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BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

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329 points beeburrt | 1 comments | 16 May 25 06:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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olalonde[dead post] ◴[16 May 25 06:40 UTC] No.44002412[source]▶
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pbhjpbhj ◴[16 May 25 06:58 UTC] No.44002511[source]▶
Don't you pay more in transaction costs than the cost of a coffee? And then pay in environmental costs.
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olalonde ◴[16 May 25 07:08 UTC] No.44002555[source]▶
No, on-chain transaction fees aren't higher than the cost of a coffee. They're currently around $0.15 per transaction - cheaper than typical credit card processing fees. Plus, you could always build an off-chain transaction system with zero fees.

As for the environmental impact: individual Bitcoin transactions don’t directly increase energy usage. Miners consume electricity regardless of whether any given person transacts. And while mining is energy intensive, it doesn't have an environmental impact in itself.

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pbhjpbhj ◴[16 May 25 07:18 UTC] No.44002610[source]▶
I must have misremembered? Last time I looked (maybe 2 years ago) I thought actual bitcoin transactions took maybe an hour to confirm and cost a couple of dollars -- am I just short more marbles than I thought I was or has something changed with how they do transactions.

The context I was looking at related to storing data in the bitcoin ledger. I think I commented here, I'll have to look back and see.

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1. Shatnerz ◴[16 May 25 07:43 UTC] No.44002758[source]▶
Bitcoin may not be the best example because it does have a lot of limitation and somewhat failed as a currency and instead turned into a speculative store of value. Block time on Bitcoin is ~10 min. For small purchases, you would probably be fine with 1 confirmation, but a 10 minute wait is terrible UX. There is lighting which is a layer on top of bitcoin which is much faster, but the UX is still a bit clunky.

But in general, I agree that cryptocurrencies could help the problem, but it still carries the compliance and AML risks unless you can outsource that to a 3rd party. What happens if you accept funds from an OFAC or other sanctioned account? Violating AML can come with huge fines and is generally just a massive headache. Cash doesn't have these issues as the evidence is generally impossible to track well. With nearly all cryptocurrencies, the entire ledger is open, so if you accidentally accepted payment from the wrong person, you could get royally screwed at some later time.