Re: Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

Some FUD (Facts U Dislike) for y'all:

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113795/europe-caps-payment-fees-at-02-undermining-bitcoins-appeal

"Low fees" was already a weak pseudo-argument for bitcoin (considering POW, exchange fees, volatility, spread etc), now is even weaker.

The low fee argument is weakest while Bitcoin is relatively small; that's why exchange fees factor in (people need to buy in and cash out. Volatility, PoW has been done to death). But it is also only weakest in selected areas. I wouldn't say an area that has an average 12% remittance fee is not ripe to be picked by bitcoin remittances (especially if bitcoin operates behind the scenes as company develops their own avenues / relationships at both ends).

This new European cap is good for everyone and high time the financial sector stopped the gouging. But if bitcoin gets a proper foothold, a 2% seawall won't stem the tide. In the upside-happens for bitcoin possibility, btc can limbo lower than the legacy sector. Until then though, your point stands.

As (or perhaps 'if', considering your perspective) bitcoin matures enough that users can stay within a bitcoin economy, then low fees are a positive. So, the more it expands, the more relevant the argument.

I would love some clarification on this as I don't think it's as clearcut as it might seem at first. Firstly, does this 0.2% (which is not 2% btw!) only apply to some bank portion of the fee or is it the total credit card fee that a merchant will incur. Secondly, if it is the total fee it means the credit card companies will be taking a MASSIVE hit, going from 2-3% (sometimes more) down to 0.2%? can they survive on 10% of their previous fees? It would effectively mean that there is a level of fraud for which they are no longer profitable as they can't raise the fees. This would be more of a threat to credit cards themselves than bitcoin no?

Seriously, am I missing something here?

Correct, its .2%. My mistake. Debit card transactions. .3% for CC. As per article, its an attempt to combat lack of demand, deflation in EU. Most bitcoin payment processors are already facing margin compression (at or near 0% fees anyway). As Cypher & yourself noted, imaging being a legacy payments processor when this is implemented.

The more important aspect of my post was whether this ruling is actually being interpretted correctly, i.e. does the regulation really cut the credit card processors fee by 90% (seems unlikely, too drastic) or is the fee that is being limited only *part* of the total fee. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card#Costs_to_merchants for example of how card fees are not just a simple single fee.

EDIT: either way it's probably good for bitcoin, as it will either not reduce total merchant fees by much, or it will destroy credit card company business models.