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Five Major Credit Cards Are Now Blocking Cryptocurrency Purchases (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNBC:
J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup said Friday they are no longer allowing customers to buy cryptocurrencies using credit cards. "At this time, we are not processing cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards, due to the volatility and risk involved," a J.P. Morgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. "We will review the issue as the market evolves."
A Bank of America spokesperson also said in an email that the bank has decided to decline credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies. Citigroup said in a statement that it has "made the decision to no longer permit credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. We will continue to review our policy as this market evolves." Earlier in January, Capital One Financial said it has decided to ban cryptocurrency purchases with its cards. Discover Financial Services has effectively prohibited cryptocurrency purchases with its credit cards since 2015.
A Bank of America spokesperson also said in an email that the bank has decided to decline credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies. Citigroup said in a statement that it has "made the decision to no longer permit credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. We will continue to review our policy as this market evolves." Earlier in January, Capital One Financial said it has decided to ban cryptocurrency purchases with its cards. Discover Financial Services has effectively prohibited cryptocurrency purchases with its credit cards since 2015.
Who do they think they are stopping me from purchasing a totally legal 'thing' with the card? "Volatility" of my purchase is none of their concern, only concern they have is if i pay my bill.
They are melting down from fear.
Need to sue the bastards.
Because they don't directly compete with our business
Someone realised they can buy crypto and get cash rather than pay the 20% for a cash advance, hahaha
But chronic overspending on rapidly-depreciating consumer products—resulting in credit card abusers becoming saddled with nearly insurmountable debt—remains permissible.
We've moved to a mostly cashless society and made a handful of banks the arbiters of what we're allowed to buy.
And Bitcoin is designed explicitly to prevent this kind of abuse. Of course they're afraid of it.
To prevent banks to tell you what to do with your money.
I can see how funding speculative investments with credit shouldn't be encouraged, but what about people who have the money in the bank? Are they doing anything to debit cards?
It's due to the risk of chargebacks from people that buy something that subsequently loses value. You often can't buy stocks using a credit card for the same reason.
They are probably worried about chargebacks. Both for legitimate cases where the consumer got ripped off, and for cases where a stolen card is used to buy crypto. If the CC banks can't stick it to the vendor, they have to eat the loss to stay on the right side of their promises and consumer protection laws. And in this case, they must have seen enough abuse to decide to shut down that vector.
I recently made a purchase from a place that offered a bitcoin discount. I said "Ah hah, I'll be clever." and bought some on coinbase with my credit card to make the purchase.
Holy hell did I ever get shafted up the ass with fees. Ten bucks for buying a "cash equivalent", two bucks for "foreign transaction", five bucks to buy the bitcoin on coinbase, and another five bucks to send the coin with coinbase. The discount was big enough to eat most the fees, but I still lost out. Lesson learned I guess.
They don't owe you anything. A credit line is a service. They are losing you THEIR money that YOU don't have.
Like for example the purchase of illegal drugs?
What happens if an unscrupulous bitcoin dealer (Yes, I know, it is so unlikely - all the bitcoin dealers I know are incredibly honest. The idea of one bending the law is unthinkable... ;D) codes the sale as "one flash drive with associated software, price $88,000 + $15 handling fee". After it goes through, will they cancel the sale and reverse the charge? Will they demand to see the software on the flash drive? Will they cancel the merchant account of the seller without seeing the bitcoin on the drive?
Morons pass stupid rules that do nothing except PROTECT THE COMPANY from being sued.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I am launching it now. It is completely different from bitcoin because it is a fork and is worth eight times more by design so it is worth well over the $20,000 bitcoin was enable to break!
Join the network now (bytecoin.com) before it is too expensive to do so at a profit.
This is the very reason Bitcoin was invented. One of the main things people don't like is how banks and credit card companies can CONTROL what we buy. If I want to buy Bitcoin I should be allowed it is my money (or borrowed money to spend as I like). If I lose my money that is my fault and my problem. The credit card companies are freaking out because they are loosing control of people and the money, and the trillions of dollars they make each year. If Bitcoin or another currency takes over they loose control and all their earnings. So stopping people from buying it is how they can continue to control us! All this does is make us want to get away from them soooooo much faster.
the major banks could easily take it over. Hell, there's tons of evidence that the price has been heavily manipulated by the various exchanges, and they have a fraction of the power of a bank. They're not afraid, they don't want to deal with the risk of disputed transactions (especially in jurisdictions where disputes are tightly regulated).
The best antidote to banks controlling a cashless future is government regulation. Somebody has to be in charge of the money supply or it'll become unstable and wreck the economy. But giving somebody that power inevitably results in a strong concentrations of power. The only effective counter balance to that is Democracy. This is one of the reasons the left has been pushing for mandatory (and anonymous) voting. It really is a civic duty at that point.
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If you really want to protect consumers, block purchases of garbage like in-game currency.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The Rule states that any person who receives more than $10,000 in a single cash transaction, or a series of cash transactions, must report the exchange to the IRS. This includes businesses as well as individuals who engage in a transaction that results in the transfer of cash so long as the payment:
Is over $10,000
Received as:
A lump some over $10k
Two or more related payments in excess of 10K (combined)
Payments received as part of a single transaction (or two or more related transactions) that exceed 10K in a 12-month period.
Received in the course of trade or business
From the same person (payer)
Received in a single transaction or two or more related transactions.
I keep forgetting, its complicated. Never had one b4...
[($)]
WellsFargo is having issues. They look at that and boom.. now they all know they are not bulletproof anymore.
Requiem for the American Dream
Went CU and don't think I'll ever go back.
$1000 worth of Volative lap dances at a strip club is no problem.
Buy Bitcoin with a debit card. That's YOUR money (as opposed to CC funds loaned to you by some financial institution) and you can spend it as you please.
Have gnu, will travel.
This whole discussion is hilarious. People are upset about not being able to use their credit cards to buy a "currency" that's designed to avoid using credit cards.
I don't respond to AC's.
I am SO glad giant parasitic corporations like J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, to name three of the five that are doing this, it seems, want to protect me from my own decision-making freedom. Too bad there was no one to stop me, and millions of other people, too, from opening an account at one of these criminal organizations. If only... amiright?
Matter more than an attempt to dictate good spending habits. The credit card companies fear blow back from the price of the bitcoin moving significantly during the time it takes to formalize the transaction, which on bitcoin can be several 10s of minutes.
You've got so many concepts all mixed up that I'm not sure where to begin... you seem to think that somehow democracy is going to prevent a government from abusing a monetary policy.
A democracy has never prevented this - if anything, a democracy has sped decline due to the people (demos) voting power (kratia) into their own pockets - welfare and social programs. The first and best example of this was Athens violating treaties with neighboring cities by stealing money and resources that were intended for the defense of all the Greek world, and instead spending it all on local fortifications and public works project - i.e. - the Parthenon. That pissed off many, especially the Spartans, and after a little skirmish of 30 years, Athens fell, Sparta was weakened, and the Greek world never recovered. The Macedonian punk named Alex wasn't Greek, but that is another matter...
Lets fast forward a bit to an empire established as a representative democracy - Rome. Due to years of over spending and failed social and foreign policy, they went broke and tried to solve their fiscal problems with regulation.. That didn't work out too well for them, resulting in every last vestige of their economy running off to the far corners of their empire to escape regulation . Byzantium didn't get the memo and lingered in relative isolation while contemplating their navels for a thousand years. The best and brightest of the eastern half of the Roman empire fled to Persia when their ruler tried to regulate religion, which led to all sort of abominations like algebra and medicine.
Regulation, while starting off as well meaning, generally ends up pissing off more people than it helps.
Fast forward to a time a little more recent, but probably still distant history to most of you, and you may discover that the savings and loan crisis and quantitative easing were, in part, catalysts for the Great Recession, all of which can be trace back to more regulating regulations in the name of social justice
So if you really think regulation and some fanboy cryptocurrency of the month is going to save the economy, or the world, then don't be surprised to meet me while I'm looting the wood from the walls of your house to heat mine, when the economy falls flat on it's face and the empire is overrun by barbarian hoards.
Let the banks assess risk as they see fit. If they don't want to lend you money for some purchase, then get your money some other way, plain and simple. You are even welcome to come try and take my money. Go ahead. I'll be waiting.
The best antidote to banks controlling a cashless future is government regulation. Somebody has to be in charge of the money supply or it'll become unstable and wreck the economy. But giving somebody that power inevitably results in a strong concentrations of power. The only effective counter balance to that is Democracy. This is one of the reasons the left has been pushing for mandatory (and anonymous) voting. It really is a civic duty at that point.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
I have a BoA credit card i've had for 13 years. It will be canceled Monday morning. No company gets to decide what I purchase.
The banks just watched millions of homeowners gamble with the bank's money, and it blew up in the banks' faces while debtors walked away from the burst bubble. And that was with tangible collateral - not digital currency.
I guess the banks didn't learn much from the Great Recession.
This is not about volitility or any other type of consumer protection. This is about protecting their points programs.
Basically, people were buying crypto coins on their credit cards, getting the points for the purchase, then immediately selling the coins and paying off the card. The points more than made up for the transaction costs.
Since all these cards were being paid off before any interest accrued, the credit card companies were losing a lot of money on the transactions in the form of reward payouts.
The CC firms will never admit this publicly, but given the number of people I knew who were doing this, I’d bet this is the real reason they’ll disallowing the purchases.
It isn't the banks job to make your magic cash have value. You have to make it have value by getting stores to take it first.
If stores (like say, Microsoft and Steam) stop refusing cryptocurrencies, then the banks will take it.
Why would the banks want it if they can't spend it? There's no conspiracy here. Your cryptocurrency currently has no value other than nerds on Slashdot and the people you suckered on Facebook into believing it has value. Make it spendable before complaining about 'the man'. (Hint: That means stop telling your stupid Facebook friends to buy it because 'investment'. Until it has something resembling price stability, it won't be globally accepted for the exact reason the banks specified. And having your Facebook friends that don't know what 'blockchain' means going all tulip style on it isn't helping that.)
Isn't it funny that the bank calls it currency while the IRS says its not so you get fucked both times?
No such thing as a free lunch, even though it's effectively 90% of the message of all marketing these days.
"The discount was big enough to eat most the fees, but I still lost out."
It's almost like a company offering a bitcoin discount in the context of their business is better positioned to know who will come out on top in that kind of exchange. (It should be immediately obvious they can at least benefit from some economy of scale from a fee standpoint.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Why wouldn't it be?
"Old man yells at systemd"
If you're implying the discounting business got the fees I mentioned, they did not.
Why is anyone surprised by this? You think the bank gave you that credit card so that you could make money for yourself?
But I can still buy penny stocks, right? And options?
Thank god, not all options to trade in highly volatile investments are banned. Only the ones they don't participate in.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
State governments can't stand up to global mega corps. They get bought out and overwhelmed one by one. Meanwhile the mega corps build central governments for their own use which the small government proponents refuse to participate in on principle and therefore end up being crushed by.
Sorry, You're going to have a powerful central government whether you like it or not. They're just too useful. The only question is are you going to have a seat at the table.
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NT
I am all too willing to point out that bitcoin is not an investment. But there is no reason people should be blocked from purchasing small amounts of it so as to do transactions. For a credit company that should probably be $1000 over a couple months.
The value of bitcoin is the amount of transactions done with it. The more transactions you do and other people do the more you should keep a certain amount of it rather than converting it with every transaction.
Bitcoin itself has a slow 15 or so minute transactions rate so it is not good for everyday retail purchases. Rather is has become the defacto "savings account" currency whereas other ecoin can function more as a "checking account" and can do transactions faster.
If there is one thing I absolutely need the bank issuing me a credit card to do, it is to prevent from buying things that I may not realize are risky.
You must live in a place with very silly rules if the bank can decide for you what to spend your credit on.
In sensible places the bank decided how risky I was and will lend me that amount of money. Why would they give a slightest shit what I spend it on as long as I pay it back? And they already decided I could before they lent it to me.
A mortgage or car loan is a secured loan against an asset. Of course it depends on the asset, that is the whole point.
The bank can reposes my house or car if I don't pay. That is what secured means.
Credit cards by definition are unsecured loans. The bank cant repossess the movie I already watched, or the meal I already ate.
If I was feeling generous, I might think that CC companies were trying to save stupid people from themselves. And having to swallow their unpaid debts. If you don't have money to gamble with, then you shouldn't buy BTC or trade Forex.
1. Going from fiat to crypto for individual transactions is madness.
2. You should've used GDAX, not Coinbase.
3. If you'll be paying with bitcoin often you should buy a chunk and keep it in your own wallet, not on an exchange.
If the discount was able to offset your mistakes then it must've been a good discount - where were you buying from?
Pegged to the price of pork, its value will soar in the Mad Max future criplecurrency enthusiasts have been masturbating to for decades.
HUGE derivative potential.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
JP Morgan and friends are not done shorting and buying the bottom - don't worry, they will allow it once they're done.
Since when do credit card companies have the right to determine "what" we buy with their cards?
Will they start blocking donut purchases next because they don't like us risking our health?
I believe it's really that the "mighty" credit card companies are feeling threatened by the bitcoin purchases being made without them getting their sticky little fingers on their predatory and usery high interest rates.
How do we file complaints or class action suits against these card companies for restricting our rights to purchase, or for preventing competitive purchasing options?
Because you are all not "Adult" enough to make your OWN purchasing Choices.... SMH!
The proper answer is that they should formally recognise bitcoin as an actual currency and treat it as such. But that would put them in what they alone perceive as a far worse situation, which is to have to formally accept and acknowledge that their institutional monopoly has a competitor.
Whenever I see someone type "Hell, xxxxxxx" I just think, that guy has benefitted form the koolade and is clinging on.
I bet the reason for this is that too many cardholders are using the credit card company's "buyer protection" service to get money back from a bad bitcoin investment. That way the bank gets involved, and loses money, and now therefore won't allow bitcoin purchases at all.
This sounds very credible to me. If I had mod points I'd mod the parent up.
I'm happy to hear that the credit card companies have decided to accelerate their own decline.
The people who said:
It's about trying to block a competitor. and
It's a way of getting instant cash but still have the interest free grace periods.
Were absolutely right.
When a credit card company tells me what I can and cannot use unsecured credit for they've gone too far. They still make their money either way and as long as I pay my bill on time they should fuck off.
Of what I buy.
Just cut it in half.
Wish I could post a pic here.
This is nothing more than warfare against freedom by the banking cabal, which wants to manipulate your money according to their whims. I don't see why they are doing this though, because they have demonstrated they can apply quantitative easing using fiat currency to the crypto markets, effectively manipulating it to their whims.
Let me say this on no uncertain terms. The banking elite has demonstrated that they can manipulate digital currency. This means digital currency no longer has ANY value whatsoever. As long as there is a means of formalized exchange between fiat currency and digital currency, where the gatekeeper is the banking cabal, then crypto is DEAD.
Coinbase et al started as a useful service, but now they have become a formal part of the system of control imposed by government and wall st. Thankfully I saw the writing on the wall when Coinbase was "forced" (yeah right) to turn over account info, and sold 100% of my crypto portfolio.
I recently made a purchase from a place that offered a bitcoin discount. I said "Ah hah, I'll be clever." and bought some on coinbase with my credit card to make the purchase.
Holy hell did I ever get shafted up the ass with fees. Ten bucks for buying a "cash equivalent", two bucks for "foreign transaction", five bucks to buy the bitcoin on coinbase, and another five bucks to send the coin with coinbase. The discount was big enough to eat most the fees, but I still lost out. Lesson learned I guess.
What an interesting and insightful anecdote!
Now, tell us what you fucking bought.
Before it was that people were having their credit cards stolen to buy crypto (wow, first time I've ever heard of CC's being stolen online). Now it's volatility and risk. I bet. This is just banks trying to prolong people's abilities to make money elsewhere, other than within the big bank's domain (where they make money off of all of us, so why WOULD they support crypto?).