Bitcoin Forum

Many credit cards have 1% to 2% cash back on all purchases plus a $100 - $300 credit to your account after a minimum purchase amount in the first couple of months.  These are great incentives for people to get and use more creditcards.  Most Americans will have several credit cards in their pockets for different reasons, business, personal, gasoline, shopping, travel etc etc. 

What are the incentives for bitcoin.  When you purchase bitcoin on exchanges you get charged fees.  When you spend bitcoin on products and services you get charged a fee where as the bit credit card companies eat those costs in order to suck in more customers, community, network of users. 

I believe we need such incentives in the bitcoin world in order to accumulate more community and users.  I have no immediate ideas of how this will get done but I believe it is something to look into.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Why?

I don't think bitcoin and credit card should be considered in one category or be compared with each other since they are both present for a different purpose. For me both does have some service fee involve in it but bitcoin is considered as an asset while credit card is considered as liability. Also, in bitcoin, fee can be earned again as it increases its value in the long run.

Yes I agree! Bitcoin is digital currency that you can use for trading and even buying online. While credit card is something that you can use for now to buy something but later on you have to pay it. Unlike in Bitcoin, it is like a currency that you can buy on the spot without paying it later. Plus, Bitcoin has a high value compare to the normal currencies that was used in credit cards.

Bitcoin and credit cards are two entirely different things. One is a currency, the other is a service.

There is nothing to stop companies in the future issuing bitcoin/altcoin credit cards with similar rewards. There are also a number of altcoins that reward users for holding, such as NEO, XLM, KCS, COSS.

I understand what you are saying but I don't think we will see something like that in the near future. Maybe when bitcoin payments get popular, we might start seeing incentives for people to use bitcoin. Merchants will actually have incentives for using it, because the fees they will pay, will be less the those charged by banks. Also, don't forget that when you use credit cards, at least online, you are usually charged a fee as well, so bitcoin will still be better for online payments.

Most of bitcoin transaction is free but must pay block usually 0.001 btc but it good and better than bank in my opinion

Both operate on two different levels, credit cards allows you to buy now and pay later while bitcoin i think can only be use as instant payment.

I agree that merchants should somehow start to accept bitcoin (maybe using the Lightning Network in the future) but my concern is the lack of the regulation, that let the merchants accept bitcoin legally. I'm thinking a lot about the technical background of accepting bitcoin as a merchant, but unless something happens, merchants should end up receiving fiat at the end of the bitcoin payment process (in order to be able to include the payment into the book-keeping system). So this needs some kind of BitPay or similar service provider to agree on at least a basic service and let the merchant exchange the bitcoin (on the fly) for fiat. BitPay or others will replace the VISA and MasterCard in this case, so they will have the chance to ask for a fee for the service, which should be payed by the merchant, so from the merchant's point of view, the whole thing won't be much cheaper... It's OK that implementing a bitcoin payment system (and a Bitcoin accepted here sticker) will generate some new customers to the business, but on the long run, there should be something to let the merchants keep the bitcoins and use them later on as the business needs liquidity...

They do have a 1% to 2% chargeback plus a lot of incentives but do they have people making a huge profit by holding their money in their credit card, whereas in Bitcoin we have seen countless people's stories who made a lot by having Bitcoin in their wallet.

I agree with you,bitcoin fees are not very high but still they are higher than credit cards. Probably lightning network is going to solve this problem but still merchants have to add bitcoin as a payment method so that people can use it. Right now there are only a very few shops that accept bitcoin and you cant live only by paying with bitcoin.
Not only the fees of bitcoin transactions are a problem because merchants will have to exchange that bitcoin into cash so there are other fees involved.

Bitcoin transaction is not free, but you have too pay a decent transaction fee when wan in fact very low in early days and it was even easy for the people to use bitcoin for purchasing small value items, but now with the increasing fee charges, some time the fee charge increase the basic value of the item which we are going to purchase using bitcoin.

I disagree, bitcoin is very different from credit cards, bitcoin is more suitable to enter the place of investment and trade, while credit card is a loan service that will be in the interest rate although sometimes it can be bonus shopping discount or other, I hope you understand.

If it does happen in a bitcoin purchase I am very happy in making a purchase, and whether it will happen like the purchase of token ico where the buyer yes a lot of bonuses.

Bitcoin and credit cards are two different things so its not really appropriate to compare but for the sake of just comparing the two I only see Bitcoin as investment since its value could pump up and dip anytime it wants as for the credit card I see it as liability  ;D Although we can use BTC now like a real money it couldn't give something like incentives for us since there no company that could give that as of the moment as far as I know. But who knows since merchants are adapting the Bitcoin technology now I am sure there will be a company that are able to handles such incentives in the future.

For drugs, sex and online gambling or pure speculation always use Bitcoin but for everything else
use VISA but if you love corporate banking then your going to love the Bitcoin lightning network.

The current lightning network map of Bob sending Alice (Cryptography terms) money sure look strange
Mr Tin Man and I am not sure we should look behind that curtain to see the wizard of Oz
https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/  


Yeah so where you living because where I live no pizza express is taking BTC, No mega store, no corner shop
so you must be living on the yellow brick road and buying too much weed because where I live that (weed) is closer to
cash than bitcoin and the dealers use to take BTC until the transaction fees cost four time more than a bag of weed.

I know, I need to move area to where coke becomes cash right !

Bitcoin has two advantages over credit cards:

1. The transaction is finalized quickly. A merchant is never sure if a credit card transaction will be reversed. Bitcoin protects merchants from fraud.
2. Transactions are cheaper (potentially). Merchants can give you a lower price than if you pay by credit card.

For example, the precious metals dealer APMEX accepts Bitcoin. If you pay by Bitcoin, you get the cash price and it is shipped immediately. If you use a credit card, you pay extra.

These are different things and these instruments have different aims. There's no need to explain about credit cards. But as for btc we must understand the purpose of this coin. First of all it's an investment but not a payment instrument so the incentives as in credit cards don't work. Secondly, btc has too long transactions(yes, they are safe) and fees are higher than using CC

They are very different to compare, while credit cards are used for purchases, bitcoin is an asset that is valued over time. Credit cards are not increase their value, they have a limit of purchases. Bitcoin can reach unimaginable limits.

I prefer Bitcoin
although there is nothing to manage, such as a centralized system,
but we can use Smart Contract to be more secure
besides with BTC life can be easier and simpler

No matter the incentive, I will never spend my coins unless there is really a need to. If I spend some today and the price goes up to new ATH at the end of the year, there would be no way to recover all that lost opportunity.

If I use credit card it's meant I borrow bank's money but use btc, we use ourselve money.

Bitcoin and credit card are two different things. There is something that cannot be applied to both. But yes, I agree that there should be some kind of reward. They can apply it when you are consistenly investing in btc, that is just my idea.

This is in two different categories, but Bitcoin transactions do trade better than credit cards and banks, which is why many like bitcoin.

using bitcoin is better than using a credit card because of the bitcoin has value it is high and its not the debt to any party because of the bitcoin as cash transaction and direct their money there or who have bitcoin can directly pay for and can be exchanged for cash the bitcoin.

You are right at your point that bitcoin payment credit card system is not much better than what the normal credit card have and also giving free cash back of 100-300$ for use in 2-3 months that is the truth but here you should not forget about the bitcoin positivity to use for the payment and also here more chances for you is that you can double your Money by doing nothing , if the price of the bitcoin get rise then surely your worth for the bitcoin credit card will increase and in that case you will be able to make buy more and more things than what you were able to buy with Simple credit card and also with the bitcoin Debit card everything remains open and transparent to see .
So here a type of things I seen that in both of these two have ease to access our money and both of them are advantageous at Thier place to use according to conditions .

Here is why I prefer bitcoins over credit cards:

1) You are right that as a payment medium there are rewards in case of credit cards while with bitcoins one has to incur a lot of fees. But you are forgetting that the value of bitcoins that you are holding in your wallet is increasing with time. Sometimes it becomes 3-4 times in a year which is impossible for money kept in banks.

2) Another benefit is that with credit cards, you are spending money that you do not have. In case of bitcoins, you are spending only what you have in your wallet.

We at Visa will not process transactions related to crypto-currencies, "said Visa President Alfred Kelly in an interview with CNBC on January 17, 2018