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highd | 8 years ago

Cash is cheaper for merchants, but people have only continued to use credit cards more. Further, if crypto becomes attractive from a cost perspective Visa will just be forced to bring down fees and stay competitive. It's pretty near impossible to imagine crypto with costs less than Visa's database.

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nradov|8 years ago

Cash isn't necessarily cheaper for merchants once you account for handling, security, and theft.

stordoff|8 years ago

There's a shop near me that has had its card payments out of commission for about a week. They are having to bring in staff for additional hours due to the fact that the transactions typically take longer and you have the cash to handle at end of day. I doubt it's a negligible additional cost.

smichel17|8 years ago

Credit cards are more convenient than cash. If crypto can be equally convenient (which I think it can -- see venmo), I imagine people will use it. Are the savings of centralization really enough that Visa will be able to stay competitive and profitable?

I don't doubt Visa will continue to be used, but I imagine it will be for fraud protection rather than cost.

knicholes|8 years ago

A wire transfer fee to China would cost me ~$45. Sending it in bitcoin would cost ~$17.

pishpash|8 years ago

While you take on a huge amount of risk. Congratulations on "saving" that $28.

Not to mention since you can't really spend bitcoins you'll have to pay more for conversions to national currencies on both ends.

highd|8 years ago

This is a great example of where crypto would be useful. But it's not the same as paying for pizza.

topmonk|8 years ago

Actually, even less than that. To get an avg sized txn sent within the next 14 hours it would cost:

226 * 100 * 0.0000001 * $17761 = $4.01

https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

tehlike|8 years ago

How much was the exchange difference?