[HN Gopher] An embeddable and customizable fiat-to-crypto onramp
___________________________________________________________________
An embeddable and customizable fiat-to-crypto onramp
Author : dayve
Score : 107 points
Date : 2022-12-01 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stripe.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stripe.com)
| seydor wrote:
| The only such onramp i could trust would be localbitcoins or sth.
| Anything that involves online seems to be hacked and is spied by
| 100 different agencies. A bit too much when all you want to buy
| is vitamins.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| What would someone use this for, when fiat works everywhere?
| cle wrote:
| There are four "partners" mentioned in TFA, and it links to a
| list of many more.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I think it would be neat if I could pay 1 penny to read a
| single HN-linked NYT or WSJ article. But the entrenched payment
| processors refuse to give up their 5%+25cent cut or whatever.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It's even more expensive to use crypto. You would spend
| almost as much on gas/transaction fees as you would on a
| year's subscription.
| iskander wrote:
| You can check current prices here: https://l2fees.info/
|
| Sending any amount of ETH it costs between $0.01 (on the
| Loopring network) and $0.46 on the Ethereum mainnet (with
| the most popular layer 2 network, Arbitrum, costing $0.02).
|
| So not quite there to send 1c micropayments, especially
| since sending USDC would instead cost something like 2x-3x
| more, but not inconceivable that it might get there on
| newer layer 2 networks which do more aggressive batching
| (using proof techniques called STARKs and SNARKs).
|
| There are some other networks, such as Solana where
| transactions are effectively free (though even very small
| fractions of a cent add up for an algorithm):
| https://solanabeach.io/transactions
| acdha wrote:
| Don't forget to include the conversion fees. In the
| example shown in the blog post, it looks like using ETH
| to pay that $10 bill costs $1.63 vs. the $0.59 it would
| cost to use a credit card for the same transaction.
| iskander wrote:
| I think that's why USDC on an L2 is a better payment
| layer, especially if it's integrated into a payment app
| or a social site like Twitter
| gamblor956 wrote:
| So the defense to crypto being expensive to transact in
| is to...use another network on top of the crypto instead
| of the crypto I actually want to use.
|
| THIS IS WHY CRYPTO DID NOT TAKE OFF. It's too complicated
| and expensive to use for all of the supposed use case;
| it's objectively worse than comparable fiat options.
| iskander wrote:
| I send USDC on eth pretty frequently and for larger
| amounts find it more convenient than Venmo or Zelle. For
| smaller amounts it would only make sense if other people
| are already using L2s, which might happen through website
| integrations (or not).
| npc12345 wrote:
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| that would be great
| trh0awayman wrote:
| Xanadu is starting to sound more and more attractive these
| days
| wmf wrote:
| Xanadu was never real. The micropayment part was never even
| designed AFAIK let alone implemented.
| tootie wrote:
| The fees are closer to 3% or a bit under these days. And
| that's for a very robust and mature infrastructure, not just
| on the merchant side, but the buyer side. Credit cards do a
| lot more than just send payments, you get all the benefits of
| things like dispute resolution, rewards points and the
| bug/feature of spending money you don't have in hand. If you
| go to a fully-baked crypto payment provider like Coinbase,
| they still charge 1% for a far less sophisticated product.
| The cost of all the things that crypto doesn't do get shifted
| to consumers and merchants indirectly.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| >What would someone use this for, when fiat works everywhere?
|
| For the same reason some people line to use linux when windows
| works everywhere. Actual technical use cases, ideology, and
| 'tinker-friendliness'
|
| 1) there are some use cases where it is better (typically when
| you want to do something that the state doesn't want you to do)
|
| 2) there are ideological reasons to prefer decentralized
| ownership of the financial system rather than assuming the
| state can be responsible with the dials and levers of that
| system
|
| 3) There are neat properties of crypto that are fun for
| tinkerers - money is programmable and you can do neat tinker-
| toy things with it like micropayments, fintech like
| collateralize loans and decentralized derivatives trading, dumb
| things and experiments like the old peepeth, etc.
|
| I think eventually if adoption is wide enough there will be
| society-altering implications inherent to crypto but for now I
| think it's those 3 things.
| dist1ll wrote:
| Finally someone brings up tinkering - a.k.a. the thing that
| hacking (and by extension HN) is supposed to be about.
| rahen wrote:
| Core developers of the Bitcoin ecosystem are also Linux
| hackers. Rusty Russel, C-lightning main developer was also
| the creator of iptables and a good part of the Linux TCP
| stack.
|
| Technical minded people showing hostility toward Bitcoin
| because of some obvious scammers is as unfathomable to me
| as showing hostility toward TCP/IP because of malwares.
| kreetx wrote:
| Don't forget Hal Finney :)
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| TCP/IP works quite beautifully for something designed
| decades ago, and actually solves real problems, though
| (like delivering your message to my teletype halfway
| across the globe). "Crypto" seems to be quite good at
| worsening air pollution in my country (which is already
| very bad) and not much else.
| rahen wrote:
| So does Bitcoin. For the first time in history, we have
| achieved sound money, something neither gold or fiat
| money have.
|
| https://miro.medium.com/max/720/1*rVgI62Reha0MnvUiWC0SXg.
| web...
|
| https://danhedl.medium.com/planting-bitcoin-sound-
| money-72e8...
|
| Of course, whether it's gold, fiat or cryptos, we'll have
| scammers and gullible people who fall for ponzis, but
| because money can be used to scam doesn't mean it's a
| scam itself.
| seydor wrote:
| you 're talking about the subset of people who use linux
| inside a virtualbox in windows.
|
| people who deal in pure crypto have no reason to use Stripe ,
| which goes contrary to the whole ideology and narrative of
| crypto.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Stripe doing this seems to help with neither 1, 2, nor 3.
| rvz wrote:
| > when fiat works everywhere?
|
| And in countries like Argentina, it doesn't work for them.
|
| Hence why this [0] and this [1] exists.
|
| [0] https://www.usebraintrust.com
|
| [1] https://stellar.org/moneygram
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| oh, I understand but had not known of that case until you
| mentioned it. thank you
| Aunche wrote:
| GP's comment is about Stripe's service, not cryptocurrency in
| general. Unless if Stripe really wants to set their money on
| fire, I doubt that they're going onramping any hyperinflating
| currency.
|
| If you're in a country with a weak currency, what you really
| want isn't crypto but rather a stable fiat, mainly the USD.
| Cryptocurrency only really helps the relatively privileged
| people in these countries to bypass currency controls.
| zubiaur wrote:
| I suspect you are being down-voted because most people are
| not familiar with currency controls, hyperinflation and price
| controls.
|
| The Argentinian peso is not worth the paper it's printed on.
| repomies69 wrote:
| I guess that people in US and other big countries with
| strong currencies don't really understand that there are
| smaller fiat currencies and these are actually used. I
| wonder how often you have to convert your USD even when
| traveling, last time I was visiting Africa I remember most
| just accepted USD or euros directly even though the
| countries had their own local currencies.
| irusensei wrote:
| I'm tired of pointing this and getting downvoted into
| oblivion. Most negative comments come from privileged
| people living in Western Europe or the western US. You can
| even guess which is which from the timestamp.
|
| In the end it is a soft family-friendly version of "stop
| being poor".
| irusensei wrote:
| It doesn't. You just think it does because you live (or even
| better, were born) in a privileged area of the planet.
| seydor wrote:
| Stripe isnt used much outside those areas
| treis wrote:
| Speaking from personal experience: "to buy drugs"
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| I hear this a lot. And I know it's true. But it seems like a
| bad use of crypto.
|
| I prefer to do crime in cash. Cash doesn't have a permanent
| public ledger associated with it. Even if that ledger is
| "zero-knowledge" - I'm betting my freedom on bullet proof
| math staying bullet proof for the statute of limitations.
|
| I understand that "at scale" cash may be a higher risk than
| crypto. But I'm not "at scale." Local, last-mile, cash
| transactions are preferable in nearly every way.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| If I were to put my game theory hat on, I'd take it one
| step further and say "crypto is good for crime" is a meme
| likely promoted by gov institutions.
|
| They get a criminal financial system committed to a
| permanent public ledger. Between deanonymization techniques
| and zero-days, its likely they view chains as an asset.
| They can use them to see how money is moving through
| criminal organizations. Best of all, it's likely they never
| have to reveal their hand (they are using chains for
| investigations) since they can use parallel construction
| once they know where to look.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| totally agree
| nonameiguess wrote:
| All the other comments here seem to be speaking strictly of
| illegal drugs that otherwise can't be obtained. There is
| also a market for things like semaglutide, HGH, any sort of
| anabolic steroid, ED drugs, certain types of stimulants and
| asthma meds, that are fairly trivial for any American to
| get a prescription for from an online clinic in the next
| half hour if they want, but they'll be charged extortionary
| prices. You can also buy these same things for 1/100th the
| price from well-established, well-known black market labs
| that will reimburse you for third-party blind purity
| testing, and nobody is ever going to arrest you for it,
| public ledger or not.
|
| Or take your chances handing over cash to some dude in an
| alley.
| DeRock wrote:
| How do you do cash payments over the internet? Thats the
| whole point, enabling illegal commerce over the internet.
| rahen wrote:
| Western Union.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i guess decades old Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex,
| Diners are all tokenized cash over the internet?
| treis wrote:
| Except that you are now committing your crime in a single
| jurisdiction and performing all elements of the crime at
| the same time. It makes it much more convenient for law
| enforcement to catch and prosecute you.
|
| And what's worse they have incentive to get you to roll on
| your dealer. So they're more likely to hammer you with
| charges to force you to take a deal to testify.
|
| Compare that with my situation. You need to prove that I
| received the package, associate that shipment to an order,
| that order to a payment, and that payment to me. It's a
| multi-jurisdictional effort that would require subpoenas
| and some sloppiness by my dealer.
|
| And to what end? All I know is that I sent bitcoin to an
| address and drugs showed up some time later. I have no idea
| who I paid, where they got the drugs, who mailed the
| package or anything useful at all.
| seydor wrote:
| which would be banned from day -1 so they can't
| repomies69 wrote:
| can you share more details pls
| googlryas wrote:
| My FedEx driver is a drug dealer and he don't even know it.
| treis wrote:
| (1) Install tor
|
| (2) Search reddit/internet for marketplace on tor
|
| (3) Be very sure that you have actually reached the
| marketplace. Lots of scammers MITM them and steal your
| crypto by changing the pay to wallet
|
| (4) Buy crypto (which kind depends on merchant & market
| place)
|
| (5) Place order on marketplace
|
| (6) Send crypto to the address they give you
|
| (7) Encrypt your shipping info with the merchants public
| key and send it to them
|
| (8) Drugs show up 1-2 weeks later
| m00dy wrote:
| The instructions above can get you pretty far. But before
| trying this, make sure that the crypto you are using
| supports zero-knowledge proof or zk-proof. This way, you
| make it harder for law enforcements to link all these
| things to your identity.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| There are examples on that page
|
| The simple answer is because there is existing demand, not
| because any of that demand matches any of your use cases
| voz_ wrote:
| Might as well add fiat-to-pork-belly-futures, when there's no
| real world use for crypto, its just a tradable commodity without
| the real world application of commodity goods.
| malthaus wrote:
| Given that the house of cards finally comes crashing down, a
| crypto-to-fiat offramp to get your money into safety would
| actually be more helpful.
|
| "Overall, we maintain fundamental optimism about how crypto can
| help to facilitate a more globally accessible financial services
| ecosystem."
|
| Sure; either that or the tasty 5% fee from the example flow?
| impulser_ wrote:
| Most exchange already provide crypto-to-fiat offramp.
|
| For example you can send cash from your Coinbase account to
| PayPal instantly with no charge. You can also do your bank, but
| obviously that will take a few days.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| I only follow this topic casually but the impression I get is
| that the existing cryptocurrency offramps are not dependable
| -- they're either nonfunctional under heavy load or
| intentionally shut down at the drop of a hat; there isn't an
| entity like the FDIC to step in to gracefully shut down
| failing institutions, and let customers get their money out
| ASAP.
|
| What would be once-per-decade anomalous events with real
| money seem like an everyday failure with cryptocurrency
| exchanges.
| p0pcult wrote:
| You should look into Coinbase, which seems to be the
| exception.
| wmf wrote:
| Everything you've said is true, and yet the probability
| that an exchange will fail during the hour it takes you to
| cash out is very small.
| katabora wrote:
| Impeccable timing
| jongjong wrote:
| This is great news. It's great that Stripe is willing to support
| decentralization, especially in the current environment. Fiat-to-
| crypto on-boarding has been a major pain point due to
| regulations. It has deprived an entire generation of
| opportunities to launch crypto-based businesses outside of the
| corporate and private equity sphere.
| reidjs wrote:
| Unclear if this is in production or if they are just seeing if
| it's viable to build, but it would be awesome if this works! I
| signed up for the release.
| edwinwee wrote:
| It's live! If you're in the US, you can try it out on the blog
| post: https://stripe.com/blog/crypto-onramp.
|
| A bunch of beta users went live already too--you can see them
| here: https://twitter.com/gponcin/status/1598363240634888193.
| paxys wrote:
| Users seamlessly buy crypto with USD and spend it.
|
| Merchants seamlessly convert crypto back to USD and cash it out.
|
| So what is the point of crypto again other than giving Stripe
| (and similar centralized providers) a needless cut?
| mattdesl wrote:
| Example: a centralized game distributor builds an in-game
| marketplace for certain assets and user-generated content--
| think skins, plugins, and game mods that might cost $1 each.
| The owner of the platform collects a small fee on each sale in
| crypto, allowing them to have funds that are outside the
| control of Stripe or even a bank (useful to avoid the regular
| "Stripe killed my business" posts[1]). The rest of the amount
| goes automatically to the content creator, unlike Apple's 45
| day settlement time for in-app purchases. Through on-chain
| contracts, these could even be split collaboratively, such as
| if a team builds a plugin and each member wants an equal % cut
| without pooling it into a single user's account. The owner and
| users benefit from the lack of payment processing fees (2-5% or
| up to 30% in app store models).
|
| All of this is interesting, but the system also needs an easy
| way to get "into" and "out of" the system for those that don't
| want to hold crypto (or for those that are just coming to the
| game without any crypto). Instead of forcing them through a
| shady CEX like FTX, they can just buy tokens through this
| Stripe embed.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32854528
| gnarbarian wrote:
| >All of this is interesting, but the system also needs an
| easy way to get "into" and "out of" the system for those that
| don't want to hold crypto (or for those that are just coming
| to the game without any crypto). Instead of forcing them
| through a shady CEX like FTX, they can just buy tokens
| through this Stripe embed.
|
| and unfortunately, we still have to rely on a company who can
| choose to deny you business for any reason they want (perhaps
| stripe doesn't like the addresses you are sending crypto to,
| for example).
|
| This could be an actual use case for central bank digital
| currencies though I expect the result will be more fine-
| grained control and micromanagement rather than less.
| mattdesl wrote:
| This is only for the on-ramp and off-ramp on that site. If
| a user is censored by Stripe, and very determined to get
| into the digital game economy, they could probably find a
| local crypto exchange that would handle on and off ramps.
| Once they are in the crypto system, which may already be
| the case for many users if we imagine these embeds are in
| more parts of the web than just niche game marketplaces,
| that censorship becomes very difficult.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| In addition to cross-border, fees can end up being much lower.
| Especially when there's multiple transactions or change of
| hands happening on the chain side.
| mrtksn wrote:
| It works in the US only and not all of it, Hawaii is
| excluded. You need to be not only US resident but be
| physically in the US[0].
|
| [0] https://support.link.co/questions/where-can-i-purchase-
| crypt...
| karaterobot wrote:
| The question was not "what is the point of this current
| implementation by Stripe", it was "what is the point of
| crypto".
| mrtksn wrote:
| I think they mean the point of crypto in this service,
| not the crypto in general
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| For now.
|
| Only the on-ramp side needs to be in the US. The off-ramp
| user can just use their exchange.
| EGreg wrote:
| The point of Web3 is smart contracts.
|
| Voting that you can trust
|
| Governance and managing Roles publicly
|
| Currencies with own monetary policy
|
| Contests and fair judging
|
| Fundraising
|
| Escrow
|
| https://community.qbix.com/t/why-do-we-need-web3-and-web5
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| Enabling fraud and embezzlement by the next generation of Sam
| Bankman-Fried's and ensuring that the pool of greater idiots
| and potential victims continues to expand?
| andirk wrote:
| Send fiat overseas and let me know how that goes. Crypto has
| plenty of issues but calling people who use a decentralized
| form of currency as "idiots" doesn't paint you as the
| sharpest tool in the shed.
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| I live in the UK. I can send money instantly anywhere in
| the EU for nothing via SEPA and frequently do. That covers
| 28 countries. If I do want to send money to someone in
| another country I can use paypal, or for larger sums, one
| of the myriad international wire services that are
| regulated by the FCA and where I have recourse if something
| goes wrong.
| gburdell3 wrote:
| I hate crypto as much as the next guy, but try sending
| some money to Iran and see how well that goes. There's a
| legitimate use there for people with families in
| tumultuous countries.
| notch656a wrote:
| I've had domestic wires held up for days just to go
| through yet another KYC when wiring between two already
| KYC'd accounts. If the authorities decide to civil asset
| forfeiture it in the process, the recourse is to pour 10s
| of thousands in lawyers and just maybe get the money back
| after the legal process eats half of it and my life gets
| looked over by a fine tooth comb because some middle-aged
| fat belly government man who's entire self worth is how
| much he can seize without the decency of a criminal trial
| had his feelings hurt that the citizen had a minor win.
|
| So I don't think wire is necessarily a perfect
| substitute. There are different ways to get fucked and
| you have to decide which risk looks most palatable for
| each individual transaction. It's sort of a pick between
| a traditional finance system set up to fuck the little
| guy or the crypto landscape which is a fraud fest wild-
| west of living at your own peril.
| throwup wrote:
| A common refrain I hear in these threads is "I live in
| $COUNTRY and I trust their banking system". Do you think
| that's equally true for everyone on earth? Because if
| not, you're only explaining why it's not useful for you
| personally, and not why it's not useful in general.
| throwup wrote:
| I don't think this is targeted at traditional merchants who
| would want to convert anything to fiat. It is targeted at
| crypto companies that want to streamline user onboarding. The
| blog post lists 3 partners and they are all crypto companies.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to trust
| each other and have no recourse to fix issues post payment. The
| problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen between
| parties that don't trust each other.
|
| Therefore, this having a KYC probably narrows its use cases
| quite a bit. You won't be able to sell drugs, you won't be be
| able to collect ransomware payments.
|
| It work only in the US, which means its not good for
| international payments. Unbanked people either don't have money
| or keep their funds outside of the governments reach for tax or
| legal reasons, therefore not good for them too.
|
| What you can do? Maybe if you are so much and crypto and what
| to do transactions in crypto as an ideological performance,
| then this could be for you.
| meowkit wrote:
| > The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to
| trust each other and have no recourse to fix issues post
| payment.
|
| You trust random people on the street?
|
| This comment falls apart because your premise here is wrong.
| All trading parties (and the individuals that make them up)
| do NOT trust each other without shared history.
|
| Crypto as a base layer recognizes this - the base layer is
| supposed to be trustless with game theoretic rules to keep
| the system functional and secure.
|
| Layers on top of crypto can have all the rules and
| functionality you desire. That includes KYC, that includes
| reversing transactions, that includes wallet recovery through
| social multi sig mechanisms.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| > _You trust random people on the street?_
|
| I'm no crypto fan but this is a strange question. Yes,
| generally people trust each other on the street. If I were
| walking and someone dropped something, I would (at least
| attempt to) hand it back to them. Same as if I visit a new
| store, I generally trust the cashier or storeowner not to
| take my money and run.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > You trust random people on the street?
|
| All the time, no transaction is possible without trust. The
| crypto enables one sided trust, i.e. the payee doesn't have
| to trust anyone but the payer needs to trust that will
| receive whatever is promised.
|
| You pay your ransom with hope that the attackers will
| unlock your files, the attacker doesn't have to hope.
|
| When you build traditional system over crypto, you don't
| use crypto. Like exchanges basically being unregulated
| banks that might just disappear with your money. Your money
| is now gone because you wasn't using crypto, you were using
| an illegal service and you were paying with crypto and
| that's what crypto is good for.
| rt4mn wrote:
| > The problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen
| between parties that don't trust each other.
|
| This is patently untrue. When I buy something with
| cryptocurrency, its not because I don't trust the merchant or
| am doing something illegal, its because I care about my
| privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial
| transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the
| government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to
| buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other
| way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want
| to buy things online.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What did you bought?
| rt4mn wrote:
| Food, Electronics, web hosting, gifts, etc. you know.
| stuff. I'm normally a cash in person guy but sometimes
| I'm feeling lazy and just want to order a big box of
| candy and be pleasantly surprised and mildly guilty when
| it arrives.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What was the benefit of using crypto instead of a card or
| direct deposit etc?
| rt4mn wrote:
| > because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge
| list of my financial transactions available to
| visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want
| to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card
| with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a
| semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things
| online.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Looks like ideological to me, not a choice for practical
| reasons.
| chrisbaker98 wrote:
| I remember a few websites having "buy with Bitcoin" buttons
| circa 2015 but they all seem to have disappeared by now.
| What can you still you buy with cryptocurrency, except
| drugs or tickets to crypto conferences?
| colinsane wrote:
| from the privacy angle GP highlights, there are _loads_
| of VPS, VPN, and storage (e.g. backups) providers that
| accept a basket of cryptocurrencies.
|
| for physical products... it looks like Newegg still
| supports Bitcoin. overwhelmingly, the more tech-adjacent
| the product, the easier it is to find vendors that accept
| cryptocurrency.
| andirk wrote:
| I use it for my degenerate sports gambling. I also give
| it as gifts for first borns.
|
| If you invest in gold, you won't be able to even gamble
| with it. In fact, you won't even have any gold at all.
| You'll have a certificate from someone claiming that
| someone else has your gold stashed somewhere.
| manigandham wrote:
| You can buy real gold bars.
| notch656a wrote:
| If you want paper gold instead of real gold you should
| probably be holding gold mining company ownership
| instead.
| [deleted]
| m00dy wrote:
| usd for cross border payments is a problem and speaking frankly
| it is a hugeeeee problem. Crypto fixes this.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Isn't something like wise.com a much better option for that?
| You have to trust only a single company instead of multiple
| potentially sketchy exchanges, and you are not exposed to
| crypto currency fluctuations.
| valcron1000 wrote:
| As someone who uses Wise out of necesity: no, it's not
| better. Wise can freeze my account whenever they want. They
| can go out of business any day. Fees can change over time.
| Transfers can take a long time (ex. wire transfers can take
| several working days). Crypto is a far better solution in
| my experience.
| m00dy wrote:
| ok, usd is terrible for cross border micropayments
| djur wrote:
| Why is it a problem?
| m00dy wrote:
| SWIFT system is taking too much time...(slow)
|
| It is costly...(expensive)
|
| It is not for micro-transactions...
|
| You can get kicked out like Russia... (So, as a government,
| you cannot rely on it)
|
| As a government, you don't have a right to vote in decision
| making or government in SWIFT system. (not inclusive)
| mnahkies wrote:
| To elaborate on the sibling comment, my understanding of
| Wise's mechanism from having used it is something along the
| lines of:
|
| - they establish local accounts everywhere
|
| - a transfer is you send money locally to their account, and
| then they send money from another local account to your
| destination
|
| - they take some (small) mark-up over the actual rates
|
| - they aggregate the many smallish transactions to exchange
| with optimal rates and fees for themselves, and probably do a
| bunch of stuff around mitigating risk of having too much
| float in a particular currency
|
| It's a model that impressed me when I used it, relatively
| simple conceptually but solved a big pain point. Not sure
| that crypto adds much other than offloading risk (of exchange
| rate fluctuations) onto the person doing the transfer - I
| quite like that wise essentially bears that risk
| rvz wrote:
| There you go. For near instant, low fee, global cross-border
| payments the technology works for people in countries like
| Argentina, Nigeria, etc, and especially with stablecoins like
| USDC and that works _worldwide_. All the recipient needs is
| an internet connection and a wallet address or resolved
| wallet name like abcxyz.eth, or testing123.sol, for example.
|
| So yes, it does indeed fix it.
| gnarbarian wrote:
| post operation choke point Visa, and MasterCard have been
| increasingly making moral and political judgments on who is
| allowed to transact. Even when the transactions are perfectly
| legal.
|
| https://reclaimthenet.org/dick-masterson-new-project-2-maste...
|
| This is a potential way around these behaviors. but I assume it
| will eventually be blocked by visa and MasterCard simply by
| threatening to blacklist stripe as a payment processor.
| arcticbull wrote:
| What we actually need is federal regulation treating card
| networks as utilities that cannot discriminate against lawful
| transactions. We need payment network neutrality.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| What you're thinking of are _wire transfers._ We have that
| already. You can argue that they need to be made faster (I
| agree), but V and MA aren 't the reason why they're slow
| (banks being lazy and batching payments is).
|
| You may not like the logic, but the reason it was so easy
| for V and MA to cut porn is because the insane amount of
| porn chargebacks ("yeah I didn't make that purchase, it's
| fraud").
|
| Crypto is just a wasteful overcomplicated bad solution
| that's worse than wire transfers, so I agree, let's work on
| visa-like payments on different rails with no fraud
| protections (so that way consumers can choose when they pay
| for that protection, rather than you and me subsidizing
| people who regret buying porn).
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'm definitely not thinking of wire transfers, I'm
| thinking of credit cards. I want Visa and Mastercard to
| be required to process all legal payments. If that means
| certain classes of high-risk transactions have to be
| offered without certain protections, I think that's
| completely fair.
|
| > ... You can argue that they need to be made faster (I
| agree)
|
| Luckily that's already well under way. We should have RTP
| and FedNow next year.
|
| > ...rather than you and me subsidizing people who regret
| buying porn
|
| Good news! We're not, and at least in recent history we
| never were! :) Merchant acquirers charge high-risk
| merchants significantly more to cover chargeback risk.
| That risk isn't meaningfully transferred to your Costco
| run. While a Costco may pay 1-2% in interchange, your
| average adult video business may pay 10-12%. Sometimes
| more.
| notch656a wrote:
| That's an interesting take. The actual transfer is the
| one big upside I see of crypto over wire. And remember
| 'wire' is not a currency, we're comparing transfers here
| not the suitability of a currency ('wire' as an
| independent concept has none).
|
| I've done many wire transfers and many crypto transfers
| and the one consistent thing I've found is the crypto
| transfers are both cheaper and faster. If I could do
| crypto transfers with old school stable currency (not
| some cheesy stablecoin hoodwinker in the Bahamas) it'd be
| the holy grail.
| analognoise wrote:
| This is a way better solution than crypto charades/crypto
| shenanigans.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Sure, but then just use wire transfers?
|
| You may not like the logic, but the reason it was so easy for
| V and MA to cut porn is because the _insane_ amount of porn
| chargebacks ( "yeah I didn't make that purchase, it's
| fraud").
|
| A system without fraud protections (i.e. wires) is a much
| more efficient solution than a farm full of GPUs in Austin.
| meowkit wrote:
| >A system without fraud protections (i.e. wires) is a much
| more efficient solution
|
| The assumption here of efficiency by any metric is the
| wrong thinking for crypto. Energy/speed are being optimized
| for, but they are not the goals.
|
| Wires don't have composability. Blockchains do.
|
| https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/smart-
| contracts/comp...
| seydor wrote:
| How does Stripe sidestep this? Can people use VISA to pay
| pornhub through this portal? I dont think so , that would
| break Visa rules
| gnarbarian wrote:
| I'm thinking through a potential pessimistic scenario here
| so take this with a grain of salt.
|
| let's say a verboten but legal business embeds this widget
| on their website. a user then uses their visa credit card
| to exchange for cryptocurrency and make a purchase. I
| believe Visa would argue that stripe is laundering money
| through cryptocurrencies to get around high risk payment
| processing.
|
| Visa could demand all cryptocurrency addresses associated
| with stripes embedded widget and compare that against known
| blacklisted destination addresses. It would do so under the
| guise of preventing terrorism, child exploitation, and
| money laundering.
|
| stripe is huge so rather than immediately cutting them off
| as is what happened to new project 2, I believe they would
| give stripe an ultimatum of sorts to remove the
| functionality, or demand stripe prevent transactions to any
| of the vague/subjective categories of businesses deemed
| high risk.
|
| The latter would likely be impossible because a high risk
| business could generate a new address easily which would
| only later be blacklisted and associated with the business
| landing stripe in breach of the agreement.
| seydor wrote:
| at best, visa requires people who participate to upload
| their government ID for such stuff. Stripe is not that
| big for them to care
| woah wrote:
| Did you read the article?
| ignoramous wrote:
| > So what is the point of crypto again other than giving Stripe
| (and similar centralized providers) a needless cut?
|
| Access to BUSD, USDC, (shudder) USDT, DAI, CUSD for folks
| across the globe is a good enough reason [0] (right now, the
| Stripe on-ramp is US-only, but that needn't be the case)?
| Stripe did bootstrap an alt global payments network in
| Stellar.org, but that hasn't worked as expected, it'd seem?
| Stripe is wise to participate in the stable-coin business,
| which is a way better bet.
|
| MobileCoin, which is embed in every Signal installation, also
| has _Stellar_ -like features but it isn't mainstream, just yet.
| Meta's _Diem_ / _Libre_ had similar grandoise visions for an
| alt payments network given its very global, commerce-hungry
| Instagram and WhatsApp userbases, but for some reason, they
| never got the legal side of things over the line.
|
| [0] Ex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28770875
| beckingz wrote:
| Know Your Customer means that it won't work at scale because
| the government will shut it down.
| ignoramous wrote:
| I don't see any reason why global payments with stable
| coins and KYC are at odds. This is a long game. I can see
| why the governments may resist this, but I suspect not all
| countries would _disallow_ stable coin payouts and
| payments.
| notch656a wrote:
| It's going to be hilarious, after all the time spent
| world-wide to snuff out self-custodial bearer bonds and
| shares, if governments actually explicitly legitimize
| self-custody decentralized stable coins.
| halpmeh wrote:
| In the long-term, I can see a very real benefit to this. Credit
| card transaction fees are insanely expensive as they're
| typically charged at a percentage of the purchase. For
| instance, if I pay my rent online with a credit card, I am
| changed a $100 fee. If there was an easy way I could pay my
| rent with Eth, the transaction fee would be a lot lower. So I
| can see this working in the following way:
|
| 1) Stripe builds out the current functionality as a beta for
| accepting crypto payments.
|
| 2) Stripe lowers fees and expands the merchant base.
|
| 3) Stripe begins offering stable-coins on credit. Stripe is now
| Visa, but with way lower fees.
| pmalynin wrote:
| Depends on the gas fees though....that fee could easily be
| $150.
| halpmeh wrote:
| Transaction fees are currently $0.50. I doubt we'll see
| such high gas fees after switching to proof-of-stake.
| itake wrote:
| People bought or earned crypto 5+ years ago and want to spend
| it.
| paxys wrote:
| We are talking about a product that lets users buy crypto.
| Why would they people you mention need it?
| Animats wrote:
| This might have been a viable product in 2019. Today. no.
|
| Usually, you can't buy money with a credit card. That's a
| personal loan, and has higher rates. None of the major US banks
| allow buying crypto with a credit card.[1] Debit cards, yes.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/buy-crypto-
| with-...
| ilaksh wrote:
| The onboarding is only for Ethereum or Ethereum-based
| stablecoins?
| phlipski wrote:
| An embeddable and customizable fiat-to-ponzi onramp. Fixed the
| title!
| brainchild-adam wrote:
| I am both fascinated and confused by crypto currencies.
|
| The idea of a free-as-in-freedom, flexible, secure, and more
| democratic and independent payment system seems quite attractive.
|
| At the same time I seem to see mainly examples of high-to-extreme
| volatility, fraud, technical and regulatory exclusion and
| suppression, and a total lack of real-world practicality.
|
| I am quite sure my view is skewed.
|
| If you have used crypto currencies in real life, ideally for more
| than speculative investment, would you be willing to share (parts
| of) the experience? I'd be very curious to learn more about this
| part of the puzzle of crypto.
|
| How did you acquire crypto? What did you use it for? How did you
| feel about the transaction? Would you do it again?
|
| Or anything else you'd like to share for that matter.
| agentultra wrote:
| These ideas are all technological in nature and avoid thinking
| about what payment systems are: they're social constructs, not
| technological ones.
|
| The problem with crypto-as-payment network is that their
| central appeal is that they bypass all of the regulatory
| frameworks that protect every day people from money laundering
| and fraud; bypass sanctions, etc.
|
| As soon as they're subjected to the same regulation and
| oversight that other payment networks and money transmitters
| are... there's no point. As a network technology it's slow,
| inefficient, difficult to develop on and extend. And any
| organization set up to follow regulations that exist today
| would have to have reserves, charters, submit themselves to
| regular inspections, etc and... be exactly what we already
| have.
|
| Some people think by-passing international wire rails (SWIFT
| etc) is the big win: I can send money to friends/family in the
| global south without the fees/sanctions associated with such
| transfers in the regulated system. I would like to see that
| become a better experience for people in general but I don't
| think crypto and bypassing the state is the answer here. It's
| way more risky for a lot of reasons.
| colinsane wrote:
| > If you have used crypto currencies in real life, ideally for
| more than speculative investment, would you be willing to share
| (parts of) the experience? I'd be very curious to learn more
| about this part of the puzzle of crypto.
|
| > How did you acquire crypto? What did you use it for? How did
| you feel about the transaction? Would you do it again?
|
| i got some Bitcoin back in 2012-2013 when people would operate
| faucets. i realized most of those faucets worked by displaying
| ads and just giving users a cut of the ad revenue. i spun up my
| own faucet on the same principle and made a bit of $BTC that
| way. since the ads only pay for human impressions, i gated the
| faucet behind a captcha, but i got clever and wired that to an
| API where the captchas i showed my visitors were actually
| sourced from 3rd parties who wanted their own submitted
| captchas to be solved by a human and were willing to pay $ for
| that.
|
| i killed the whole thing a month later once i properly
| confronted the fact that i was enabling bulk spammers by doing
| this.
|
| since then, i've used crypto to purchase VPNs, shared data
| replication (i.e. i want to backup 1 TB of data offsite, and
| also i have 2 TB of free HDD capacity: i'll back up your data
| if you & a someone else backup my data), and the occasional
| donation to charity or "content creators". i used Sia/Siacoin
| for the storage bit, but the UX was a little weak and i've just
| gone back to Backblaze in the meantime -- will revisit the area
| at some future point. as for the donations bit: it's nice to be
| able to donate to a project anonymously so that it doesn't
| impact my relationship with the devs/artist/etc. even
| "independent" media outlets are in a weird place where the
| desire to keep advertisers causes a bit of self-censorship, but
| the authors don't want to paywall their work because that
| limits their audience; sponsorship (Patreon style) plays a role
| here, and enough people have been bitten by
| Paypal/Patreon/others that things like Bitcoin have a small
| foothold.
|
| i've also used cryptocurrencies to purchase medications before
| getting an official diagnosis, and then take these findings to
| my GP or a specialist and get proper prescriptions for whatever
| treatment worked best. it's generally faster and a bit more
| intuitive than working through the official healthcare system
| from start to finish, and people have so far been surprisingly
| receptive when i list my symptoms and then say "by the way i've
| tried medications X/Y/Z and had the following experiences with
| them: ...". make of that what you will.
| seydor wrote:
| crypto-to-crypto is low volatility. Seen from the other side of
| the hole, it's USD that's volatile.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| I had one customer ever want to pay for some hobbyist
| electronics kit using BTC. He worked for...a startup doing
| cryptocurrency processing :P
|
| Transaction went fine, I cashed out through Coinbase, didn't
| sit on it too long. It was not inconvenient. This was before
| BTC hashing efforts were consuming nation-state levels of
| electricity. I'd probably decline nowadays based on that alone.
| rahen wrote:
| It's KYC. Thanks but no thanks, I'll keep using DEXes...
| acdha wrote:
| KYC is a legal requirement. If you want cryptocurrency to be
| adopted, it needs to be legal to use. Even if it becomes cost
| competitive, most businesses aren't going to touch something
| which exposes them to risk of getting involved in a money
| laundering case.
| ajconway wrote:
| What about ZCash-like networks with anonymous transactions?
| rahen wrote:
| That's a privacy coin. It mostly attracts agorists, not
| businesses.
| rahen wrote:
| With fiat money, you can legally retrieve anonymous cash from
| an ATM if you choose so, without suspicion. Or likewise, you
| can reveal your identity for a transaction when appropriate.
| This should be the same with crypto.
|
| Let's see it this way: surveillance is needed and those who
| seek privacy may indeed conceal illegal activities. But I
| think we can agree not everyone is a criminal and if I have a
| right to privacy with cash, I should have the same right with
| cryptocurrencies.
| phatfish wrote:
| Paper cash is "analog" and local, crypto is digital and
| global. It's the equivalent of buying DVD copies off
| someone at a market stall vs a torrent site.
|
| Except with crypto you have the government after you
| directly for tax avoidance, money laundering and the
| prospect of $GovIssuedCurrency being sidelined. With
| torrents it's the MPAA sending lawyers after you.
|
| My feeling is if you can't do it anonymously with cash the
| government probably has a reason to be interested. What
| should happen is all businesses must be forced to accept
| cash transactions, I don't like then trend towards cash-
| free shops.
| p0pcult wrote:
| The KYC stuff goes hand in hand with regulation, which is
| important if you don't want all of crypto to be eaten alive by
| future FTXes and SBFs
| rglover wrote:
| That doesn't work when the guy running the operation is being
| glad-handed by politicians behind the scenes and given a cake
| walk instead of a perp walk.
| throwaway87274 wrote:
| KYC and "regulations" didn't do shit to prevent a fraud from
| laundering customer funds between business entities to gamble
| and try to save his failed hedge fund. That crime was pretty
| much crypto only in the sense it involved an exchange and
| they overleveraged themselves, but the actual crime was just
| straight fraud.
| p0pcult wrote:
| What financial regulations were FTX under the jurisdiction
| of, in the Bahamas? Did FTX require KYC (I honestly don't
| know)?
| cypress66 wrote:
| The fact that you don't even know if FTX had KYC shows
| how unfounded your former comment was.
|
| Yes, it had KYC. And FTX.us was under US jurisdiction.
| p0pcult wrote:
| You're reading into things I didn't say. I don't claim
| that KYC will protect people--I claim that the
| regulations that do protect people go hand in hand with
| KYC.
|
| Crypto as the libertarian dream of government-free
| "money" will never go beyond libertarians. Crypto as a
| broader-scale augment to existing financial systems? Who
| know? But that won't happen without KYC and regulation.
|
| Know who seems so far unaffected by this? Coinbase. The
| one exchange who has been operating entirely within US
| jurisdiction and laws; trying to be as bank-like as
| possible, following all the rules.
| throwaway87274 wrote:
| Binance has been doing better than Coinbase by a large
| margin, fwiw. Their US presence is probably not as strong
| as Coinbase, but by and large they are the #1 worldwide
| exchange. US regulations are not necessary and really are
| just a pain in the ass because everything the US
| government touches becomes inefficient beyond belief, it
| simply relies on the owners of the exchange not being
| incompetent & fraudulent.
| throwaway87274 wrote:
| Yeah, they were technically a Bahamas entity and fall
| under the jurisdiction of that country, technically, but
| likely under US jurisdiction as well in order to operate
| in the country. There's a whole really confusing business
| entity diagram I saw floating around somewhere, but can't
| find it offhand. But the way they were structured was
| obviously for tax havens and to blur their financial ties
| between entities. I'll be honest in that it goes above my
| head as I'm not deep into finance and regulations,
| however seeing statements about the level of fraud being
| unprecedented by the overseer of the Enron bankruptcy
| (who's overseeing FTX bankruptcy as well) is not very
| reassuring.
|
| And yes, they did require full human-verified KYC to
| access any exchange functionality. Actually that was a
| downside, because the day they filed Chapter 11, their
| site was compromised and who knows who potentially
| accessed the PII from all their customers in that mess.
| throwaway87274 wrote:
| But yeah, SBF was very much a proponent of increased
| regulations and worked closely with US politicians and
| the SEC. They were "legit" to public view, but behind the
| scenes was unprecedented financial incompetence and
| fraud. And to clarify, they definitely had a business
| presence in the US with their US site and that would fall
| under US jurisdiction. I thought of applying there
| because it seemed like a cool place to work but they were
| only hiring for their Chicago office at the time. Glad I
| dodged that bullet in retrospect
| pjkundert wrote:
| Nope: no amount of regulation fixes stupid.
|
| Personal responsibility to understand how things work?
| Unwelcome to most folks, but the only thing that works.
|
| If your institution is keeping their internal operations
| hidden (no provable compliance), then "regulation" is at best
| a delay of the inevitable corruption.
| p0pcult wrote:
| Vast majority of the complaints about crypto fall into two
| categories:
|
| -lawless: e.g., ponzi scheme, rug pulls, etc. -useless:
| "this is just a database"
|
| For crypto to be useful, both of these challenges need to
| be addressed; well-designed regulation certainly will help
| the former, and also its perception.
| rglover wrote:
| They're already addressed by Bitcoin (which has zero
| centralized team, marketing, or promotion of future
| "gains").
|
| "Crypto" (anything that isn't Bitcoin) is by design a way
| to run a legitimate ponzi scheme, primarily for VCs who
| realized it was easy money [1].
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob/status/15950598062
| 0064358...
| cypress66 wrote:
| That makes no sense. Ftx and Celsius had KYC and that didn't
| help at all in preventing them from stealing users money.
|
| In fact it shows how bad KYC is, because Celsius users
| transactions, funds, addresses etc were "leaked" in their
| bankurpcy filings.
| skybrian wrote:
| It would be interesting to know how Stripe sets exchange rates.
| They act as an exchange for many traditional currencies and now
| for cryptocurrencies, in both directions.
|
| To some extent they should be able to do this internally, when
| cash flows balance out.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Cut this shit out already.
| raiyu wrote:
| This is great, one of the annoying bits of doing anything in
| Crypto has been buying Crypto in the first place, this certainly
| makes the whole process easier. And since Stripe is handling the
| KYC portion it reduces the complexity tremendously on anyone
| building and Stripe is a trusted party so great on all accounts.
|
| Now ... if there was just a killer app that was actually useful
| ;)
| pjkundert wrote:
| Payment for:
|
| - software your government doesn't want you to have
|
| - services your government is rationing
|
| - goods your government doesn't feel you qualify for
|
| - remittances your government doesn't feel your relatives are
| entitled to
| k__ wrote:
| I used moonpay to onramp, which was surprisingly simple.
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