payment systems.
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001
Touchdown
Ripple.  Solved.

Have fun living with Google as your ultimate overlords. Surely, a company that admitted they spy on you daily...

Where can I donate more tin foil to your cause?   Grin
Is Ripple still going?  I thought it was exposed as an exploitable mess of IOUs?
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Ripple.  Solved.

Have fun living with Google as your ultimate overlords. Surely, a company that admitted they spy on you daily...

Where can I donate more tin foil to your cause?   Grin
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1001
Touchdown
Points you left out:

1. Credit card companies make money on interest, and can provide rewards programs to customers.  Bitcoins can't.  Advantage - Credit Cards.
You are paying for those rewards (and more!) indirectly i.e. the payment processing costs charged to the merchant and reflected in prices.  CC companies make money on interest but they also spend an enormous amount on infrastructure, staff, etc.  I think you're overestimating the value of the "rewards".

2. Credit cards allow someone to know how much money they can spend.  Bitcoin prices are volatile, and need to be converted back to USD to determine their value.  Advantage - credit cards.
True, but Bitcoin is still in its infancy.  The price will stabilise over time.  Agree that it's a chicken and egg scenario though.

3. Theft and fraud - Someone steals my credit card, and the bank is SOL as long as I report it when I notice it.  Someone steals BitCoins, the owner is SOL.  Advantage - credit cards.
There is a justice system, you know?  Go get your coins back.  Don't want to risk it, then only trade with reputable merchants or merchants that use escrow or indeed arrange your own escrow or insurance.  Your costs don't need to be added to my bill.

Points you're taking an awfully biased approach on.

...

2. Time of transaction - A pending transaction with a bank is slightly more reliable than a pending transaction with a random person.  For online purchases (excluding instantaneous downloads), it may not be an issue, but this would never work in retail stores, or for online products that people would instantly receive.
Double-spending is very difficult. I suspect most merchants will happily proceed with zero confirms for all but high value transactions if they can be certain an appropriate tx fee was paid).
My thoughts.

I'd add one very simple point: the CC companies make billions of dollars every year.  Think about how they do that.  They are ruthless.  Clue: it's by tricking you into thinking you get a good deal.

I remember in the UK a year or two ago we had CC companies intentionally changing the monthly due date for repayments to catch people out that had set up standing orders to pay their bills on time!
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.

Read Satoshi's original paper, chapter 7:

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Explains how to prune the blockchain, to about 5MB/year. (removing transaction hashes, only keeping the merkle root hash in the end)
Now we just have to wait for devs to implement it!

Bandwidth is another thing.. Come-from-beyond has a good point, but if internet speeds keep rising, I personally think by the time BTC gets to 10000transactions/s this will be high enough.
A lot of home connections are already able to easily keep up with that speed.
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
eidoo wallet
Points you left out:

1. Credit card companies make money on interest, and can provide rewards programs to customers.  Bitcoins can't.  Advantage - Credit Cards.

2. Credit cards allow someone to know how much money they can spend.  Bitcoin prices are volatile, and need to be converted back to USD to determine their value.  Advantage - credit cards.

3. Theft and fraud - Someone steals my credit card, and the bank is SOL as long as I report it when I notice it.  Someone steals BitCoins, the owner is SOL.  Advantage - credit cards.

Points you're taking an awfully biased approach on.

1. Your chargebacks point is horribly limited in scope.  As a consumer, I prefer the charge back over the non-charge back option.  Consumer Advantage - credit cards.  Business advantage - depends on whether or not the business is large enough to operate their own credit card and earn the interest/fees associated with this.

2. Time of transaction - A pending transaction with a bank is slightly more reliable than a pending transaction with a random person.  For online purchases (excluding instantaneous downloads), it may not be an issue, but this would never work in retail stores, or for online products that people would instantly receive.

That's why we need a Coin with 3 seconds transaction times...
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.

Why is this a problem?   Consumer flash memory devices that can hold 16G can be found for less than $10.  This eventually gets cheaper.   Mass produced devices can hold a ROM of the current history of the blockchain for even cheaper.
full member
Activity: 238
Merit: 109
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.

Pretty sure it can, can't it? All you need is current location of all the coins, you don't need the history of it, you just need the history to calculate the current location.
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
Points you left out:

1. Credit card companies make money on interest, and can provide rewards programs to customers.  Bitcoins can't.  Advantage - Credit Cards.

2. Credit cards allow someone to know how much money they can spend.  Bitcoin prices are volatile, and need to be converted back to USD to determine their value.  Advantage - credit cards.

3. Theft and fraud - Someone steals my credit card, and the bank is SOL as long as I report it when I notice it.  Someone steals BitCoins, the owner is SOL.  Advantage - credit cards.

Points you're taking an awfully biased approach on.

1. Your chargebacks point is horribly limited in scope.  As a consumer, I prefer the charge back over the non-charge back option.  Consumer Advantage - credit cards.  Business advantage - depends on whether or not the business is large enough to operate their own credit card and earn the interest/fees associated with this.

2. Time of transaction - A pending transaction with a bank is slightly more reliable than a pending transaction with a random person.  For online purchases (excluding instantaneous downloads), it may not be an issue, but this would never work in retail stores, or for online products that people would instantly receive.
sr. member
Activity: 417
Merit: 250
Ripple.  Solved.

Have fun living with Google as your ultimate overlords. Surely, a company that admitted they spy on you daily...
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
Small Red and Bad
I think you all might be forgetting a key word here??? CREDIT!!!!!!!


spend BTC now pay later? I dont think so.
This!
Maybe you should change the title to debit cards Smiley
sr. member
Activity: 350
Merit: 251
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.
What are you, living in 1995?

15 GB is not large. Any one of my 60 games on Steam are that size or bigger.
But it was about 2GB a year ago. At this rate, it will require a NAS with several dozen 4TB hard drives in RAID by the end of 2016.
hero member
Activity: 1582
Merit: 502
I think the BTC card is what Neo-Bee are trying to do.

If you deposit BTC in your wallet and it is available then when you swipe your card it only takes seconds (I am guessing).



legendary
Activity: 2142
Merit: 1010
Newbie
Seems ppl don't undestand blockchain size issue. The problem is bandwidth, not storage space. VISA processing volume (10'000 tps) requires 10'000 transaction/s * 200 bytes/transaction * 8 bit/byte = 15 Mbps connection, assuming 200 bytes per transaction, average transaction requires more bytes.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1000
https://youtu.be/PZm8TTLR2NU
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.
What are you, living in 1995?

15 GB is not large. Any one of my 60 games on Steam are that size or bigger.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1020
I've always just wondered why it can't be compressed at the very least.

The blockchain is already highly optimized.  Compression only is effective when there are patterns in the data, or data that is not important for the end result that can either be summarized or discarded.  I doubt there is much information in the blockchain that fits into either of those categories.
sr. member
Activity: 910
Merit: 302
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.

Delete 15gb of porn first.


  Grin Grin Grin
sr. member
Activity: 350
Merit: 251
The blockchain is already 15 GiB. Bitcoin can't replace credit cards if we don't solve this problem.

can't this be worked around by third party applications ? for example multibit.

Also services like bitpay etc seem to provide quick integration for merchants, without them having to worry about the size of the blockchain.
This solves the issue for end users, but exchanges, processors, miners, and power users will always need the blockchain.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
Ripple.  Solved.
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