Quote from: k33k on January 09, 2014, 09:01:53 PM

I'm not sure about this. One of the things that makes cryptocurrencies popular is their decentralisation. If we end up storing our cryptos on payment processors they'll basically be banks and we might as well have stuck with the old currencies. People want to be able to use cryptos the same way they use cash and speed (without trusting a payment processor) is important for that

I don't think you fully appreciate how a retail environment works. There are several clearing stages between a supermarket cashpoint and a bank account. When you swipe your card at the retailer, it isn't communicating directly with your bank account, it's communicating with a till which may buffer the transaction to allow the retailer to reverse it or adjust it before finally comminting it. Then it goes to a clearing house like Visa which buffers it again and eventually it hits your bank account (by which time you're already home).

Just because we use the blockchain as the permanent 'parking ground' for our funds doesn't mean that the payment processing industry won't still be needed to clear transactions at the point of sale. Can you imagine today's crypto currency exchanges clearing every trade through the blockchain in realtime ? They'd grind to a muddy halt, even with 30 second transaction times. Instead we "charge" our exchange accounts with crypto in a single blockchain transaction, then do lots of trading, then we use a single blockchain transaction to withdraw our balance to cold storage when finished.

This is how it will work in a retail economy as well. You'll "charge" your Visa account with crypto in a single blockchain transaction, (or be credited with it if its a credit and not a debit card), then go to the shops with your card. Transactions will be instantaneous.

Crypto's may make banks redundant but they won't make payment processors redundant. A payment processor and a bank are 2 different things.

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Why can't Scharmbeck be the new Visa or Mastercard?

Because to do that it would have to support all major cryptocurrencies as well as Fiat currencies at the point of sale. No payment processor is aligned with a single currency because they'd be uncompetitive and go out of business very quickly.

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You think Bitcoin will stick around because they can implement defence against a 51% such as checkpoints or perhaps something we haven't dreamed up yet. Why can't Worldcoin do the same?

Yes, they could do and I'm sure any PoW coin could have anti-51% measures boilerplated on. The point I was making was that competitors and "serious seconds" to Bitcoin are more likely to have modern, forward looking designs from the ground up rather than boiler-plated last generation technology.

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I guess you're holding Bitcoin and have decided you don't like Worldcoin and are therefore biased....I think it's clear that you've decided you don't like Worldcoin and then have started looking for reasons to support that viewpoint

I've held about 10 different coins from one time to another, including WDC. In fact I still have about 400 WDC. I'm not trying to troll it, I just think that these forums are about having honest discussions about the relative merits of coin properties. I accept that there are people who work very hard to develop and promote one thing or another but I think I've stuck to making relevant technical and commercial points rather than empty attacks. People are spending serious money on these things and are more interested in an informative exchange than feeling warm and fuzzy (I hope !

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I think Worldcoin should be seen for what it is - a brand. If people want to buy into a brand then fair enough, everybody has different investment priorities. My point is that I don't think you can create a brand out of a currency. The two things have conflicting priorities as I outlined in my last post.