Bitcoin Forum

A live update link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/jun/01/visa-outage-payment-chaos-after-card-network-crashes-live-updates

Basically, the Visa network is down in Europe & UK. I thought I should make this thread to avoid spam. Feel free to discussion anything regarding this subject here.

Frankly speaking even Bitcoin isn't ready yet to handle the visa transaction level. Every time the number of transactions increases bitcoin transaction fees skyrockets and the memory pool gets filled to the top. Till Bitcoin is ready to handle the global transactions we shouldn't be comparing it to visa.

Somehow I thought this topic would be more active.  It's safe to say the "war on cash" just took a big hit.  Hopefully this serves as a timely wake up call for all those who think centralised systems are safe.  People won't appreciate being pushed towards cashless payments if they can't trust the card provider.  Millions of people have just had their confidence in the establishment shaken.  

*obligatory meme*

https://i.imgflip.com/2bfptk.jpg (https://imgflip.com/i/2bfptk) (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator)

If we limit the discussion to the effect on the bitcoin:
A problem with Visa cards does not necessarily mean that people will stop using it or resort to alternatives such as Bitcoin "It's a technical problem as long as the money is safe, trust is there."
Perhaps the effect is indirect: Increase awareness of the use of blockchain in making payments, encouraging the financial system to accept Blockchain, increase confidence in bitcoin, and accept it seriously.

agreed, instead of an "I told you so" narrative, the focus should be on enlightening the public on ways this could be prevented or improved if blockchain is adopted.

Unfortunately, there might be another indirect effect.
Less knowledgeable people will turn away from any type digital payments and cling to cash, and usually, with those, it's pretty hard to explain things, all they say it "Look what happened!!!!".

And let's say for the sake of the discussion that the angry customers will switch to bitcoin...
Not all, not half of them but about 1 million, what will happen to the bitcoin network? December -February again, fees of 20$ and confirmation when god knows.

Unfortunately, without LN right now Bitcoin can't claim to be a reliable alternative for VISA.
Not for millions of users worldwide.

I think it will still be reliable if the ones who will try to use bitcoin as an alternative for VISA(for now) is less than 500,000 after all, only Europe and UK are affected by this. Let's also consider the fact that among those knowledgeable ones from the angry customers, some will switch to other alternatives to VISA(may it be a centralized one or not) and will not turn to bitcoin.

These people in european countries still use mostly cash and after the payday they have a trip to the ATM and withdraw their whole salary in cash and they (try to) use it in a way to still have some money before the next payday.
They use their smartphone to call the other people and use FB to upload photos and to like the content their friends share...
As long as they don't have a minimal financial education/knowledge in connection with digital money (bank account, money transfer, etc...) they won't think about bitcoin...

Events like this one, or the recent UK's TSB bank IT migration mega-failure, could shift (affected) public perception in favour of crypto and decentralisation. The problem is, although most have at least heard of Bitcoin, the average person is absolutely clueless about how Bitcoin works and what 'decentralisation' means. Shame, because this would be the great opportunity to get more people on-board.

So probably the only real, immediate effect (if any) is that the current bitcoin holders will appreciate it a little bit more.