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Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by bornfreddy on Saturday July 19, 2025 @08:15AM (#44614885)
Say what you want about crypto, but it does solve this problem at least.
Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by munksbeer on Saturday July 19, 2025 @08:38AM (#44615009)
Yes, stable-coins do. But if you have a crypto where the entire point seems to be "it should be worth more tomorrow than today", then it is stupid to use it to transact in rather than to hoard.

On the other hand, stable-coins suffer the same problems as visa. They're centralised, and subject to zealous regulations.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by mritterhoff on Saturday July 19, 2025 @10:53AM (#44615956)
I expect my index funds to be worth more tomorrow than today (on average), but still manage to pay for things with USD.

If buying, selling and transacting fees are low enough, I don't see why bitcoin's (to pick one) value changes would matter much.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by munksbeer on Sunday July 20, 2025 @06:47AM (#44623836)
Well that's the point isn't it? You don't buy an index fund in order to transact in it.

On-ramp has costs, then transaction has costs. And in my country at least, selling crypto (which is what you're doing when you buy something with it) is a taxable transaction. So now I have to keep all my transactions and report them to HMRC each year if I do that.

It's not going to happen. If people wanted to transact in crypto, they'd be doing it by now, it has had more than enough time.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by Ferret7446 on Sunday July 20, 2025 @08:38PM (#44630747)
Well, people do transact in crypto, especially in sectors that face censorship from payment processors, like the currently mentioned Japanese porn games.
Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by msgodel on Sunday July 20, 2025 @08:39PM (#44630754)
I pay my VOIP bill in crypto. It's just easier and I usually pay a year or two at a time.

I've had to pay my DNS registration in crypto from time to time too. I don't know why but sometimes the anti-fraud AI at the bank gets triggered by my DNS provider and that's literally the only method I have for paying them.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by boredhedgehog on Saturday July 19, 2025 @03:52PM (#44618758)
> They're centralised, and subject to zealous regulations.

The currency wouldn't have to meet any particular definition of a stablecoin as long as it is inflationary. It could be exactly like Bitcoin but with a different mining algorithm.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by saurik on Sunday July 20, 2025 @09:43PM (#44631047)
If there merely exists anything which is more valuable tomorrow than today, it is also equally "stupid" to have cash instead of whatever that thing is... and like, that isn't even theoretical: you are generally encouraged to hold more random assets than cash (if you are allowed to and if you can handle the volatility, of course).

The reality is that, even if the stocks you own are going to the moon, if you need food or want a television, it isn't at all "stupid" to sell some of your hoard to buy stuff.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by x-complexity on Sunday July 20, 2025 @11:23PM (#44631503)
> On the other hand, stable-coins suffer the same problems as visa. They're centralised, and subject to zealous regulations.

Not all stablecoins are the same. There exists 2 main categories: Fiat-backed (as initially described), & collateral-backed.

(There also exists hybrid versions, but they're a combination of the 2, and as such will be covered by just mashing the 2 categories together.)

Fiat-backed stablecoins (USDC, USDT) are centralized: Their connection to external cash/bonds requires them to have an accountable name to be attached to.

Collateral-backed stablecoins (GHO, DAI/USDS) don't have to be centralized. A primitive form of this is a stablecoin (S) that can take in any other token as collateral and return $X amount of S stablecoins, up to a limit of (total_token_value * collateral_limit). However, it is known that this structure is inefficient capital-wise, when compared to fiat-backed stablecoins.

Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by aprilthird2021 on Saturday July 19, 2025 @12:02PM (#44616638)
It doesn't "solve" the problem, it's just not regulated the same way. If governments decided to extend the same regulations to crypto transactions, what recourse would a person have?
Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by tavavex on Saturday July 19, 2025 @12:54PM (#44617145)
I'm not some crypto evangelist, but as far as I know, crypto at its foundation is a lot less "watertight" in terms of ascertaining who is who. Your government could pass laws to pressure your local money-to-crypto exchange service into complying with whatever regulation is needed. But they can't force the entire network of crpyto transactions to have real names tied to accounts, demand reasons for payment, discriminate based on what's being paid for, etc. So, circumventing payment processors' "grassroots" self-moderation requires finding a way to bypass basically the entire payment pipeline. Circumventing a hypothetical highly-regulated crypto environment just requires finding a way to sneak your money into the system. And there will probably be foreign or grey market services that don't care about what your specific country thinks.
Re:Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to deli... by ric2b on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:50AM (#44684562)
The difference is that a government or company can't ban you from using a cryptocurrency. They can only make it more difficult by banning your access to certain exchanges or something similar.