RE: Buy SteemPower - STEEM - or SteemDollars directly from your credit/debit-card in 30 seconds!
So who, exactly, is going to sell this steem? Thats the real issue -- finding someone willing to take the CB risk.
If youre willing to do it, i can have a payment gateway set up for you by the end of business tomorrow. But fair warning, youre going to get ass raped by fraud and chargebacks. Yes, there are fraud prevention measures you can take. But theres still going to be quite a bit that gets through.
That is why theres no way (or at least not very many ways... i think gold coil still lets you do it with ID) to buy BTC directly with a credit card.
the fundamental problem is that the credit card transaction is reversible, but the transfer of steem is not.
One potential way to get around this that i was playing around with in my head before i lost interest was letting people buy fixed denomination, powered up accounts. The seller could keep the owner key to these accounts for the first 90 days (in most countries CB isnt allowed after 90 days). It would limit exposure to fraud. But the powered up option would be a deal breaker for many potential buyers i think, even with a 13 week cashout. But they would have to be powered up for the owner key to do any good, as simply retaking an empty account after CB obviously solves nothing.
Another option is not powering up the accounts but using some kind of multi-sig signing key auth with the seller for getting money out in the first 90 days. Again, though, the big problem here is that people probably aren't going to be cool with limited or no liquidity for the first 90 days.
It could be reputation based, but at that point, youre "selling to the choir" and missing most of the point (which is opening the market to people new to the system who don't yet have reputation)
Another potential option is a credit card double down kind of thing. Like say someone has 194K SP like you. You could let a seller change your owner key, in exchange for a 194K steem credit card purchasing limit. If you charged back any purchased steem, the seller would be able to forclose on your whole account. Though again, the requirement for an existing SP balance limits the usefulness of it for attracting new users and investors.
and, Of course, you would really h ave to trust the seller. And of course, there would inevitably be disputes.
there is people selling BTC for ie PP - which is the same as CC with chargebacks. the prices are just super premium.
im sure some people would risk premiums for it. also 1st time clients would have big limits etc.
there is almost nowhere you can buy btc with PP. theres a couple people on LBC that will do it if they know you, provided youre willing to jump through hoops, and there used to be that virwox thing but i heard it doesnt work anymore.
Also, PP is much better with chargeback risk than a credit card. IF someone gets ahold of your PP account, and they try to send money to an account they have never sent to before, PP will almost always block the transaction.
OTOH, a credit card will almost always go through, especially with a modest transaction size. Sometimes, the gateway's fraud prevention systems will stop it(if there is too big a geo mismatch between the IP address and the billing address, for example, ) but for the many professional fraud rings out there that know what theyre doing that is more the exception than the rule.
yes i know that im just speaking of some ways we can go over this ;)
there is few spots allowing buying BTC with CC tho http://fuk.io/where-to-day-trade-bitcoin-on-the-bull-run-leverage-futures-spot-trading/
Of the four listed, only two (coinmama and coinbase) actually allow instant transactions with a credit card. I have actually never heard of anyone though who didn't already have a well established account actually getting the CC deposit to work.
TBH, i think the best solution there is LBC. If steem is going to have real, non-bitcoin-mediated purchase options, i think the necessary first step is a LBC-like system where you can meet up with someone irl or drive out to a bank and make a deposit.
In some ways, this is less convienient than a credit card. But it also has the advantage of keeping the transactions more private.
WHen i was devoting a significant amount of time to steem, i was considering retrofitting my LBC account so that i could buy and sell steem on it, but i decided there are too many moving parts to make lbc work withanything but bitcoin. that said, it does not seem like it would be too difficult to get something similar going.
The irl traders there make a killing, but for steem to work with that kind of business model, it needs to get to some kind of price stablility first.
Credit cards could put in their contracts that there are no chargebacks or refunds on purchases of cryptocurrency. Of course, there will be lawsuits because the IRS considers cryptocurrencies to be property, hence akin to buying a TV set and credit cards would have to honor their buyer's remorse programs.
Nevertheless, cryptocurrency is really something new and should be treated in a novel way. In reality, cryptocurrency is a competitor and credit cards might want to inhibit it and probably charge 5% to 10% fee for the transaction.
Visa and mastercard (and all other card types, for that matter) require that all transactions be reversible in cases of fraud (and most of your chargebacks are going to be fraudulent use ). You're not allowed to accept visa and MC and just say "123 no chargebacks"
Even if you could, it wouldn't be desirable. You'd essentially be helping theives steal from innocent victims. We don't want a situation where people are getting introduced to steem by a fraudulent charge on their bank statement that they can't get off.
You make good points, but people might be happy to do cryptocurrency transactions on an at- risk basis. We already have that for the most part, de facto. If you send bitcoin to an address there is no guarantee of anything on the other end and no refunds for fraud. I have to admit it would be nice if credit cards took the hit when a crook did a cryptocurrency rip-off. However, fraud exists. According to pymnts.com, U.S. issuers reportedly lost $3.89 billion last year due to counterfeiting, which accounted for 23.9 percent of global fraud losses.
If there is fraud of any kind, including cryptocurrency purchases, why change the current policy? Fraud is fraud.
To cut to the chase, ultimately it is an underwriting problem. Who is going to foot the bill for cryptocurrency involved fraud?
The "current policy" is that any transaction is reversible if the CH claims fraud. This is card issuer policy, enforced by credit card merchant banks.
And yeah, because of that, its an underwriting problem.
If youre asking why cryptocurrency is special, its because cryptocurrency is a vulnerable target in ways that most goods are not. thats why there arent many places to buy btc this way.
That is to say, lets say tomorrow morning you have a fully functioning website where you can accept CC payments and send steem in return for them.
Regadless of the KYC you implement or the anti-fraud measures you take to prevent unauthorized transactions, (and there are a variety of them available), you will lose probably about 250K-500K in the first month to fraud.
This isnt some guy speculating. I know the people that will hit you for the most personally.
Crypto currencies like steem are far more vulnerable to fraud than physical gold (which has to be sent somewhere)
And yet I'm able to buy physical gold with a credit card. There ARE ways around this.
@transhuman If the case is chargebacks from fraudsters - it could be facilitate so that people buy SBD held in escrow until the chargeback period is over.
How long is the "chargeback period"? That sounds like a long time to wait. There is already a delay in cryptcurrency transactions as the blockchain gets a consensus; though Steem with it's 3 -minute blocks is pretty speedy.
its 90 or 120 days in most countries for most card issuers, but the CB percentage declines sharply after 30 days
@transhuman there is usually a 30 day chargeback which can be prolonged if there is a dispute.
I am sure we can find a brilliant solution for it that don´t prevent people from powering up - but can prevent people from cashing out/powering down for the first 90 days for example.
First time buyers of course.
throwing the suggestion-ball :)
@fyrstikken: Have you seen Cardiff's presentation at Steem Fest? See 01:50 to 09:19 of the following video:
Cardiff is saying that we could form a Steemit Bank or Investment Fund or Hedge Fund etc. A bank is roughly the same thing as a credit card (they underwrite them).
I worked in the financial industry and I know that you can do anything with finance. It's just a matter of using imagination to come up with a solution. Why not set up a "reverse" credit card which pays YOU interest for your purchases. At first it would be a secured credit card; secured by dollars and/or other stable currencies.
Consumers might not be so quick to spend if they were getting a good rate of interest on their money. The rate depending on how much they have in. Furthermore, merchants might not take their money out if they are making 8% interest. That might be more than their actual profit margin.
The hard part would be convincing people that it is not a scam.
I actually thought of something interesting.
So the guy buys X amount of steem. When he does so, instead of sending it to him, the seller creates a new account with the steem in it.
The buyer gets to choose steem or SP (or SBD i guess), and immediately gets the voting key electronically, so he can use the steem to power up and vote if he wants to. If not, its safe in the new account.
The signing and owner key get mailed on paper to the CH billing address.
This isnt going to stop actual cardholders who decide to freeroll the system by buying the steem then charging it back, but it will make fraud from stolen cards (which is where most of your fraud breakage is going to come from ) far more difficult to do profitably.
The cadriff idea is terrible. No serious business enterprise would ever go for it. The only bright spot was I got a chuckle when he meant to say "nest egg" (the invested money) but instead said "goose egg" (slang for zero. freudian slip i guess.)
Also, he doesnt understand what "hard asset" means. crypto currency is a soft asset. It doesnt have intrinsic value.
Also also it blows my mind that we're coming off like a 95% devaluation trend and hes ranting about how risky it is to keep your money in a savings account. Like, seriously?
There's a difference between being positive/optimistic and being oblivious.
This is the kind of thing that only poor people believe.
also, i agree with others itt that your post title is manifest cock-teasery
also also, you can't compare facebook market cap with crypto market caps. Theyre two entirely different (though analogous) concepts .
totally @sigmajin - and very effective :) just wait until you see what we can do once Steemit accept credit-cards :)
On my 9-year plan, we should crush facebooks market-cap imo.
is it not a 10 year plan because there aren't enough people for you to multiply by 4 again?
well, maybe the internet-population is significantly larger in nine years, but yes - we will max out at some point.
Going to love to see this happen :D...
@sigmajin There has been talked about that @blocktrades could facilitate. When you click "Power Up" now, you get a bitcoin-address and a limit of around 25 Bitcoins, I would like to see a Credit-Card solution next to that with a $20,000 limit or something.
I would like to hear what @steemit inc can do about it with their account being the largest in partnership with for example @bittrex, @blocktrades or @roelandp who already has said he want to build something to facilitate that from Amsterdam.
A meeting with the top 50 account-holders would probably be a wise idea in order to facilitate the ebb/flow in taking on FIAT-currencies.
The bottom line is to make it super-easy for anyone to power-up.
About chargebacks/fraud - that can be limited and eliminated on our part by a strong deal and strong AML/KYC policies or other solutions.
Solutions Solutions Solutions Solutions :)
thanks for your comment :)