But it’s competing against “free and we’ll pay you to use it”.
The utility of such a card seems more “religious” than practical. Even in a world in which I get paid in Bitcoin, I want to convert that to USD at known, fixed rates. I don’t want to buy milk at randomly fluctuating spot prices. (And in a world in which I get paid in Bitcoin, I’m still not keeping my savings account in coinbase.)
The utility of such a card seems more “religious” than practical.
In the world of Bitcoin it’s closer to sacrilege. Coinbase is not exactly the most virtuous of players in Bitcoin:
Unlike other companies in the space, they’ve chosen to apply for software patents and not share them with a defensive commons-based patent pool.
They act as a middle-man in a system designed to get rid of middle-men.
Using their “VISA debit card” means that they act as a modern bank that controls your funds. The entire idea of Bitcoin is to give people control and ownership of their funds.
Their CEO has come out in support of Bitcoin XT (read: anti-decentralization). That was the last straw for me and I ended up shutting down my account with them.
But every purchase that implicitly converts to dollar means you’re selling bitcoin, and thereby devaluing it.
… if you’re selling bitcoin then that means someone’s buying bitcoin.
currency exchanges that happen instantly at the center of “the spread?” (is that the technical term?) don’t affect the price.
think of it this way: if you have some euros in your pocket and i have the equivalent in dollars in my pocket, and we trade, did that transaction affect the price of either currency? Clearly not. The situation is identical to as it was before, the only difference is who holds what currency.
what moves the price of a currency is supply/demand dynamics, and that’s about it. If anything, the fact that this one centralized company is willing to always hand anyone who asks dollars in exchange for bitcoins suggests they are betting that the price of Bitcoin will go up, so they want to amass a large supply of Bitcoins and get rid of their dollars (or, they might just be acting as an exchange, in which case they are not making any bet, and are just shuffling tokens around between people who are making bets, and in the process taking a fee in the form of either bitcoins or dollars or both). The people who sign up for their service, on the other hand, are making a different “bet” by choosing to get rid of their bitcoins in exchange for not dollars but whatever it is they buy. They are signaling that a vegan veggie burger is more important to them now than the bitcoins they just exchanged for it. The merchants, on the other hand, are making the same “bet” they usually do: they prefer the dollars to the wares they have.
TLDR: this service is mostly for a small number of people with more bitcoins than they know what to do with (similarly to how regular credit cards are for people who have more dollars than they know what to do with).
I think I want to get this, but I think I’d so rarely use it because I already have so many credit cards that I use for rewards points.
it’s only $10 – that’s fairly novelty priced.
But it’s competing against “free and we’ll pay you to use it”.
The utility of such a card seems more “religious” than practical. Even in a world in which I get paid in Bitcoin, I want to convert that to USD at known, fixed rates. I don’t want to buy milk at randomly fluctuating spot prices. (And in a world in which I get paid in Bitcoin, I’m still not keeping my savings account in coinbase.)
In the world of Bitcoin it’s closer to sacrilege. Coinbase is not exactly the most virtuous of players in Bitcoin:
Forgot to this one:
Then there was the “let’s have elections to change the protocol every few months” slides as part of the Classic push.
For me, the most interesting aspect of any cryptocoin is its potential for near complete privacy of money transfer in the digital world.
This pretty much defeats the purpose, to me.
Correct me if I’m wrong. But every purchase that implicitly converts to dollar means you’re selling bitcoin, and thereby devaluing it.
… if you’re selling bitcoin then that means someone’s buying bitcoin.
currency exchanges that happen instantly at the center of “the spread?” (is that the technical term?) don’t affect the price.
think of it this way: if you have some euros in your pocket and i have the equivalent in dollars in my pocket, and we trade, did that transaction affect the price of either currency? Clearly not. The situation is identical to as it was before, the only difference is who holds what currency.
what moves the price of a currency is supply/demand dynamics, and that’s about it. If anything, the fact that this one centralized company is willing to always hand anyone who asks dollars in exchange for bitcoins suggests they are betting that the price of Bitcoin will go up, so they want to amass a large supply of Bitcoins and get rid of their dollars (or, they might just be acting as an exchange, in which case they are not making any bet, and are just shuffling tokens around between people who are making bets, and in the process taking a fee in the form of either bitcoins or dollars or both). The people who sign up for their service, on the other hand, are making a different “bet” by choosing to get rid of their bitcoins in exchange for not dollars but whatever it is they buy. They are signaling that a vegan veggie burger is more important to them now than the bitcoins they just exchanged for it. The merchants, on the other hand, are making the same “bet” they usually do: they prefer the dollars to the wares they have.
TLDR: this service is mostly for a small number of people with more bitcoins than they know what to do with (similarly to how regular credit cards are for people who have more dollars than they know what to do with).