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Comment by Idiot_in_Vain | Hacker News Reader

This is a good argument for BitCoin - no one can ban you from the blockchain.

It's extra work and expences, but it's worth supporting at least two payment processors.

Keep in mind that some people can't pay with PayPal - e.g. register a credit/debit card with PayPal, PayPal account gets locked - you can't pay with that card any more through PP.

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A fun fact: Patreon had hold a survey for creators, asking which features they need.

https://blog.patreon.com/the-first-ever-patreon-creator-cens...

Crypto is the only one creators voted *against*.

Yes, Patreon creators, where a lot NSFW content comes from, voted against cryptos.

I wonder how they'll think when Visa/Mastercard threat Patreon to ban them (which is just sooner or later).

It's a good example of how cryptos have managed to get an absolutely terrible reputation amongst potential users, even the users worst served by the current financial system. It's not entirely undeserved: the sheer quantity of grift and hubris in the crypto ecosystem is absolutely harming it, and I don't blame someone for not wanting anything to do with it, even if it would solve problems for them. The same happened even more with NFTs: they were supposedly aimed directly at artists and yet because the first most artists heard of them was other people ripping off their art to sell at inflated prices because of the hype cycle (and the most valuable NFTs being shitty paper doll generic art) it 100% backfired and now most of the artist community absolutely hates NFTs and anything to do with them (this poll happened at the peak of that, as well). If you manage to make most of your potential users despise you and your product then something is seriously wrong.

> even if it would solve problems for them.

It wouldn't. At the end of the day you need to pay for stuff in your life: food, rent, clothes. None of those things are paid in crypto. All of them are paid in actual real money.

When the price of crypto can go up and down hundreds of percents per day this makes it a very bad substitute for money.

The price of BitCoin doesn't "go up and down hundreds of percents per day".

Even a 20% fluctuation would make it unviable for a person who needs to make long-term planning like, you know, paying rent and buying food.

Last week alone bitcoin price fluctuation was ~8%. Last month? 146%

146%?

Any source on that? It would need to go from 20K to 50K.

My bad. It looks like I misclicked on some graph here: https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/

But we could take past year as a whole. Fluctuations from 47k to 16.4k (3 times drop) then 27k (1.6 rise, still 1.7 below the high). There are drops that go to a price 1.5 lower in just a week. Imagine you need to pay rent on that week.

Food, clothes and all the other stuff can be paid with crypto. Rent is probably harder, but I guess when you live in a place like Dubai that also won't be a problem (houses are sold/bought with crypto there).

If you want you can also get paid in crypto, so it's not as hard as you might think.

> Food, clothes and all the other stuff can be paid with crypto.

Of course they can't

> Rent is probably harder, but I guess when you live in a place like Dubai that also won't be a problem

Ah yes. The solution to everyone's rent problems with crypto: just move to Dubai.

> If you want you can also get paid in crypto, so it's not as hard as you might think.

There are over 200 000 creators on Patreon. I'll let you guess how many of those live in Dubai

You can use USDC or any number of other stablecoins. You don't ever have to touch a volatile asset if you don't want to.

Turns out you can easily convert many cryptocurrencies into "real money" to pay for things like food and rent.

Several countries classify cryptocurrency as property subject to capital gains tax, making it more complicated than cash for ordinary uses like buying goods and services.

Sounds like a problem with the tax regime rather than with cryptocurrency.

If you wave away any reality then no problem is with cryptocurrency.

And yet, for some reason reality exists and intervenes every single time.

> Crypto is the only one creators voted against.

> Yes, Patreon creators, where a lot NSFW content comes from, voted against cryptos.

This is a gross misrepresentation.

Quoted from your link:

> In the Census, 68% of visual artists and 50% of writers were opposed to creators having the ability to accept payments in cryptocurrency on Patreon, while 39% of image, 34% of audio/music, and 31% of video creators indicated it would be a “crucial” or “nice to have” capability. Across creator types, about a third say they “don’t care.”

...how?

If you're opposing the "where a lot of NSFW content comes from" part, I apologize for the wording, but it's true. I just said a lot of NSFW content comes from Patreon. I didn't say they're the majority.

If you're opposing the "voted against cryptos" part, then:

https://live-patreon-blog.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads...

I'm opposing the "voted against crypto" part.

I would assume that NSFW creators largely fall under the "Images" category where only 26% voted against the idea.

That is both funny and interesting. But I suspect it also says more about starving artists' political opinions/financial savvy than what the future looks like. Making it easy for people to send you money seems like it'll be the winning equilibrium long term.

If Patreon doesn't do it, someone will. Probably a porn site somewhere underdeveloped accepting Monero or something. Cutting power away from financial intermediaries just has to be better for other market participants long term and that makes the shape of the future easier to guess at.

That's because they don't need an unregulated security; they need a neutral and reliable payment processor.

The world doesn't need crypto, it needs to turn Visa/MasterCard/Amex into utilities.

Why would they vote against a feature? Why not just say it's not a priority or "would be nice"

Many reasons, but no one mentioned one that I think is probably the case for many of them: many cryptos, including the most popular, Bitcoin, are a complete disaster for the environment. At a time when everyone wants to do their part in combating climate change, I would oppose the use crypto for this reason alone, even to my own detriment.

This particular one: because it would 100% get used for money laundering, which would get the platform cut off from traditional banking and could make it extremely difficult to get a paycheck.

It wouldn't be nice though. It would bring grifters and scammers to the platform.

Crypto fearmongering is as true as crypto frenzy.

It's not fearmongering to point out that association with crypto can be detrimental in itself, especially back then when every brand was trying to get onto the crypto and NFT hype train.

Features are never purely additive, they can also be transformative or even detrimental. Adding crypto support to Patreon would have changed what Patreon is by attracting different people. Regardless of whether any of the people already using Patreon might have benefited from crypto, it would also have attracted people who would specifically be interested in Patreon because of the crypto support.

Like it or not "people whose adoption of Patreon hinges on it adding support for crypto" is a very specific demographic and mostly people they probably didn't want to be associated with. You can call it guilt by assocation or digital NIMBYism but it would have changed a lot more than just having another option for payouts and donations.

Let's say I'm a creator.

I pay for my food in dollars. For my rent in dollars. For my clothes in dollars. For my equipment and supplies in dollars.

What would I do with crypto?

Okay, let's say I get paid in crypto. I still need to convert that to dollars. Price fluctuation of bitcoin is such that if I was paid 1 dollar worth of bitcoin last year, it would be less than 50 cents by the end of the year.

You can get paid in USDC and can transfer that to and from your bank account as quick as banks will allow, or pay people directly with it.

> You can get paid in USDC and

So, as always every discussion about "but crypto" almost immediately devolves to "not crypto, but a very specific coin that seems to be more-or-less okay at this particular point in time"

> or pay people directly with it

Which people? The dozen or so places in the entire world that accept crypto?

Its US dollars and you can transfer it to anyone that is capable of downloading a wallet app. If you want to spend at stores you can use any number of debit cards or just wait till visa integrates it which is coming soon [1]

I don't understand why you want to be so hostile towards it, it's literally the solution to this problem.

1: https://usa.visa.com/solutions/crypto/auto-payments-for-self...

So let's just skip all the unnecessary useless steps and intermediaries in between, and let those cryptoi holders that are so willing to pay those artist just use those debit cards and visa integrations to pay the creators in actual dollars.

If you need stability in your FIAT of choice just liquidate it as soon as you receive it. It won't lose or gain 50% of its value in a matter of minutes. In the case of Patreon they could even do that for you since they are the middle man.

Also, note that you'd probably receive more donations if accepting crypto currencies, so even if the values of these were to fluctuate (which they won't, cause you can sell) you'd still be making more money overall.

> just liquidate it as soon as you receive it.

"just"

> It won't lose or gain 50% of its value in a matter of minutes.

If someone sets up a recurring payment of X bitcoin it means that on any given pay day your actual money is X*(absolutely random number). Minus the fees for converting to fiat.

> Also, note that you'd probably receive more donations if accepting crypto currencies

"Probably"

The fees for converting to fiat are generally _smaller_ than the fees MasterCard or Visa for instance will grab from credit card transactions [0][1]. If you are refering to the fees from the blockchain, note that L2 options exist, and not all cryptocurrencies have the absurd fees L1 ETHR would have, for instance Litecoin fees can be as small as 1 cent.

Relating to the varying amount monthly:

1 - It's a donation, not your source of income. If you really on that money that's your issue not of anyone else's.

2 - The platform such as Patreon could simply quote the value in dollars instead of BTC or whatever cryptocurrency. Recurring payments with crypto will have to be done manually anyways so this is a non-issue.

[0]: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/credit-card-processi...

[1]: https://help.coinbase.com/en/commerce/getting-started/fees

> It's a donation, not your source of income. If you really on that money that's your issue not of anyone else's.

We're literally in a topic about creators and Patreon where Patreon is a substantial source of income to quite a few creators.

And the dismissive tone about donations in general... well, I won't comment on that

> The platform such as Patreon could simply quote the value in dollars instead of BTC or whatever cryptocurrency.

Or they could just not bother.

> Recurring payments with crypto will have to be done manually anyways

Ah yes. The great digital system of the future where even such a simple thing as recurring payments must be done manually

   > And the dismissive tone about donations in general... well, I won't comment on that

Why not?

   > Or they could just not bother.

That's true. The creators have the option of creating their own cryptocurrency wallets and accepting the donations without any middleman. They could also choose a more libre alternative to Patreon such as OpenCollective [0][1] or Liberapay [2].

   > Ah yes. The great digital system of the future where even such a simple thing as recurring payments must be done manually

I see that as a plus personally. Recurring payments are so hard to cancel at times with credit cards I'm at the point I create a new virtual credit card for every subscription I create. Theoretically you could also setup your wallet to automatically transact, it's just that's not a functionality of your cryptocurrency, just as recurring payments aren't a functionality of the dollar but rather of your bank/credit card provider.

[0]: https://opencollective.com/

[1]: https://docs.opencollective.foundation/how-it-works/financia...

[2]: https://en.liberapay.com/

> Why not?

Because a lot of people live or earn a lot of their living through donations, and quite a lot of opensource you're using would actually be helped with more donations.

> The creators have the option of creating their own cryptocurrency wallets and accepting the donations without any middleman

Except, you know, all the actual things that those "middlemen" do like provide verification that it is the actual artist and not a rip-off, provide hosting for their content etc.

> Recurring payments are so hard to cancel at times with credit cards I'm at the point I create a new virtual credit card for every subscription I create.

Yes, dark patterns around subscriptions are a problem. However, subscriptions and notifications about whether a person has canceled their subscirption or became a subscriber is valuable information to, you know, actually be able to plan ahead, and not wonder whether that person who did something manually yesterday will be there tomorrow.

Edit

> They could also choose a more libre alternative to Patreon such as OpenCollective [0][1] or Liberapay [2].

The could skip all the middlemen, or could chose these middlemen that I personally like and call them "libre" just because they accept cryptocurrency. And LiberaPay is literally a middleman with exactly zero additional value

Name a cryptocurrency that provides fraud protection, recovery of stolen funds/accounts, and whose value is close to the dollar in stability.

Perhaps the concern that they'll be compelled (by user demand) to use the facility if present whether they want to or not? Not that the question is “creators having the ability to accept payments in cryptocurrency on Patreon” and not “Patreon accepting payments in cryptocurrency” – it would be something the creators would need to implement and manage. They might not want to be exposed to the volatility of cryptocurrency values.

Because crypto is scary.

Why would Visa/Mastercard ban Patreon?

Same reason they banned pornhub, I assume.

Fair amount of NSFW creators?

Nsfw

No, it's a good argument for better regulating organisations like PayPal that function as banks but pretend they're anything but.

Paypal Europe have a banking license.

The problem is regulation, or at least the interaction between strict KYC/AML regulations and a business model that allows basically anyone to accept electronic payments. Banks and money transmitters are substantially deputised to enforce a raft of laws regarding the conduct of their customers. Either you're choosy in who you accept as a customer, or you're liberal in who you accept as a customer but have a hair-trigger response to any transaction that looks even vaguely suspect. Any alternative strategy will eventually lead to jail time.

"No, " → "Also, "

Yes, those same banks, that are "regulated" yet they decide what they do with your money, just like PayPal. Bonus: they collapse.

In this case they are acting as a payment processor. Payment processors are not banks usually.

More regulation can only help in forcing PP to have a human that you can talk to after the algorithms have banned you.

Payment processors also don't usually hold funds on your behalf. Visa can refuse to process your transaction, but they can't hold your money hostage because they never have it the first place. IIRC, in order to avoid banking regulations, Paypal claims that legally the balance you hold with them is owned by them. So if they want to close your account and just keep your money then they can (and do). Which is bullshit and a state of affairs should absolutely be regulated out of existence.

These kind of issues are mostly because of regulation (KYC laws).

That's the theory. In practice, if your wallet address gets marked, nobody will want to deal with it anymore; exchanges won't accept transfers, and any other address you transfer to will get marked as well. See e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60661763

Soooo, let's say you find the address of the cold wallet of a big exchange, you could destroy it by sending them coin from a marked address ?

Good to know :)

The way Bitcoin works at least, you don't just have one wallet address. You can generate new ones whenever you want, and nobody else can predict what they'll be. But yes it's generally more traceable than something like Monero.

Or at least it would be, assuming you didn't care too much about its fluctuations and had the ability to use it directly to pay for most goods and services in your daily life.

Interesting fact is that a wallet like https://www.bbw.sv/ allows you to sent payment requests in US$ denominated amounts, not even in bitcoin amounts.

In the background, the payment rails are bitcoin and lightning, but all the user needs to see is US$.

But any big player can certainly just confiscate your coins once they hit their own address. Or any coins that seem tainted enough... And you do not really have much recourse...

If you have coins in your own wallet, no one can move them without the secret keys. US sanctions work by tainting and tracing wallets, they've been proven useless against monero.

If held non-custodially, “big players” cannot confiscate your coins.

For Bitcoin payments, the equivalent of Paypal or some other payment processor is not the blockchain but the entity where you convert Bitcoin to actual money, as on-chain BTC is not practically usable for your business expenses without that. And that entity can ban you and restrict your payments, so you have pretty much the same considerations.

> no one can ban you from the blockchain.

Except, then you have even bigger problems than just PayPal.

I think that Bitcoin has many similar issues in the real world, though you might argue that these are more under the user's control.

For example, it seems like most people don't hold their own keys. I know, "not your keys, not your coins," but it does mean that Bitcoin doesn't provide that kind of safety for most of its users. Even if you do hold your own keys, there's a decent potential that you'll lose your keys. I've known people who have lost Bitcoin that way. If you're holding your keys yourself, how are you keeping them safe? You certainly need off-site backup and probably a weak enough password protecting them to be sure that you won't forget the password. People have those key safes that only allow a certain number of tries: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55645408. That guy has $240M locked away. Sure, PayPal feels unaccountable when you're a tiny player who uses PayPal for thousands of dollars, but a lawyer would be able to get that $240M.

From that article, "Currently, about $140bn worth of Bitcoin is lost or left in wallets that cannot be accessed, according to cryptocurrency-data company Chainanalysis." Given that Bitcoin had around a $700B market cap back then, we're talking about 20% of the total Bitcoin out there simply being lost.

Yes, in theory, these are things that you as a user have control over. But human life is tough. If you get in an accident that impacts your memory, do you lose access? If there's a fire, do you lose access? If you die, have you prepared a way of transmitting those Bitcoin to your heirs - and a way that doesn't give them access currently? How would you do that? "Here's how you access the private keys, but pinky swear that you won't until I'm gone."

> no one can ban you from the blockchain

I'm not so sure about that. Bitcoin are traceable. The government could blacklist certain coins they determine are the proceeds of criminal activity. Sure, the person holding those coins could still transmit them to others and then those people could transmit them to more people, but if the US/EU blacklisted certain coins, people would refuse to take them as payment. For example, Mt. Gox froze accounts that deposited Bitcoins that were known to have been stolen.

Let's say that the US says, "no business under our jurisdiction can do business with any wallet that has held Coin-X after today." The value of that coin becomes much lower than any other coin. You can't accept that coin as payment if you're looking to change it (or any other Bitcoin you own) into dollars in the future. Coinbase and other companies couldn't do business with you. Let's say the US takes it one step farther and says "any coin held by Wallet-X today is tainted and any wallet that accepts any of the coins held by Wallet-X (no matter how many transactions removed from Wallet-X) is also tainted along with all their coins." That means that everyone in the Bitcoin network needs to treat the coins in Wallet-X as radioactive. If you accept payment from Wallet-X, you now can't convert your money to dollars at Coinbase or similar companies. Even if you accept payment from Wallet-Z who got the coin from Wallet-Y who got it from Wallet-X, you're still compromised. There'd need to be an updating blacklist of coins that couldn't be used by US companies - a list that would expand over time. If Wallet-X had Coin-X and sent it to Wallet-Y, it would taint Coin-A and Coin-B in Wallet-Y which means even more Bitcoin are now blacklisted by the US.

Even if you never want an off-ramp from Bitcoin, others do. Maybe you dream of making every transaction with Bitcoin for the rest of your life. Still, the value drops hard if others don't share that dream. Even if you never want US dollars, let's say you want to buy a house with Bitcoin. The US sees the purchase and seizes the home as the proceeds of illegal activity.

The Bitcoin network generally treats all coins as the same kinda like how we treat all dollar bills the same, but our dollar bills all have unique serial numbers and similarly different Bitcoins can be differentiated from each other. If the US government starts blacklisting coins, they aren't technically banning you from the blockchain, but they kinda are for all practical purposes. Sure, there are ways to get US dollars that don't involve Know-Your-Customer US-jurisdiction rules. However, the value of Bitcoins that are blacklisted like that, especially if they taint your other Bitcoin, goes way down.

Sure, you can't be banned from the blockchain. However, if the US government bans all coins in your wallet, you're going to effectively lose those coins since others aren't going to want to accept those coins.

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