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So on the phone today w/ a customer who simply did not understand that there's more to a debit card transaction than meets the eye. Got so annoying that I spent about 30 mins after work trying to understand card txn processing better. You know what I learned? Bitcoin is better.
Why? Debit/credit card transactions are instant, right? Nope! They take several days for cash to exchange hands between the merchant and issuing bank and card processors. Copied the following from a reddit post:
"The customer buys something. The merchant's bank checks with the customer's bank to make sure the customer has funds in their account, and the customer's bank puts a hold on the account in the amount- this hold is called the authorization.
This is what makes it appear as if the charge hits your card right away
The merchant's bank has to settle the transaction. This costs money, so it's usually done in batches by the payment processor. They settle at least once a day.
The merchant's bank has to settle the transaction. This costs money, so it's usually done in batches by the payment processor. They settle at least once a day.
The settlement takes up to 72 hours to process. Once the funds are sent from the customer's bank to the merchant's bank, the settlement appears on the customer's account, the funds are withdrawn, and the authorization is cancelled.
The merchant's bank updates the merchant's account to show that the funds have been received. This can take up to 24 hours.
It's been 1-5 days, and everyone has their money now. The transaction is complete." Refunds are the exact opposite, which causes many people to get mad
It's been 1-5 days, and everyone has their money now. The transaction is complete." Refunds are the exact opposite, which causes many people to get mad
And they should be, the payments system is terribly outdated, and it's very seldom revolutionized because it enriches the middle man too much. You can invent ways for instant transfers like cash app, venmo, apple cash, but they use gimmicks that rely on an outdated system still.
This is like trying to race a car on a rocky old road only used by horses. The infrastructure Bitcoin is bringing to finance is going to change things. See this excellent video by @aantonop for more on infrastructure inversion:
In short, all these gimmicks are, are promises to pay pretty much, because not a single form of electronic funds transfers in the US are instant, and the costliness of them makes them take much longer because of how they're batched, laws/regations, etc.
It's time for a change. #bitcoin 
