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Mastercard Denies Plans For BitCoin Credit Card

Posted by Unknown on from the bad-idea-was-bad dept.

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."

9 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. shocker by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:shocker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you are completely missing the reason for having a bitcoin credit card in the first place. It would have been accepted anywhere a normal mastercard would (according to tfa). This would've meant bitcoin could be used to buy stuff pretty much anywhere in real-life instead of some small online black markets or bitcoin exchanges.

    2. Re:shocker by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      Which is one of many reasons the last story smelled bad, who'd wait 10 minutes for their grocery payment to clear. The alternative would be that MasterCard or somebody guarantees the merchant gets paid before you disappear out the door with the goods, never to be seen again while your transaction bounces 10 minutes later. At the very best it would be something like having a credit card in a foreign currency where they take an exchange fee for converting your Bitcoins to US Dollars or whatever the local currency is, since I guess nobody would take Bitcoins.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:shocker by Desler · · Score: 3, Informative

      Competition to what exactly? Assuming it would have taken off Mastercard would have been raking in money off the conversion fees on each transaction.

    4. Re:shocker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They didn't say they don't approve it. They said they were never asked about it.

      Seriously, Bitcoin people say "we'll have a global Mastercard-branded credit card avaolable to you all very soon". Mastercard say "Whadafuk? Who are you and how can you offer a Mastercard-branded card very soon if we've never heard of you?!". This only shows the lack of professionalism by Bitcoin.

  2. a bitcoin credit card by nimbius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  3. Re:other? by Desler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because I realize that bitcoin is a giant scam? Because I know that Mastercard is not a bank?

  4. "BitCoin is to issue a credit card" by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 4, Funny

    BitCoin is going to issue a credit card right after LiNux opens up a app store and HTTp holds a networking conference.

  5. Re:bitcoin is coming, deal with it financial fags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    this tells us more about you than about bitcoin.