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“Bitcoin Doesn’t Have a Hope” Against Credit Cards

“Bitcoin Doesn’t Have a Hope” Against Credit Cards

According to Peter Todd, “Bitcoin doesn’t have a hope” when competing with consumer payment systems such as credit cards.

In a recent panel discussion at the 2019 MIT Bitcoin Expo, the former Bitcoin Core developer spoke on the use of premissioned, semi-permissioned, and permissionless blockchains, including for payment applications. When comparing cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to existing payment systems such as card companies, Todd remained pessimistic about the former’s viability:

Todd instead compared Bitcoin to international transfer services such as Western Union, which compete in the same space of transferring money across borders, where Bitcoin is able to perform transfers more reliably and efficiently than many traditional services.

When dealing with moving funds across borders, a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin generally holds a significant advantage in speed and fees due to its ability to operate in a borderless, location-independent space. However, compared with the consumer-facing fees, convenience, and speed of transaction of payment cards, Bitcoin typically falls short.

Credit cards maintain the payments edge, but may quickly lose ground

At present, card systems maintain a significant edge in the payments space in most of the world as one of the more predominant payment tools. However, disadvantages of these systems have become more recently, which may influence their hold over the space. Recently, Visa and Mastercard announced plans to increase fees this year, driving up the costs for merchants accepting non-cash payments, which may be passed on to the consumer. Marriott hotels also underwent one of the largest data breaches in history, compromising the information of hundreds of millions of guests, including credit card numbers, potentially causing financial complications for millions.

The growing list of advantages that cryptocurrencies possess over card systems, such as lower fees, no account setup, financial privacy, no identity theft risk, and more, may cause the former to take over larger portions of the payments space in the near future as the relative competitiveness of cards declines.

Dash is steadily working at overcoming cryptocurrency’s weak points

While many blockchain projects experiment with use cases outside of payments, Dash remains focused on developing the best digital payments system in the world, with an eye to improving the present-day limitations of cryptocurrencies. In the recently-implemented 0.13 version, Dash enabled instant confirmations by default, solving the settlement delay issue facing many of its competitors. In the upcoming 0.14 iteration, Dash plans to implement ChainLocks, a measure for protecting against 51% attacks and further securing the network. Finally, version 1.0 will implement blockchain usernames and contact lists, giving a much easier and more intuitive user experience to compete with modern payment apps while maintaining full decentralization.

Published at Mon, 25 Mar 2019 19:19:03 +0000

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Ether Price Analysis: Decrease in Buy Volume Pushes Price Lower

Ether Price Analysis

Over the past week, ETH-USD markets have seen a steady bleed as prices have slumped lower and lower. Any buy-back volume the markets managed to see was gradually eroded as the overall trend headed downward:

ETHUSD Macro Trend.png

Figure 1: ETH-USD, 4HR Candles, Gemini, Descending Trendline

As predicted in last week’s ETH-USD analysis, a failure to see any significant increase in buy volume led the market to see further tests of the Fibonacci Retracement values. At the time of this article, the market is rejecting the neckline of the previous Double Bottom Reversal (shown in yellow and noted at the 61% retracement values) and has moved on to retest the 50% retracement:

ETHUSD Fib Retracement.png

Figure 2: ETH-USD, 1HR Candles, GDAX, Fibonacci Retracement Values

Multiple tests of the 50% and 61% values are very common in both downward and upward trends and can sometimes provide great opportunities for short-term market trades due to the predictable support and resistance values. Today’s rejection of the 61% line is not entirely surprising; a lot of volume entered the market upon the arrival of the Double Bottom Reversal from last week, marking a potential turnaround from a strong bear market to a short-lived bull market. Ultimately, after failing to retrace the downtrend of the previous bear market, the bullish trend subsided and continued its way toward lower values.

In the coming days, don’t expect to see any strong upward movement from ETH-USD markets without a test of lower values. As we continue to test the Fibonacci Retracement values, we can expect to see some turbulence surrounding another test of the 50% and ultimately a test of the 61% values. If we manage to slide below the 61% line, there isn’t much in terms of support before the market reaches the lower $200s. A drop below the 61% line could lead to another slip of $50 as the market will ultimately try to find its next line of support.

Summary:

  1. The ETH-USD price has seen a slow descending trend as multiple tests of the established Fibonacci Retracement values have continued.

  2. If ETH-USD drops below the 61% Fibonacci Retracement values, a pullback to the $200s is most likely — this is a significant level of support below the $250s.

Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin and ether is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on bitcoin Magazine and BTCMedia related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTCMedia and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

The post Ether Price Analysis: Decrease in Buy Volume Pushes Price Lower appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

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