Steem: The Destruction Of Mastercard And Visa
Visa is looking for someone to head up its foray into blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Global financial services corporation Visa is seeking blockchain talent for the position of Technical Product Manager at Visa Fintech in their Palo Alto office. The person will be responsible for the execution of Visa’s product strategy within a cryptocurrency ecosystem, and will be required to manage the roadmap for crypto-related opportunities.
If you cannot beat then, join them.
I will admit the my headline is a bit of clickbait although not without some fact. Steem will be a part of the destruction of Mastercard and Visa, at least as those entities stand now.
Mastercard and Visa are worth billions because they erected massive global payment systems. People all over the world use their network to secure transactions. For this, merchants pay a fee on each transaction in addition to having to get the proper hardware. This can range from .75% to about 3% depending upon the volume an establishment does.
Isn't it interesting that cryptocurrency is a global payment system?
Source
Every cryptocurrency on a decentralized blockchain has an automatic global payment system built in from the start. Once there is a wallet, people can send and receive money. The verification is done by the blockchain eliminating the need for a third party. This makes these two companies passe.
Payment systems are worth a lot of money. Visa has a market cap of $340B. This is a company that basically just verifies transactions around the world while moving money. It is one of those "middle men" that is ideally suited for elimination by cryptocurrency.
Since cryptocurrency is a global payment system, it obviously has immediate value. Think about that for a second. A merchant, anywhere in the world, can get an account by downloading a wallet. This allows for the moving away from cash. It also allows for the verification of every purchase through the use of blockchain. There is no need to pay Visa or Mastercard their fees nor buy the expensive equipment.
The advantage that the two existing networks have is speed. Mastercard and Visa can process tens of thousands of transactions per second. Bitcoin cannot even reach double digits. Also, verification on Bitcoin takes 10 minutes while it is nanoseconds on the centralized networks.
This is where Steem and other cryptocurrencies enter the picture. Most are far superior to Bitcoin in transaction time. Also, the capacity of the networks, in totality, is increasing to the point it can handle all of the MC/Visa traffic with ease. While the validity of 2,000 different cryptocurrencies is in question, the fact is there are computers around the world running those blockchains. Almost all, if they are operating, have capacity.
These ecosystems are run without an administrator. That means no central servers to hack and get private information. It also means there is no company to collect the data and sell it to advertisers or other nefarious companies. Instead, it is just a ledger of transactions run on a decentralized system.
Can you see how much trouble these companies are in if they do not adapt?
Source
The financial world likes to blast cryptocurrency as being nothing but a sham. In reality, cryptocurrency is a threat because it is a global payment system they cannot control. They are systems that do not operate behind a firewall and are attacked regularly. In spite of that, you do not see global outages.
We gained some insight into the power of blockchains when Steemit.com came under a DDoS attack. Because of the decentralized nature, even though the Steemit interface was affected, the rest of the network continued without a hitch. The other interfaces were not phased at all by what was occurring with the Steemit site. Transactions still were taking place across the network since the blockchain was secure.
There is a reason the financial sector is fighting back so hard. Their entire existence is under immediate attack. They are well aware of this. Sadly, for them, there is little they can do other than try to keep people ill-informed.
In short, the parallel system that is being erected via decentralized blockchains is something they cannot compete with. Each time a commercial transaction is conducted in STEEM, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, or any other cryptocurrency, that is another nail in their coffin.
The benefits to this technology is simply too great.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and resteem.
In every respect you are correct regarding the superiority of crypto, and particularly Steem, to legacy payment mechanisms. This doesn't matter.
The reason it doesn't matter is that legacy systems control the market. In order to participate in the market you must convert to fiat, because governments must and will demand control of markets. Payment systems are endemic to extant governments and therefore crypto cannot compete except as revolt against government.
It is for this reason that decentralization being advanced in all technology is critical to effect for any one to succeed. It is the concatenation of all fields that are advancing decentralized technology that effects inevitable change from oppressive centralized mechanisms - of all forms, from agriculture, to manufacturing, to government itself - to free individually owned means.
Cryptocurrency is not an island, but only exists in a social framework. It alone cannot succeed, but must be enabled by cross-pollination in the various fields of human endeavor. Attempts to conform cryptocurrency are undertaken daily, and regulatory impositions alien to it's structure grafted on, or proposals to derive and pay taxes on, or with it. These gain little traction and eventually fail because the overall structure of centralized industry cannot permit decentralization to impact any part of it without impacting all of it.
Payments aren't a closed system. Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Government - all legacy centralized systems - depend on payments. Enabling decentralized control of money and payments threatens each and every other aspect of legacy industrial mechanisms, and attempts to conceal crypto by disguising it with KYC regs, or accepting tax payments in crypto, fail to actually change it's essential nature.
Each of the advances nascent across fields decentralizing the technology individually are better than the centralized legacy mechanisms. None of them can compete, because they are facing individually the entire mechanism of centralization. All of them concatenated however, cannot fail to eventually render centralization obsolete. This is not going to be a bloodless revolution, however.
We aren't the only observers of this fact, and those whose centralized hoards of wealth and power are threatened with obsolescence are fighting the evolution in technology that will make them just another pleb if they fail to preserve centralization. We see the political corruption of science itself through the funding mechanisms that exclude researchers that try to publish papers that don't follow the political narrative essential to centralization. We see the application of regulatory political authority to payment processing that excludes cryptocurrency from being used as money by governments dependent on fiat being money. We see the intrusion of zoning regulations to criminalize homelessness, or DIY housing that challenges rent seeking. I could go on and on, from Big Agra suppressing raw milk markets, to Big Pharma criminalizing CBD and THC, but it isn't necessary, because an objective consideration of the subject provides proofs across every industry potentially impacted by decentralization.
The superiority of decentralization to individuals is endemic, and ultimately destructive of centralization in every form. The nature of centralization limits it's application to top down mechanisms, however, and decentralization is effected from the bottom up. As full spectrum decentralization is effected, the specific weapons applied to stop the individual aspects of it can only target those particular aspects, and this is the proof of the inability of control to be nominal to prevent actual independence.
Decentralization is natural. It is messy, redundant, and robust. Each of it's aspects independently supports all the others. Centralization is neat, efficient, and fragile. Each of it's aspects is captive to specific entities and needs to be decreased in order to defend any others. It resists that essentially decentralizing expenditure natively, and cannot compete.
Eventually, the only thing that can prevent decentralization from creating true individual freedom and increased prosperity for all is the extinction of humanity itself. Ever more dire opposition from profiteers hoarding centralized pools of capital and power can delay it, or even reset the clock to zero, but physics determines what technology is possible, not greed.
If you want cryptocurrency to assume it's rightful place as the best payment processing mechanism despite opposition to legacy profiteers, then it is necessary to augment it with it's natural support mechanisms - all the other decentralized technologies that are being developed today. It is that united front that cannot be defeated by the spastic attempts of cabalists each seeking to defend their heap of centralized resources.
Thanks!
Word
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If we want to compete we'll need to fix SBD.
MakerDAO provides us with the perfect solution.
The ability to lock Steem in a smart contract and create SBD "out of thin air" using Steem collateral would be incredible.
Delete the entire concept of SBD. What a waste of code. Stick to one cryptocurrency per blockchain. Either that, or up it to dozens of cryptos. Steem1, Steem2, Steem3, SBDa, SBDb, SBDc, SteemaltA, SteemaltB, SteemaltC, man I could think of names all night! But the extra complexity isn't worth it.
Stable-coins are a big deal, and we are very close to having a valid one. We can't get rid of SBD, it is immortally ingrained into the blockchain's past. Better to fix it's mechanics... the value of an asset pegged to USD will have value for at least 10 years.
Also, using the MakerDAO system, Steem would become more valuable because a lot of accounts would be locking up their Steem into smart contracts and creating SBD with the collateral. These coins locked up in smart contracts wouldn't be increasing vote strength either... making all of our upvotes worth more as well.
Hmmm. We can't get rid of SBD, we can only upgrade it.... and add even more currencies and tokens? So the future is...... complex?
That's what everyone said about the Internet in the 90's.
True, true. And it kind of is. I'm a reasonably clever guy but I'm starting to not really know as much of the internet as I used to. I've always seen it as a game-changer, and embraced it from the very start, but I feel more like a user than an operator nowadays.
Things are going more or less in the direction I want right now though, especially with the decentralization and reduced censorship via blockchain and cryptos. I'm optimistic, just not necessarily fully grasping all the nuances anymore.
Word, just imagine all that code is focused on STEEM somehow, Beginning with the pegging of the steem to dollar not SBD being pegged. Then leave the market to determine its value.
The only thing for me is that we haven't yet seen a blockchain protocol achieve massive adoption on the level of a Bitcoin or even an Ethereum, that also has the transaction bandwidth of Steem. Perhaps EOS is closest? I don't know exactly, but for me it'll be a huge step when one of the top cryptocurrencies manages that 10k+ transactions per second type bandwidth.
I've been racking my brain to how they might expect to monetize a cryptocurrency protocol... given that early adopters of cryptocurrency are specifically trying to avoid the centralised fee structure of Visa and Mastercard. I guess they could do an IEO, and then tout the benefits of instant unhackable money, but who would choose that over the current offerings. I'm just struggling to figure out their long-term gameplan here.
I think it is a repeat of the 1990s when the information purveyors embraced the Internet which ended up killing their business.
It seems a lot of these companies are jumping into cryptocurrency because they see the threat and yet arent sure what to do about it.
I can't see how visa and mastercard would be dead/dying on my lifetime but i'm excited to be proven wrong.
Yeah, I don't see it either... they're so massively integrated in retail... even Samsung and Apple have struggled to transition people across to other payment systems... but I completely agree. Down with 3% fees!
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That's interesting... I thought they'd throw their weight around, use their retail infrastructure and entice all miners to come over to their coin. Be very interesting to see what they build... and if it'll make any difference at all.
Yeah, well I did videos on this topic, and covered everything you said here, back in 2013 and earlier. Also...
"Payment systems are worth a lot of money."
A lot of corrupt, unwarranted, unjustified money that belongs to the people. Don't encourage the profiteering nature of the former system, please. Cryptos are about ending that slavery, not becoming the new slave-owners and money-changers.
Why haven't I already set an auto vote on you lol
Don’t forget the fact that these centralized payment systems can unilaterally reverse any transaction which leads to other issues. I have known of online marketplaces that needs to scrutinize every transaction for fraud as if found to be so they coukd risk providing the service or product and getting a chargeback from the payment processor meaning a loss of income. Blockchain is immutable and avoids that completely as it gives full control to those who hold the keys.
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I mean they would be crazy to not at least start testing the technology. Its not really ready for companies likes these, but nice to see they are jumping on board.
Everything ive read says that even though most blockchains have faster transaction speeds most of them cant keep up with the bandwidth requirements.
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I have been talking about STEEM as a transactional currency for over a year!