MasterCard will give merchants the ability to accept crypto payments this year

https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/why-mastercard-is-bringing-crypto-onto-our-network/

by bronak1 • 5 years ago

48 20 5 years ago

tal8d3• 5 years ago

To be completely clear, not all of today’s cryptocurrencies will be supported on our network ... What are we looking for?
...privacy and security of consumers’ information — the same level of security people have come to expect in their credit cards.

Well that is a low bar, so OK.

...strict compliance protocols will be needed, including Know Your Customer...

Woops, suddenly we aren't talking about a currency - we're talking about another licensed money transmitter.

To reach our network, crypto assets will need to offer the stability people need in a vehicle for spending, not investment.

So some kind of pre-mined and centralized token system... hmmm, I wonder which poison pill they're talking about... could it be anything besides ripple?

newsbinator• 5 years ago

One wouldn’t expect them to use Ripple, given the current SEC investigation.

It could be Stellar XLM, but I haven’t heard any specifics in Stellar groups.

tal8d3• 5 years ago

lol, it is oddly comforting to take a break for a few years and then come back to find that ripple is still the Wile E. Coyote of the space. Fingers crossed for some kind of Frankenstein ZuckBuck.

hi5eyes• 5 years ago

mastercard stablecoin

hulahoof• 5 years ago

Definitely a stablecoin, perhaps USDC

ilaksh3• 5 years ago

The point of cryptocurrency is that you don't need a private or government middleman.

My hope is that Ethereum 2.0 will become popular and there will be point of sale terminals that support it natively.

0x0082• 5 years ago

With everybody using online wallets this particular aspect of crypto is long gone.

tal8d3• 5 years ago

There are over 30 million BTC addresses with a balance. So if everyone used "online wallets", they'd either have to be intentionally leaving dust in their exchange wallets, or there is some Superman 3 salami slicing going on and the exchanges have very patiently held off on sweeping up their ill-gotten gains.

exabrial• 5 years ago

I really hope they don't choose Bitcoin or Ethereum. Something like Stellar XLM is not only environmentally responsible, the protocol settles in seconds rather than minutes.

Mindwipe• 5 years ago

Given they seem to have a KYC requirement they basically can't use Bitcon or Ethereum as far as I can see.

hggh• 5 years ago

You don't need fast settlements for most payments (cheaper than a car). Bitcoin (BTC) transactions used to be irreversible (the proof-of-work needed to double-spend was too much for such amounts), until they ruined it by implementing return-by-fee (RBF). Fortunately Bitcoin Cash (BCH) keeps the original implementation, usually less than a second zero-conf transactions and no RBF.

paddim8• 5 years ago

Or Mina protocol! Apparently their blockchain will always be 22kb. Much faster and smaller and scalable I think?

benjaminjosephw• 5 years ago

With 89 blockchain patents granted globally with an additional 285 blockchain applications pending worldwide, we already have one of the payments industry’s biggest blockchain patent portfolios to draw from to make these projects successful.

People were sold the crypto vision with decentralization as the key idea which heralded the end of an outdated an inefficient centralized system. Now it looks like the momentum behind that movement has been co-opted by those who see the potential to transform it into one which puts a whole lot more power into the hands of the brokers.

It's funny how the support of a group with one ideology has given credibility to the polar opposite ideology for people with very different objectives and principles.

bronak1• 5 years ago

I think it's just the nature of how corporations operate; patents are just another metric to measure success for them.

rapjr9• 5 years ago

Wall Streets dark pools may become blacker.

ilaksh3• 5 years ago

Well, they are definitely trying to capitalize on the momentum. But I would really describe it as trickery delaying the inevitable.

It is hard for me to believe that people will continue to be fooled into thinking that the way to do cryptocurrency transactions is to not do cryptocurrency transactions and instead give their cryptocurrency to a middleman who will continue charging middleman fees.

Especially when Ethereum 2.0 is fully implemented and deployed.. I think that people will finally understand that cryptocurrency is for cryptocurrency payments and that is an alternative to MasterCard and other middlemen.

dragonwriter2• 5 years ago

It is hard for me to believe that people will continue to be fooled into thinking that the way to do cryptocurrency transactions is to not do cryptocurrency transactions and instead give their cryptocurrency to a middleman who will continue charging middleman fees.

The whole mining network are middlemen who charge middleman fees, so you’re pretty much stuck with that, short of deciding to be a miner.

And the more currencies are in common use that aren’t locked in essentially exclusive jurisdictional domains, the more demand merchants and consumers will have for middlemen that make dealing with multiple of them and converting them at need as close to frictionless as possible. Sure, partisans of one crypto or another will be happy to transact directly in that crypto without an abstraction layer over multiple currencies, but they will be the exception, not the norm.

Crypto idealists may each see their favored coin as the way to get beyond traditional middlemen, but in reality each coin that reaches nontrivial use actually increases the demand for middlemen.

MasterCard will give merchants the ability to accept crypto payments this year

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