Slashdot Mirror
Mastercard Denies Plans For BitCoin Credit Card
judgecorp writes "Reports that BitCoin is to issue a credit card have turned out to be false — or at least premature. Mastercard has denied there are any such plans and given details of the procedural barriers to creating such a card."
How did "a major international bank" turn into "only MasterCard?" Surely there are other international banks -- or have I missed recent news?
...the almost complete lack of interest or trust expressed in just about every online forum or news outlet we leaked this to.
A worldwide, multi-billion dollar company doesn't want to help promote a new competitor that undercuts their price and their control over the global flow of money? I never saw that one coming!
Oh and also, bitcoin is 100% digital so any internet-capable device can send bitcoins anywhere in the world in under 10 minutes "to clear" time. So a plastic card would just help regulate it and add another layer of complication and control by an outside force. Not 1 single bitcoin user would have gone for such a product. This story had fake written all over it from the beginning.
...for one racket in this town, son...
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3062943&cid=41068717
So it was just a photoshop job, eh? I'm not surprised...
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
True and it was sourced from a discussion in an IRC channel.
from MasterCard...would introduce a serious flaw into the bitcoin model. Namely, the ability to override the corporate and political will of a major multinational financial processor with strong ties to the US Government.
the huge appeal of BitCoin is the ability to treat it like anonymous cash, a privilege previously enjoyed only by the upper echelons of the rich and powerful as they finance things like proposition 8 or the next GOP candidate.
Good people go to bed earlier.
BitCoin is going to issue a credit card right after LiNux opens up a app store and HTTp holds a networking conference.
It's not illegal now, and still bitcoin owners seem to be mostly criminals. The only significant use I've heard of for them are buying things on that online dope store.
Not to mention that Bitinstant described it as a debit card, not a credit card. Those are two very different beasts.
this tells us more about you than about bitcoin.
hey now, currency speculation is a noble, time-honored pursuit, and a perfectly legitimate way to round out your portfolio with some very risky investments.
/no risk, no reward!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Have gnu, will travel.
LOL sounds like you must make a living as an exec at one of the world's major banks!
Today's Bitcoin story retracts yesterday's Bitcoin story, and tomorrow's will probably refute today's.
Can we just stop with the Bitcoin horseshit already? The news about Bitcoin is just about as stable as the "currency."
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Did you know that modern web browsers have added new feature that will let you avoid reading stories which make you feel uncomfortable? All you have to do is not click on the link.
Try it out sometime and see if it works on your browser.
How strong did bitcoin get before investors dumped their bitcoins and developed a rumor to eliminate buying confidence and dramatically reduce the bitcoin value against the dollar? What was the bitcoin exchange rate trend before the story broke, and what is it now?
I don't think that bitcoin development is a bad idea on its face (anonymous money), and I don't see any pyramid scam, but without regulation or oversight, the bitcoin market is ripe for manipulation with impunity.
The Admin and the Engineer
The Bitcoin ecosystem has always had trouble converting Bitcoins to something more useful. Most of the ways to get money out of the Bitcoin system involve multiple intermediaries, payment rate limits, delays, and finger-pointing between the intermediaries when the system breaks. Mt. Gox finally, as of June 26, 2012, started offering wire transfers out of their system.
Mt. Gox is in Japan, which allows non-banks to operate money transfer services. This is a new law from 2009, and specifically addresses electronic transfers and "server-based electronic money". In Japan, cell phone companies are in the money transfer business in a big way. Companies which take that route have to maintain a bank balance in a real bank representing all the customer assets they're holding. They cannot engage in "fractional reserve" banking, and they're supposed to be audited.
Under this law, companies which offer "server-based electronic money", like gift cards, must have a bank balance of half the value stored. Bitcoin might be considered to qualify, which would reduce the reserves Mt. Gox must have in banks. Half the value of the Bitcoins Mt. Gox holds should be in a bank in a non-Bitcoin currency.
It's not known if Mt. Gox is in compliance. There are supposed to be audits, but no figures have been published.
Then there are PIN based debit card for which transactions which Visa/Mastercard don't get their cut.
Yes and no.
PIN based debit cards have to go through some PIN network for processing. Historically, Visa and Mastercard steered PIN transaction towards their own PIN networks to get their cut (by sneaking in exclusivity clauses into processor agreements to force merchants into using visa-Interlink or mc-Maestro for V/MC logo'd PIN debit cards).
Regulations in various countries (including the US now with the Durbin amendment), opened the door to a few competitor PIN networks like Star (first data corp), Pulse (discover), and NYCE (fidelity national) by banning these types of exclusivity agreements. But make not mistake about it, depending on the merchant's card processor, some company is getting a cut even if you use a PIN/debit because your bank is paying that company for the privledge of routing the transaction. Interlink and Maestro are still two of the biggest players in the business and they are the most common interchange networks for point-of-sale processor PIN transactions so it's still very likely that Visa and Mastercard are getting their cut (even from your non-logo'd PIN debit card)...
Note that this does NOT depend on your card, nor your bank, but which card processor the merchant you do business with signed up for.
Tells you what, that he reads Slashdot?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/08/07/1910238/bitcoin-based-drug-market-silk-road-thriving-with-2-million-in-monthly-sales (posted about two weeks ago if you missed it)
Other than some T-shirts and novelty things, and the (no longer accepted) EFF donations, that's the only use of Bitcoin I've yet read about...
Paying 0% transaction fees are a good deal. When you offer a good deal you expect word of mouth. Other transaction methods charge fees, often excessive fees. With the money gained from those fees and central control they pay for something called "advertising."
Now it should be obvious to you that companies that use advertising are making enough profits OFF YOU to pay for that advertising.
Now there are many parts of the BTC economy that do make profits, they should CERTAINLY have to pay for their advertising.
There is a lot of interest in creating word of mouth using advertising dollars these days because the small minority of consumers who can do things like: math, comparison shopping, and reading reviews are influenced more by word of mouth than sheeple who "see - > want - > must have."
I'm sure at some people people will do a study on how much stories like this increase the BTC economy. It's not hard to track given that banks take about 4 days to transfer new funds into a bitcoin exchange.
Which is part of the reason BTC is successful.
You have $100,000,000 gold? Wow. You might want to go outside.
Well, I'll slashvertize my game: Dragon's Tale is a gambling MMORPG where every physical object in the world is a different sort of novel gambling game. Some are skill based, some pure luck. It's like Disney World for gamblers, and it accepts *only* Bitcoin. I'm also the designer of A Tale in the Desert, a game that's been covered on Slashdot and pretty much every major gaming site (back in the day - it was released in 2003) and is pretty highly regarded.
So now you know of two places that use Bitcoins. Oh, and if you look here you'll find several thousand more. (But I suppose then you could no longer say "I've yet to read about...")
The first post of Bitcoin was about creating a credit/ATM card. The original story mentions MaterCard but this is to explain how widely used the card could become. This had nothing to do with actually cutting a deal with MaterCard from them to make the card or be involved in this project. Obviously they would not be involved because they cannot hoard the money to themselves. And they rates of the card from MaterCard fees would pretty much kill the idea. I questioned the idea of BitCoin creating a card becuase of other slashdot stories over there lack of security among other problems.
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/8/22/public-statement-regarding-the-bitinstant-paycard.html "BitInstant’s partners, who are issuing the card, have been working with MasterCard for many years, and the specific relationship will be between these partners and MasterCard (not directly between MasterCard and BitInstant)."