I find the sheer volume of anger and hatred surrounding this and other related announcements completely unhinged. Why are so many people threatened by services that give their users options?
Some businesses in the UK have banks that say they will close their accounts if they accept cryptocurrency payments. Mine does! I would without hesitation lose my business bank account if I did, because I am a trifling small customer.
Stripe was safe and reputable, but now it is a place where you can accept cryptocurrencies.
Edit: see note below.
I'm not currently clearing payments via Stripe for my own business, but the way I understand it, it's now likely to mean increased scrutiny from my bank about those payments when I do.
I'm not sure if it has rolled out in the UK yet. But if it has, will my bank be clearly informed when a payout was *not* the result of a cryptocurrency transaction? I've not read that far yet.
Either way it's reputational damage hassle people do not need.
And before you ask: I am of course comfortable with that bank policy. Because cryptocurrency is consistently crime-adjacent and fraud-adjacent. And it's not like banks are that well-equipped at dealing with old-fashioned frauds that have been around a century, let alone new frauds that have been around mere days.
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Edit to add: apparently this document is not meant to communicate that cryptocurrency payments can be accepted. Which is not what the screenshots in the page do, IMO.
Though the fact that Stripe will allow NFT exchanges is more than enough to create reputational risk.
I still expect to have more difficulty when I add Stripe payments.
So are banks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering#Notable_cases
But I have to deal with my bank, don't I? And there is regulation to protect my business.
I would certainly want to switch banks if I started hearing complaints about me using Stripe.
But today Stripe changed its Twitter icon to an NFT, which is like a Belisha Beacon for idiocy, isn't it?
Why any business that is serious would -- in March 2022 -- produce publicity or support materials that mention being able to sell NFTs, I do not know.
It's very stupid.
I’d hedge my bets on this one, I’ve interacted extensively with the massive art market and NFTs really seem like a natural fit.
I don't know. I know a fair number of artists/musicians/photographers and I can tell you that among those artists, the impression of NFTs is almost universally negative.
I would bet that more people think NFT is close to a "giant, planet-killing scam", which is hyperbole but on the side of caution.
And what about when ETH2 goes live in some months and the main NFT chain moves to proof-of-stake? The “planet-killing” problem is already solved, that tech is going live this year. Seems like a fairly fragile criticism.
It's not, at all. I've heard that phrasing or similar (that it's a pyramid scheme, that cryptocurrencies are wasteful) from people who don't even know how to find HN.
In the photography world in particular, mentioning your NFT is likely to get you laughed out of any forum in which you bring it up.
IMO if you encounter any non-technical artist "excited" about NFTs, tell them to stay the hell away, or risk being seen a bad friend. I tell people I will not help them, that I am very happily uninterested, and urge them not to do it at all.
It would be irresponsible not to.
Fuck that, despite me being incredibly skeptical of NFTs I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge the fact that some of my non-technical artist friends have earned 6-7 figure amounts selling NFTs.
If an artist friend of mine sells an NFT I am going to struggle with continuing to see them as a friend, because it's morally bankrupt.
If a non-technical artist comes to you and asks for help selling an entirely phantom product to their presumably only-averagely-technically-aware fans, why would you get involved?
Anything that introduces non-technical users to crypto -- which is really the main function of NFT exchanges at this point -- is a moral hazard.
This is why I am so shocked to see Stripe involved with it.
It’s not like NFTs brought them a whole new audience, it’s just that their existing audience wanted NFTs.
You might think NFTs are worthless, but the exact same argument goes for easily reproduced physical works of art.
Are you serious? Are you joking?
Crypto right now, while being used by under 1% of population use, uses 40% of the energy of the global banking system[1].
In other words, if it were to increase to even 10% of the population using it, it would use over 4x the energy of the global banking system. If that increased to 50%, it would be 20x.
This would be somewhat mitigated in the case of Proof of Stake, but would simultaneously give major players in the market complete control of said market. Y'know, like a government.
1. Research report from Galaxy Digital, a decidedly pro-crypto source, page 8: https://docsend.com/view/adwmdeeyfvqwecj2