mekka okereke :verified:
Bitcoin is still absolutely useless as a currency and a technology. It's still cryptobros waiting on a foolish bag holder to take the L. But its price is skyrocketing since Nov 5th, because everyone thinks that Trump and Vance will dump this loser of a technology on the American tax-payer.🤡
At this point there's nothing to stop them from doing that.
On the other hand, India's UPI system does around 15 billion transactions a month, most with zero transaction fees.
1/N
mekka okereke :verified:
~500 million people a day buy something real using UPI. Almost no one buys anything real with Bitcoin. UPI is backed by a real currency. Bitcoin is make believe, made up, monkey money. UPI is a real thing. Bitcoin is not.
I'm not going to rehash all of my criticisms of Bitcoin. Just read @molly0xfff .
2/2
Felipe
@mekkaokereke there's someting similar to India's UPI in Brazil: it's called PIX
mekka okereke :verified:
💯
PIX is up next. 🇧🇷♥️
Lady Errant
@mekkaokereke @molly0xfff And all without boiling the seas to do it.
mhoye
@mekkaokereke @molly0xfff the thing that kills me is the staggering waste of it, that people keep claiming like six transactions per second globally is a viable, reasonable number.
That is a _nothing_ number. It’s nothing at all! If it wasn’t for the mind-blowing wastefulness of zero-trust computing you could run the entire Bitcoin ecosystem, the entire damn thing, off one raspi and that raspi wouldn’t even warm up.
mekka okereke :verified:
Bitcoin can't solve the "Amazon socks problem."
mekka okereke :verified:
They're slightly different, although M-Pesa is great too.
This paper is a good overview.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167624524000350
John Lusk
Out of curiosity, how does this relate to something like M-PESA? Are they interoperable? Can one be seen as a superset of the other?
Shannon Clark
@mekkaokereke @molly0xfff not only that it is adopted by apparently everyone in India (was just at a friend’s house last night who are Indian immigrants - they were talking about how digital payments are accepted by street vendors everywhere in India such that you barely need to carry cash and that everyone even the elderly have figured out the digital payments.
(And it all bypasses credit cards) some foreigners can even use it (but only from 3 or so countries with the right app and KYC)
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@fbobraga @mekkaokereke and if I understand UPI correctly, there is something very similar in Poland: Blik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik
Adrianna Tan
@mekkaokereke with my Singapore bank account I can transfer to most Indian accounts with UPI in seconds
Tim Richards
@skinnylatte @mekkaokereke We have an instant payment system between different banks here in Oz too. The US has always seemed way behind on payments tech. At least American publishers have stopped sending me foreign currency cheques! Almost impossible to bank them here nowadays.
Carlos Rodríguez
@mekkaokereke It may be useless to you, but for a lot of us in a lot of countries it’s useful.
mekka okereke :verified:
Vulture capitalists praying for the downfall of a legitimate central banking system, pretend that Bitcoin is widely useful in those countries.
In those situations, I say "Do what you need to survive." 👍🏿
But what would you use Bitcoin for in a stable country with a fast, free, open, and zero cost micro transaction system like UPI?
DJM (freelance for hire)
@mekkaokereke @tarheel Mpesa, used in a few countries mostly in East Africa, is Electronic Money on mobile.
Across the African continent, Mobile Money (based on various mobile operators / MNOs - mobile operators - sometimes interoperable) is used a lot (See GSMA report here https://www.gsma.com/sotir/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GSMA-SOTIR-2024_Report.pdf )
I use it to pay bills, groceries, airtime and internet...
MoMo is regulated by central banks, in a special category: example in UEMOA (West Africa) https://www.bceao.int/fr/content/etablissements-de-monnaie-electronique (in French)
Nate Vack 🍴
@mhoye @mekkaokereke @molly0xfff Yeah, the whole zero-trust computing world is like if you took a cute mathematical theory and then built a religion around it
AJ Sadauskas
@timrichards @skinnylatte @mekkaokereke Here's a quick explainer for our American friends on how payments work in Australia.
Let's say I've set up a bank account. When I do, I can link my phone number or email address to my bank account.
Now, let's Imagine you need to pay me $20, but you use a different bank to me.
What you would do is open your bank's app and go to the payments tab.
Then enter my phone number or email and tap transfer.
That's it.
No third party payment app needed.
You don't need to even know which bank I'm with.
This has been baked into the Australian banking system for the past 6 years now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Payments_Platform
Before that?
You could still transfer funds from your account to mine using your bank's app.
You just needed to know either:
a) My account number and my bank's unique ID number (called a BSB number), or
b) If I'm a commercial business, my unique payment ID number (called a BPay number).
Again, all this is a standard part of the banking system here.
Nicol Wistreich
@mekkaokereke @tarheel was about to mention Pix – 92% of Brazilian adults, ~220m transactions / day in September, no transaction fees (https://fintechmagazine.com/articles/pagbrasil-expands-pix-payments-beyond-brazilian-borders)
Hilary
@mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez
Seems to me there are two separate conversations going on here. One is about fast, direct transactions. In the UK we take this for granted. People in the USA tend not to realise how primitive their banking systems are in comparison with civilised countries.
The other, more fundamental, conversation is about what defines money and gives it meaningful value. Only governments can do that. Bitcoin doesn't qualify, and its supposed value is spurious.
Dan Neuman
@regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez Spurious, capricious, volatile...all features you *don't* want in a currency. One reason we dropped the gold standard is that international trade became punishing for some countries who could not control their currency. Bitcoin is no different than gold.
Misuse Case
@skinnylatte @mekkaokereke I know I’m better off writing myself a check and then doing a mobile deposit of it to one of my other accounts than using a bank transfer.
moggie
Except for the minor point that gold actually exists.
Infrogmation
@dan613 @EverydayMoggie @regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez
Nope, gold has value from actually being useful (not just shiny). (Doesn't mean one should base gov't currency on it of course.) Doesn't rust! Doesn't rot! If gold were very common, it would be widely used in everyday electronics and plumbing.
moggie
Gold is a real thing that exists and is useful, regardless of how much value is assigned to it. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has no existence outside of its valuation.
@Infrogmation @dan613 @regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez
Dan Neuman
@EverydayMoggie @regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez Pfft! A trifling matter!
Molly White
@juergen_hubert @mekkaokereke unfortunately crypto payment systems screw them over too, and introduce added risks as far as traceability. the solution is going to have to be stronger protections for sex workers and against debanking. as with most problems, technology alone is not an adequate solution.
Jürgen Hubert
As far as I can tell, there is only one legitimate use case for crypto currencies: Payment for sex workers - because "conventional" online payment systems all seem to screw them over, a trend that is likely to continue in the next few years.
The _illegitimate_ use case is, of course, money laundering for organized crime. It's no accident that all those organized crime rings holding websites and IT infrastructure hostage demand payment in crypto currencies...
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