Visa approves Coinbase as Principal Member - big step for mass adoption?

[avikz]

The leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, has been approved as the very first “pure-play” crypto-related company to become a Visa principal member. Supposedly, this would allow the exchange to further improve its customer experience.

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/

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[OmegaStarScream]

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.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

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

[gentlemand]

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.

[FatFork]

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.

[seoincorporation]

The leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, has been approved as the very first “pure-play” crypto-related company to become a Visa principal member. Supposedly, this would allow the exchange to further improve its customer experience.

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/

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.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

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.

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.

[dothebeats]

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.

[FatFork]

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

Coinbase Card is available for customers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

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

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Already got one 

Coinbase VISA - I’m an early adopter, had it 3 weeks 

(Covering my name)

[Hydrogen]

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.

[MarioV]

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.

[20kevin20]

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.

[jossiel]

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.

[joinfree]

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.

[FAHRKERIM]

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

[serjent05]

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.

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

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

[gerica0613]

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.

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

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

[hatshepsut93]

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.

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.

[gentlemand]

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.