> It is telling that the first purchases done via MoneyBadger on the Peach Payments platform were for spades at a suburban hardware store and light fittings
I'd love to see better privacy here. The company blogging about the specific items being purchased suggests they have detailed information about each purchase and are willing to share it (in a blog post). Or maybe an employee made the first purchases?
Reminds me of Zuck recently confessing that "people tell llama all kinds of personal things, and they use it for therapy" (paraphrasing). They read your shit.
I mean crypto itself is only as anonymous as your most public link to your wallet too, which is one of the reasons I dislike it despite seeing the appeal of the idea. People like to compare it to cash, but the fact is every hundred dollar bill in circulation doesn't have a list of people's unique if anonymized handles who's touched it since it was printed. And that gets doubly problematic if you use... really any of the wallet managers out there, who now know every wallet address associated with not only your personal info, but likely bank info.
There are techniques for anonyminity in cryptocurrency such as zero-knowedge proofs implemented in cryptocurrencies like monero and zcash (and many others)
These techniques vary in their effectiveness and efficiency. If you look at a monero transaction for example it uses something like 10x the bandwidth and CPU power to verify vs Bitcoin (which is already an inefficient network)
Some banknotes do have identifying markers, but I think you are right. Cash-like privacy should be the goal with all crypto
Relevant documentary (german, auto-translation probably an option) about bitcoin adoption in south africas townships, including pick'n'pay adoption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O0QpNbDLoQ (pick'n'pay part starting minute 18:01)
They are using the lightning network or some other "2nd layer" network that makes the transactions follow a different protocol that can include near instant settlement vs the 10 minutes per block and the payment only settles six blocks after it was written into the blockchain history. The protocol on the 2nd layer is different, but the units or tokens being transferred are indistinguishable from the tokens on the main blockchain, meaning the protocol for transferring to/from layer 1 to layer 2 do no allow for a coin to be minted out of thin air on the layer 2 protocol and then transferred to layer 1. It only allows for tokens minted on the main chain that were "transferred" to the 2nd layer to change hands between users (meaning addresses) on the 2nd layer.
There is a way to transfer a balance on the second layer back to the main chain, so as a merchant or user you can "withdraw" from the layer 2 to the main network whenever. There is a fee to transfer from the 1st layer to the second layer, and a fee to transfer back to the 1st layer, this is the regular fee that is imposed to do any transaction on the main chain since from the point of view of the bitcoin blockchain, "withdrawing" to a 2nd layer chain is just a special case of a regular transaction between two addresses on the main blockchain.
The very obvious downside that everyone knows and talks about is that the 2nd layer network is not at all decentralized, and as a user that "moves" tokens from the main layer to the second layer you are taking on the risk of the 2nd layer operator stealing all of your money.
You mean the not-bitcoin bolt-on that pretty much mandates using a 3rd party wallet to ensure always online status and has been bleeding capacity for the last few years?
It would be a travesty if society decides bitcoin is the defacto payment crypto, in part because you need to use a totally separate service in order to reasonably send bitcoin.
> It would be a travesty if society decides bitcoin is the defacto payment crypto, in part because you need to use a totally separate service in order to reasonably send bitcoin.
Agree completely. Was a fan of Bitcoin Cash when it split off in 2017! Better to have things on-chain.
Bitcoin (BTC) doesn't work at all for payments less than $100 (as by design) and so adding a second layer on to that only makes it MORE expensive, not less.
Like saying I can't afford my credit card fees so I'll just take a cash advance on my credit card, put the money in a bank account, then use a debit card for transactions. It makes no sense and would only work to trick a moron that doensn't understand how the system works.
Bitcoin (now called Bitcoin Cash) solved the problem 10+ years ago, then Blockstream hijacked the BTC GitHub repo and injected the SegWit and RBF code that killed the project.
This doesn't show the merchant confirming payment. Presumably you'd wait for that before leaving the restaurant. Sending payment is just the first step.
Lots of people who have relatively stable currencies (EUR, USD..) do not want to use bitcoin. What if bitcoin price goes down? How many extra steps is it to convert my USD to bitcoin and then back to USD? Do I only convert the 19.99 USD for my current purchase into bitcoin or do I put in more?
Do you solve these issues for customers? Or are you only targeting people who already are happy bitcoin wallet users? Are stablecoins part of your strategy?
Given how Visa,Mastercard,Paypal are seen as bad actors. Do you think you can capitalize on that, possibly partnering with Valve or something of that sort?
We as MoneyBadger create an invoice for the customer in their local currency e.g. USD. If they pay with Bitcoin Lightning, they have 3 minutes to complete the transaction at our offered exchange rate. We take on the risk of the price moving.
If they’re paying with one of the exchange wallets we support like Luno.com, VALR.com or Binance.com we do the same, and they can choose to pay with any currency supported by those wallets.
Refunds are processed at time of refund and are for the original amount in the currency of the invoice e.g. USD but at the exchange rate at the time of refunds.
It really all just works the same as paying with a credit card overseas would if you’re paying a EUR bill with USD funds.
Yeah, it seems kind of inconsistent. But the crypto page on peachpayments only mentions bitcoin https://www.peachpayments.com/payment-methods/cryptocurrency and moneybadger seems explicitly bitcoin: https://www.moneybadger.co.za/ ("Bitcoin payments made simple" "Accept Bitcoin or any crypto in-store or online, paid out in South African Rand or Bitcoin" "Pay with Bitcoin" "Accept Bitcoin" etc)
But I guess the answer is
> According to reported statistics, 68 percent of South Africans own or have bought Bitcoin – one of the highest adoption rates globally.
Why not just use Bitcoin Cash? Bitcoin was designed to compete directly with Visa's transaction rate and still can. I don't get why people don't simple use what works?
That still means the chain is growing by 28GB every single day, so 10TB a year.
That's arguably past the point where running a small node is viable, so I would argue you're well into the territory of losing some of the decentralisation properties you want in a cryptocurrency
10TB/yr is like $100-200/yr of hard drives and this price will continue to decrease. Compare this to the transaction fees for a small buisness accepting bitcoin and you will find that it is reasonable. Especially when you consider that reasonably efficient miners start at thousands of dollars.
small nodes don't matter. They can prune or shard the blockchain.
What matters is the economics of medium-sized nodes that are operated by small buisnesses. These are are the entities that have material reasons to run a full node (to accept transactions in an automated manner while preventing theft), and these are the entities that evaluate the rules of the cryptocurrency at the time of transaction.
I'd love to see better privacy here. The company blogging about the specific items being purchased suggests they have detailed information about each purchase and are willing to share it (in a blog post). Or maybe an employee made the first purchases?