Bitcoin Forum

I know Coinbase is a centralized crypto wallet provider and bla bla but here are some facts to consider:
1. Coinbase is the first ever crypto company to manage such approval.
2. Visa manages a market cap worth $466 billion
3. Visa is the largest payment settlement provider in the world based on volume

Do you think it is a great step towards mass adoption? Will it be a positive or a negative?

News ref: https://cryptopotato.com/visa-approves-us-cryptocurrency-exchange-coinbase-as-principal-member/

We have to get services to accept bitcoin directly. I mean, if we're willing to give our identity away (KYC) and pay high fees (comparing debit cards to crypto), then why use bitcoin in the first place? Personally, I don't see this helping bitcoin in any way.

Sound great to me! Hopefully MasterCard and others will follow suit.

The deeper crypto companies get into partnerships with conventional finance the less likely the whole thing is to be ravaged by knee jerk laws. That's the best aspect of this news.

Mass adoption? Not really. It feels a bit like merchant adoption. That adds more convenience for existing customers rather than drawing new ones in.

Cryptocurrencies, like many other technologies that came before it, will take time for widespread adoption. Ordinary people simply don't understand how cryptocurrencies work or how they can improve their daily lives.

Things like this will help bring cryptocurrencies closer to the general population, which is ultimately good for the entire crypto world.

This is great news because with this means Coinbase will start delivering their Debit cards, with those cards we could may payments of products and services with bitcoin direct with our balance on Coinbase.

I agree--there's no anonymity and I don't think there's any advantage to this service that Visa is offering.  It's basically just a way for Visa (and probably Coinbase as well) to extract fees from their customers.  Same old story that's been going on since the beginning of credit cards, right?

Nice to see bitcoin gaining wider adoption--or possibly doing so--but I'm not sure this is going to catch on.

And I also agree that it would be so much better if merchants took bitcoin directly, but there's an obvious volatility risk involved, and I can understand why they wouldn't want to do that.  Even payment processors only convert bitcoin to fiat, which is what the merchant receives.  If I'm not mistaken, there are a few businesses that take crypto directly.  Overstock, Veldt Gold, and Protonmail are three of those, though I'm not sure if any of them still receive crypto directly.

Visa would probably just integrate bitcoin within their already established payment system if anything, same as to what Bitpay does. There's really not much into mass adoption into play here however it's good that big companies that were used to be enemies of cryptocurrency are starting to adopt crtpto companies within their businesses. The gap is being closed though we still aren't entirely sure as to how would giant companies play the crypto card out.

I believe they already do. According to a Coinbase blog, a Visa debit card is available to customers in 29 markets.

https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/other/coinbase-card-faq.html

Already got one  ;)

As an american citizen.

I would RATHER have legal access to crypto exchanges that allow trading with leverage. Europe has bitcoin ETFs I would rather have legal access to than a partnership between coinbase and visa.

This does nothing for me. I can't speak for others but I would guess this does nothing for the average crypto HODLer.

Its an attempt to further centralize US markets under coinbase. Under a consolidated monopoly which is likely to grow more exploitive, unfair and predatory over time.

Surely this fact will give impetus to make the crypto world known to more people and many will become familiar. The market will therefore grow, even if those who understand bitcoin for good will stay away from letting others interact with these tools.

AFAIK, Bitcoin was created to AVOID third parties.. right? It's meant to be trustless. So many people are taking these news as if they're positive to us. They're not, at least not for me.

If decentralized exchanges will ever be developed to the point where merchants can use them to let their customers pay in crypto and instantly swap them to fiat, that's what I call the possibility of a mass adoption.

Until then, we're gonna just be moving in a vicious circle where your only option is to go for third parties.

It is Visa which is a very popular company and is known for the services that it offers. I'll be positive with its name attachment to bitcoin and could result a positive effect in the future.

Speculations about its negative and positive effect are pretty normal in the beginning but we will see the actual impact of it.

I was very happy when I heard this news and i know we are going to see more crypto approvals and regulations in the upcoming years. Hopefully, VISA might integrate the use of cryptocurrencies not necessarily bitcoin but any workable currency unto its payment platform to be used. Can't wait to see this happen.

This does nothing good to crypto and violates the initial principles of Bitcoin. The only good we can extract from this - crypto related company is recognized by one of the supreme corporations, people will definately hear the word "cryptocurrency" more often

It won't hurt if another adoption occurs even though we all know that this is more likely to get the fee from Bitcoin clients.  I believe this is good news.  This acceptance may have a little hype to us crypto users but to those who are very fond of VISA and quite hesitant of Bitcoin might change their view into using or trying Bitcoin because of this news.   I can see this as a step for mass adoption though I am quite hesitant if this is a big step.


So this is more on mass awareness than mass adoption, right?

One goes hand in hand with the other. I mean, as you've put it right "those who are very fond of VISA and quite hesitant of Bitcoin might change their view". It's a matter of trust in some way, uninvolved people are more likely to listen to a huge transnational company than to a friend's opinion, for better or for worse

I don't see it happening anytime soon on any big scale - there's way too many problems for merchants. Price volatility, security requirements, managing wallets, dealing with regulations, unwanted attention from AML bodies - and if only few customers pay with crypto, it can be unprofitable to support it. So maybe these centralized processors can help services transiton to crypto payments more smoothly. Though there is a risk that they will choose to stay with them indefinitely.

That would no doubt be the vast preference of governments. If Coinbase became even more of a one stop shop than it already is that certainly makes their lives a whole lot easier in terms of tax and surveillance.

Maybe some day the only thing merchants will be allowed or willing to accept is Coinbase BTC credits and they'll probably love the idea. It's a combo of endorsement, clearing house, vault and hand holding for something they'll be forever a bit wary of.

Maybe for now, we dont have MANY establishment that accept bitcoin directly. Visa does ask KYC, this huge partnership proves that bitcoin will forward to becoming centralized.

I see the value of this as advertisement for bitcoin cause we all knew how huge VISA company around the globe.

Fundamental news has been all over us. How come there is nothing good to crypto this partnership will do? Yeah violates the bitcoin principle as decentralized but moving into mass adoption could be easier since one of the useful payment system is on their side already.

Coinbase is a company that gets bigger and therefore gets more attention from other big corporations.
Do I think a corporation like VISA cares about cryptocurrencies and mass Bitcoin adoption?Definitely NO.
Do I think that VISA wants more transaction fee revenue coming from crypto users?Definitely yes.
It's just corporations that want to partner in order to make more money.I doubt that VISA will ever help the crypto community by adopting crypto payments.VISA is a puppet of the "fiat banking" financial system.

From where do you guys come up with such theory. How can you relate this news to mass adoption. Mass adoption means implementing the technology in every human beings daily life. How will this work in implementation of Bitcoin technology.

Although I am not in favor of many central platforms, but unfortunately, the central system and confidence in the banks are still in control and therefore we notice that many people are deceived in many unknown platforms.

If this partnership will bear more predictions, then it is OK. Many need some time to move from absolute centralization. Do not forget that we took 30 years to forget the gold standard.

I have seen many decent projects such as AMON that have been trying to get the approval for years. So, getting to know that visa has given coinbase approval is a good indication that some crypto-based platforms with valid identity and very well registered might also be able to get the approval if they do not relent on their goal. Coinbase has been around for so long and it has emerge as one of the online wallet with great credibility. Almost 1/10 people new to crypto must have used coinbase in one way or the other.

It's surely not something for everyone, but it does work with Bitcoin (not some centralized token or whatever), so I think it's still a good step toward adoption. I think it's a big step because it means that one way or another Bitcoin can be recognized and supported. I think we should also consider the country. If this happened in Switzerland, I would not be thrilled, but the US policies on BTC are rather tough, so it's good to see some positive moves. Sure, it's centralization, KYC and stuff, but IMO it's still way better than nothing or even than Libra.

This is gonna be a good news because it might do big adoption in cryptocurrency since this visa debit card can be used when making transaction especially buying. It is good also for the community.
Coinbase is really a famous exchange and wallet. So there's no doubt that they can make a innovation like this. Let us support every project like this that will promote cryptocurrency to make the community bigger and gain a lot of users and investors.

Unfortunately when we are going to talk about the fee for the people with bitcoins trust me it is going to be very high , higher than the normal.
We are already paying a lot for transferring , I do not think we need to pay more , I am really not sure of the fact that it is going to be that effective.
To all the people already using it ....what are your thoughts. ?
Do you guys calculate the excess amount you are paying ?

This is a big step but  then again the fee should be made reasonable.

Because at times KYC does not matter and having a hold over a merchant is good.
Using a CC a times with an online vendor you do not 100% trust is not a bad thing.

If you are ordering something they know where you live anyway.

Most of the time yeah, paying with BTC is better.
Sometimes other ways are better.

Also a CC is useful for other things. (Hotel reservations / car rental / etc.)

-Dave

That's true. As for businesses, bitcoin is still too risky and there are still plenty of online merchants who are not ready to accept Bitcoin. Having a Visa prepaid card linked to instant crypto to fiat conversion gives you almost unlimited possibilities for online shopping. So, I think Coinbase is on the right track, but there is a lot more that needs to be done to get to the point where Bitcoin is easy to use in everyday life.

That's a credit card you need for that stuff. I'd be utterly amazed if Coinbase ever issue one of those. It'll only ever be debit cards.



This is a pretty neat excuse for Coinbase to ignore lightning networks, that's if they ever actually get anywhere. They can say there's no reason to bother with it when they have a card that can plug in to the existing system.

That may be true, but I think there is still plenty of room for LN as a better alternative. Coinbase fees will likely be incomparable with lightning network.

That could be very useful for all those shopaholics who hold coins on Coinbase and want to spend some without withdrawal fees. I wonder what the fees for using the card will be. If they could just make it like the banks do, that if you make x number of payments every month there's no fee, that could be worth it. Otherwise I'd rather spend my fiat and keep holding BTC if they charge me 1% or something each time I pay with BTC and to do it I'll have to keep my coins on a centralized exchange all the time.

Coinbase issues Visa debit cards right now. The fee on expenditure is 2.5% which is the highest among the piddling choice out there. If Bitcoin withdrawal fees reach and stick around that level there'll be plenty of moaning far and wide.

We shouldn't look at it at face value. Because in that way even BitPay is a bad thing since the BTC gets sold right away.

The more possibilities exist to use your bitcoin in everyday life the bigger the odds are merchants are going to start accepting bitcoin directly.
Usability - Adoption

Bitpay gives merchants the opportunity to choose what ratio of coinage they keep. They said some of them keep a significant proportion.

People who provide services or have massive margins will be more capable of accepting it directly. Those that have fiat supply chains will find it a much harder and more lengthy process.

That's true, but as I said the biggest upside is usability.
The average person down the street will care whether he can spend the BTC at a local grocery store or not.
Mainstream people aren't as tech-savy as the average bitcoiner and general usability is necessary for mainstream adoption.
Once average folks can use bitcoin and get into bitcoin, it's a matter of time when merchants are going to cut out the middleman and his fee.

Can't speak to the car rental for everyplace (I use a card that covers insurance) [dollar takes them see below] but for hotels the BitPay card works fine.
It also works fine for airline tickets.

I did DefCon a few years ago with nothing but BTC except for the rental car.
Hotel -> hotels.com giftcard purchased with BTC through egifter
Hotel -> Card to cover charges bitpay
Flight -> Delta Gift Card through I don't remember where
Cash in LV -> 1 face to face trade and 1 ATM

The next year I actually had put a fuckton of cash on the BitPay card for a deal that went bad so I paid for the hotel with it since it was sitting there anyway.

So as a debit card it works.

Dollar rent a car takes debit:
https://www.dollar.com/DaveRamsey/main.aspx?utm_campaign=d_2019_Ramsey_&utm_krxconf=s52t74y3e&c3apidt=p42222141046&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwN3kgsXo5wIVkICfCh0N3QXTEAAYASAAEgJQTPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds (https://www.dollar.com/DaveRamsey/main.aspx?utm_campaign=d_2019_Ramsey_&utm_krxconf=s52t74y3e&c3apidt=p42222141046&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwN3kgsXo5wIVkICfCh0N3QXTEAAYASAAEgJQTPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)


-Dave

Hmm. Not bad. I've destroyed enough American hire cars to know their system works rather differently from the European version. Many companies here base their business model off taking your credit card and stacking massive charges on it for damage that never existed weeks after you've given it back.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to hire without a credit card in Europe. They take a monster deposit from it too and only release it when they've figured out what they're going to steal.

We can’t say exactly what will come of it. But I can assume that Visa does not miss the opportunity to try the cryptosphere (one of the first!). I think if Visa can do it, the process of accepting cryptocurrency in society will be greatly accelerated. I think this is very good news!

About [redacted because I'm old] years ago but lets just say Polaroids were a thing I was working retail and we had a visit from high up corporate people. Just a standard visit from high up in the company. After they were done one of them asked if there was a place nearby where he could get some Polaroid instant film. I mentioned that there was a 1hr photo place in the mall but they would have to go across to Sears to get Polaroid film and that there was a camera in back they he could use. Nope, they were leaving for the airport and corporate policy was that they took pictures of the rental car from every angle when it was returned WITH A PERSON from the rental company in EVERY shot to prove the condition of the car upon return.

So, yeah it happens here too.

Back to the Coinbase / Visa thing. The biggest opponents of it I think are going to be the lightning network people. Why use lightning when you can just swipe your Visa and get all the benefits of using the card.

-Dave

Here I believe that the best solution is to see what each side can get from this cooperation over time. Because for now, I see certain opportunities for each of the parties, but I do not fully understand the motivation of Visa in all these actions.

Well done, that gives you another avenue for spending but if you do not continuously purchase BTC eventually you will spend all your saved crypto and that is not a good thing for those wanting to hold but are tempted by the spending aspect.

I suppose we cannot win them all  ;D

A few years back, payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard were the most vocal critics of cryptocurrency. They were banning anyone who is even remotely associated with BTC usage. It is happy to see that their attitude towards Bitcoin has changed now. Perhaps they no longer view Bitcoin as a rival. I don't know whether this is a good news or a bad news for us.

People are already neck deep in credit and now people are getting exited about a Bitcoin exchange, partnering up with a large credit card company.  ::)  How many times do we have to emphasize that buying bitcoins with credit are not a good idea.

In 2017, when we had the big spike in the price, a lot of people jumped to use their credit cards to buy more bitcoins and they got burnt. The Bitcoin price dropped with +/- 80% and they were stuck with a large credit card balance that they had to re-pay and they were left with bitcoins that was only 20% of their value that they originally bought it at.  :o

                                    I guess people must go bankrupt, before they start to learn a lesson from the past.

You have this debit card for bitcoin, as it's not technically possible to take bitcoin on credit, and to get it you have to give your government issued ID. What's the difference between that and traditional credit cards, or PayPal? Both of them are requiring you to submit them. The way I see it is - this coinbase card is for another currency, that's not dollars, and can't be refunded. The non-refundability alone of this card gives it a huge disadvantage to other cards.

Then you have the issue of accepting coinbase cards from merchants. A lot of them don't even take American Express or Discover cards and some only even take one of MasterCard or Visa cards too. How can we expect Coinbase to have a chance in this market?


Yes but they don't need to know my signature, my date of birth, a picture of my face or my passport number (or whether I'm legally allowed to drive). This is practically what coinbase already has for us.

Coinbase cannot go mainstream because it's an exchange geared towards investors. It's not directed to bitcoin alone rather it features a whole bunch of cryptocurrencies that will mind-boggle an average person's head as finance-speak.

Well, as I can see, cryptocurrency cards are getting more and more popular nowadays. Personally, I'm happy about that, it's great to be able to pay with your crypto everywhere you want to. CoinDeal also has already launched their cryptocurrency debit cards, check it out:https://news.bitcoin.com/coindeal-launches-crypto-debit-card-with-great-benefits/ (https://news.bitcoin.com/coindeal-launches-crypto-debit-card-with-great-benefits/)

Are you sure? Visa and Mastercard are just payment settlement service providers. They don't have the power to ban anyone. These payment settlement providers are partnered with money exchangers and Banks. So banks have banned people from using banking service for being associated with bitcoin or other cryptos, but not these providers. Visa can suspend a bank but not an individual.

This is absolutely fake. There is no way the could ban anyone just for using cryptocurrency coz cryptocurrency isn't illegal at the first place.

Visa and Mastercard influences a lot they have everything for Service providers, Government, Commercial Solution, Suppliers, Tech. Partners etc. so there is no way Visa and Mastercard will ignore this very big thing in front of them, In fact they could lessen their work cost just for using this kind of method. Mass adoption is real especially when recognized by the leading golbal payment processor, Visa.

Plenty of banks have told their customers to go away and not come back because of crypto. It may not be illegal but it also isn't properly legislated for in many a place and many a legacy institution isn't going to want to dabble in a grey area.

The most significant case involving Visa is them shutting down Wavecrest's deal who issued cards for Xapo, Bitpay and many others. Wavecrest clearly weren't competent or carrying out their due diligence so the rug was pulled.

Coinbase sealed the deal because they must do enough to satisfy them.

It's been "the beginning" for so many years now. How long is this beginning? :D

There's plenty of history out there of companies adding cryptocurrencies as a payment method and then pulling back. Microsoft accepted Bitcoin as a method of payment years ago (IIRC, they removed it and it's not accepted anymore) and it didn't bring much of a change imo.

Bitcoin will probably never really become a true payment method, there's always going to be a third party we have to be linked to in order to pay with BTC, which is exactly the opposite of what BTC is meant to be..

Cryptocurrency playing in Visa is good enough for the mass to know what these currency means and what it can do. Visa has been a part of every one as globalization takes place. People move from one place to another with knowledge and merch with them. If they are able to hear about crypto, they can bring it to other people and other places. But I think for mass adoption, it would take time. As other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin for instance, will really take a lot of time to be able to be used truthfully for transactions especially for this type. If it became a success, surely Visa will continue its processes with crypto. But once it failed, I think it would be hard for crypto to stand up again unless promoted through testimonies and strong points by the government.

Plenty of companies already have cryptocurrency debit cards that are issued by Visa, I don't think that Coinbase becoming a principal member will do much for its position in the space.

Realistically, the Coinbase debit card will bring with it the high fees and strict KYC requirements that the Coinbase.com platform has, which will always leave it at a disadvantage against cheaper, more relaxed alternatives like the Revolut card and Crypto.com card.

Coinbase is for noobs, and few us here are complete noobs anymore.

There are indeed other options but most of those companies are flaky and many don't seem to last very long. I fully expect the other crypto cards I have to vanish at any moment. I well remember the way the Xapo and Bitpay cards stopped immediately and there were people with thousands of dollars on them with no other form of spending stuck in far off countries.

With this announcement I'd be fully confident in starting to run a few more aspects of my life through a Coinbase card if that was my thing.

i don't think it matters much whatever you decided to buy btc with because eventually you are gonna buy it with or without using a credit card, besides what would you prefer is use to buy btc? raw cash and walk up to a seller and say give me btc worth of $8k in your pocket! i don't think that sound very secure,
and again, back in 2017, people who bought btc with their credit card did not get burnt because they bought using credit card, it was because they bought at peak and when the market dump they got caught in the middle, it was the same for those who bought without credit.

Big step for the further centralization