The OP has as a point. Some credit cards
pay up to 2% unlimited cash back. How
do the credit companies do this? Simple,
they're paying you a large portion of the fee
that they are in turn charging merchants.
Merchants will have to be the ones to step
in here and offer Bitcoin discounts.
3 points of consolation however:
1. Many times these cashback or rewards
cards do come with annual fees.
2. The merchant is incentivized to Bitcoin
not only with zero merchant fees, but
the absense of nearly all other fees and costs,
including the dreaded chargebacks.
3. In an all price out war with merchants
using Bitcoin to complete against credit
cards, the merchants win.
Topic: BTC costs the consumer money - page 2. (Read 2695 times)
legendary
Activity: 1302
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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
So its an initial cost of buying Bitcoins that makes it more expensive? Am I understanding this right?
Indeed. If you are mr average and you want to buy a hamburger, you will use a card or cash. If you decide to buy the burger in BTC you need to buy BTC and pay fees for it. Those fees are high for mr average. We keep talking about unbanked people - ever tried a BTC ATM and seen the fees?
or.... mr average joe can accept BTC for goods or services for free and than spend the bitcoin for
or ... mr average joe can get a changetip, deposit it for free into a free wallet, and spend it for
or ... mr average joe can get setup a coinbase /circle account in a few minutes, ACH BTC for 1%, and spend it for
Yes, you could choose to use bitcoin wrong and overpay, but no one needs to.
I further leverage bitcoins volatility against fiat to get bigger discounts. I.E.. Buy Bitcoin at 200, if it is at 180 when I need to spend I use fiat, If it goes to 220 than use bitcoin. This way I always get between a 15-30% discount off of anything I buy on amazon.(Purse.io + leveraging volatility).
Consumers don't have to make an either or choice and can benefit greatly from bitcoin and keep their fiat debit cards/cash.
So its an initial cost of buying Bitcoins that makes it more expensive? Am I understanding this right?
Indeed. If you are mr average and you want to buy a hamburger, you will use a card or cash. If you decide to buy the burger in BTC you need to buy BTC and pay fees for it. Those fees are high for mr average. We keep talking about unbanked people - ever tried a BTC ATM and seen the fees?
So its an initial cost of buying Bitcoins that makes it more expensive? Am I understanding this right?
Indeed. If you are mr average and you want to buy a hamburger, you will use a card or cash. If you decide to buy the burger in BTC you need to buy BTC and pay fees for it. Those fees are high for mr average. We keep talking about unbanked people - ever tried a BTC ATM and seen the fees?
So its an initial cost of buying Bitcoins that makes it more expensive? Am I understanding this right?
If you buy BTC with a credit card . . .
- snip -
- snip -
Then you are "doing it wrong".
That's just a horrible idea. Please don't do that.
Since Bitcoin is a "digital cash", perhaps you should use a more similar comparison...
If you buy cash USD with a credit card, and then use those USD to purchase something, what fee will you pay when using your credit card to get the USD. In most cases it will be significantly more than 1.5%.
If you buy BTC with a credit card, the cost passes from the merchant to the consumer. Do you deny this?
Buy BTC with a credit card, to buy something with BTC?
That's just wrong
LOL
"“Credit cards pay people [a tiny fraction of their customer base] at 1.5% [while taking 3% from the retailer, and charging enormous fees and interest to the vast majority of their customer base]."
FTFY
FTFY
Wrong. It's actually: credit cards cost 3%-5%, Bitcoin costs 0%.
With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
The article assumes that merchants are not going to charge different prices for consumers using different payment methods. If this is the case then the article is correct because credit cards often give account holders some kind of reward points that are worth at least 1% of the amount spent. With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
What it fails to account for is the fact that over time merchants will likely want to offer discounts in order to get people to want to pay in bitcoin because it is cheaper for them to accept.
It is not fiat that is expensive for consumers, it is credit cards specifically. If there was a bitcoin credit card it would likely have similar high costs
What lengthy process? If I want to have a credit card, I have to submit a form and wait a few weeks before I get my credit card. If I want to buy BTC on an exchange, I have to submit a form and have to wait a few days before I can easily buy BTC there.
Unlike circle.com example in my post above, I was able to sign in, register, verify, and deposit to kraken with SEPA, all in two hours.
You are missing the point - it costs consumers 3-5% to actually buy the BTC with those cards.
Nonsense. If I still had fiat, I would convert it to BTC immediately (as I have done previously with most of my fiat) which costs like 0.35%.Besides, it's a retarded comparison: buying groceries with cards, or buying bitcoins with cards and then buying groceries with bitcoins. Yes, obviously the latter is more expensive, because the cards are still involved. You have to think the other way around man.
I, for one, am getting paid my monthly salary directly in Bitcoin. No need to mess with expensive, security-sensitive, slow, limited, region-restricted, inconvenient cards.
If you buy BTC with a credit card, the cost passes from the merchant to the consumer. Do you deny this?
Why would I buy BTC with a credit card?You didn't answer my question on how this numbers are calculated. Unless you do that, any discussion is pointless.
Most people are not you. Do you really expect most people to go through some lengthy process to get BTC? They will go to Circle.com and the like to buy from. Thus using cards the cost is passed to the consumer.
Please be open minded and think about how the average dud will buy BTC.
You are missing the point - it costs consumers 3-5% to actually buy the BTC with those cards.
Coinbase has over 1.9 million unique users , was easier to setup than paypal, and only charges 1% to purchase Bitcoin.
You are spreading FUD.
Most people are not you. Do you really expect most people to go through some lengthy process to get BTC? They will go to Circle.com and the like to buy from. Thus using cards the cost is passed to the consumer.
Please be open minded and think about how the average dud will buy BTC.
I went to circle.com, signed in, registered, verified phone. And then circle told me 'At this time, bank accounts and credit cards from your country cannot be linked to Circle. Our apologies for the inconvenience.'
Not much help there for this 'average dud'.
Wrong. It's actually: credit cards cost 3%-5%, Bitcoin costs 0%.
With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
You are missing the point - it costs consumers 3-5% to actually buy the BTC with those cards.
If you buy BTC with a credit card, the cost passes from the merchant to the consumer. Do you deny this?
Why would I buy BTC with a credit card?You didn't answer my question on how this numbers are calculated. Unless you do that, any discussion is pointless.
Most people are not you. Do you really expect most people to go through some lengthy process to get BTC? They will go to Circle.com and the like to buy from. Thus using cards the cost is passed to the consumer.
Please be open minded and think about how the average dud will buy BTC.
Wrong. It's actually: credit cards cost 3%-5%, Bitcoin costs 0%.
With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
With Bitcoin, I can pay money virtually for free. Both online and offline.
With credit cards, however, first I have to convert BTC to EUR or USD (costing 0.5-1%), then I have to get a credit card (costing me x amount per year), and on top of that I'm even paying ridiculous credit card fees of another 1-3% (obviously, merchants ain't paying for that themselves).
Then there's something else: by using fiat money, you keep supporting a system that is (hyper-)inflationary by definition. My money will automatically decrease a few % every year, by the very nature of fiat money and the way it comes into existence. Even though I may not see my bank account's balance dwindle, my purchasing power does.
Fiat is VERY bad and expensive for consumers.
i pay my credit card (without debt autorisation) ... 50 euros per year.
that ... it's fraud for me (or mafia system).
that ... it's fraud for me (or mafia system).
If you buy BTC with a credit card, the cost passes from the merchant to the consumer. Do you deny this?
Why would I buy BTC with a credit card?You didn't answer my question on how this numbers are calculated. Unless you do that, any discussion is pointless.
If you buy BTC with a credit card, the cost passes from the merchant to the consumer. Do you deny this?
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