A seamless on-ramp from a bank account to a crypto wallet will really change the way we pay for things online. I believe this on-ramp is coming with CBDCs.
Edit: HN is hopelessly anti Wayne Gretzky when it comes to crypto :D
Edit 2: I should have mentioned 'online'
I have to use my physical card maybe once every 2 months/once per quarter as an anti-fraud step. My phone contactless pays for everything, and anything it can't (like a car or whatever) I can do sub 2 hour but in practice instant bank to bank transfer.
Moving money instantly and without transaction costs is a decade plus ago solved problem
And the other commentor is right, using credit cards in any non-american country is super simple and completely without hassle. Same with sending money to anyone I know, I just need their email address or phone number. Happens in seconds, is completely safe and ensured and best of all, reversible if there is a mistake.
Where? Having lived in various cities in Europe, Asia and Australia, I can assure you, Visa and Wise and Remitly is still taking from half to 3 percent of all your transactions.
For real, who has issues paying with a CC at a register? Or contactless payments?
Don't crypto payments like bitcoin take a bit to go through? Like longer than you'd want someone tying up a cashier line?
Modern credit payments from a consumer standpoint is tap a card or a phone on a reader.
If you're claiming that there are vendors giving a 2.5% discount for using crypto for anything, you've got some evidence to produce.
P.S. It's not always 2.5%, either. Could be 1.5% at scale.
Or more, yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OxtTGml564 that said technically Visa will punish you by removing you from their network for doing this.
What? Why? Here in Europe, you can just pay with SEPA direct debit. You don't need credit cards or paper checks to pay for stuff, neither in the meatspace nor online. The only thing services like PayPal are good for is fraud protection (for both sides).
So much of what we see in the US financial industry and the workarounds created to bypass their bullshit - anything from "payday loan" places advancing money for a paycheck over paychecks or rent checks themselves to Bitcoin to bypass transaction fees - is just not an issue here. Our wages get automatically deposited into our bank accounts, rent gets either automatically sent by your bank or drafted by the lender's bank, and any kind of card transaction is capped at 0.2 (DC)/0.3%(CC) [1].
[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015...
I am fascinated by the ridiculous claims that this somehow makes things hard.
... and pay a lot of interest to their banks as a result. Here in Europe, we don't need to pay interest for credit cards or worry about paying CC bills on time to avoid them, as we have strong consumer protection laws in general and SEPA direct debits can be clawed back no-questions-asked for three days.
How many people have the financial discipline or the financial education? Banks are making a truckload of money on that not being the case.
... and when you talk about "experience", what do you mean here? I doubt there's a much slicker payment experience than Apple Pay when a vendor supports that, and I'm also pretty sure that my disputing a transaction with Chase is better than an equivalent crypto experience.
I bought a subscription to a tool called Icy.tools a while back. The sign-up process was as follows:
- Click the "Sign-Up" button on the website - Click the "Sign" button on the web wallet pop-up. - Click "Pay" on the next screen - Click "Approve Transaction" on the web wallet pop up.
That's it. No forms to fill. No emails to share. No credit card info to fill up. An equivalent non-crypto experience would be Sign-up > Share email > Verify email > Fill payment details > Enter OTP on credit card website
Apply Pay Express Transit payment flow for e.g. the subway: touch phone to sensor and go.
I use Sign In with Apple[0], and it's literally a single click which hides my email, and one more click with biometric confirmation for payments. That's... one fewer click than crypto, and was easier to set up than your crypto wallet, without putting my funds at risk.