This. Is. Huge. 👀🚀
Discussion
Is this equivalent to tipping 2-3%?
Nah its a “top signal”
No. This means you can pay a bitcoin transaction/invoice directly from your USD balance. They’ll automatically convert the equivalent bitcoin and pay the invoice. Strike has done this for several years and it’s a feature many have been waiting for cashapp to support.
Oh right, I missed that the original charge was expresssd as bitcoin. And now I realize that I have no clue if cashapp charged a 2-3% fee on fiat (not a user). If so, seems a merchant could give themselves a 2-3% tip by selecting bitcoin invoice, prividdd it doesn't spook customers. Or am I too optimistic?
If a Square merchant allows customers to pay with cashapp, there is no fee. But if the customer uses the cashapp visa debit card, then the Square merchant would incur the same card fees as any other Visa card. If the Square merchant accepts bitcoin payments, then I believe there are no processing fees until 2027. After that, we’ll have to wait and see. As for whether the merchant “tips” themselves this way, it depends whether they bake the processing fees into their prices or not. Some Square merchants manually add a service charge when paying with paying with cards to cover the card fees.
Thanks for the breakdown. Will educate a merchant next chance I get 🫡
"Some Square merchants manually add a service charge when paying with paying with cards to cover the card fees"
This is good to know. I figured Square was likely baking the card fees right into the service. Instead, it sounds like merchants actually already have the option to not 'tip' themselves the amount of the card fees if the customer is paying in btc (offering a lower cost to the customer does tend to lead to having more customers after all).
The merchant pays the processing fee regardless of how much they charge, just like with any other card processor. What I’ve often seen is merchants advertising a “cash” price and then add their own surcharge for card purchases to offset what Square deducts from the transactions.
ah... i see.
With no card fees, since Square will be charging a lower (or initially zero) processing fee to the merchant for transactions in BTC, hopefully, Square will ultimately make it easier for the merchant to choose to automatically pass those lower processing costs on to the customer.
... and same goes for any processing cost savings just because the customer uses CashApp.
Yea that would be a nice feature to have. What I would do for now as merchant would be to advertise one price for paying with cash/bitcoin, and then a 3% up charge for anyone wanting to pay with cards.
i think yodl's brilliant point is that by saving the merchant their credit card transaction fee, you're essentially tipping them. or every credit card customer is anti-tipping, same thing
I'm still a bit lost on details, but there's a bit more to it. Will reread later, but fyi. Also they're actively running some incentives for now and a year or two to come, so not sure where that fits in. Good stuff regardless
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when the incentives end and the processors want to charge fees again, then we begin another long cycle of education and adoption for customers and merchants to use base layer lightning to cut the processor out of the loop. this week proves (assuming this bears out successfully) that the pattern is possible.
Then it should come down to the fundamental properties I'd imagine (won't bore you with list). And I assume the equilibrium middleman fees will fall well below where it is now with CCs
So cashapp becomes the new visa essentially?
Indeed!
This means anyone with dollars in their Cash App account will be able to scan a bitcoin/lightning invoice and pay it without needing to first purchase the bitcoin. This is MASSIVE.
Perhaps I'm mid curving this but I don't understand the significance of this. Who is gonna pay a bitcoin invoice that doesn't already have sats?
every person who uses cash app and every merchant who wants to save on fees and enjoy instant settlement.
credit card companies dealt a death blow this week. expect the wartime atrocities to intensify
🙄
the payments are going over the bitcoin network. That is enormous news. Don't let the "dollars" on either end discourage you.
Bitcoin's success has to come from both ends and meet in the middle:
[best money for individuals to stack and hold] | [best money for settlement and transfer].
In truth, it's one coherent thing that will ultimately be unified, but chronologically the incremental adoption chunks it up into different value propositions like that.
It won’t succeed
what won't, in what way?
If you mean "people just won't use it", I agree that is a definite possibility. If you mean "bitcoin as payment rails won't succeed" then we're pretty far apart and I'd like to hear your reasoning.
normies are coming
ok but for the customer, what is the actual use case. the customer doesnt pay fees when using a credit/debit card. the target audience of this feature is people who understand bitcoin but dont want to pay with it, paying a merchant who primarily wants to accept bitcoin. what's the addressable market? a few thousand people, maybe?
- merchants may offer incentives to customers to use this payment method as it saves them credit card processing fees
- some customers might enjoy the ideological appeal of sticking it to the credit card companies (I dunno, run a No Kings day promo)
- yes, people who understand bitcoin but don't want to pay with it
- other ideas that you and I haven't come up with yet because that's how progress works - in layers, as new raw materials for creativity are added, and its always a good thing to have more options for future entrepreneurs (have some humility; do you think you and I have literally all the ideas forever?)
I don't know what the addressable market is, but I do know that each of those bullets increases it, anything more than "zero" is a net positive for ME, and Square/CashApp must have an estimate that is a **lot** more than "zero" in order to have a net positive for THEM.
simply, i see no way to be anything but optimistic about this development.
Unless something like "super easy UX for non-totally-pure-bitcoin use cases will actually harm pure bitcoin adoption". I am somewhat sympathetic to that angle, but I don't see you going that direction here so I'm leaving it out.
Also, many customers _do_ pay fees, because many merchants build in the credit card fee into their prices.
Just because they aren't aware of the fee doesn't mean they wouldn't enjoy the lower price if they choose a better payment rail.
Strike did it first 😎
Indeed. It’s been my favorite Strike feature since I started using them. I’ve been hoping cashapp would add it. MUCH larger user base than Strike, so it will be great for adoption.
does it include a lightning address?
Now you can send dollars from Cashapp and receive dollars in Strike, and vice versa, instantly without ever involving slow and costly bank transfers.
Ok, you guys in the USA are moving too fast for us in Japan.
oh my. does this means what I think it does??? The merchant eliminates sales tax on the purchase?
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"$10 Bitcoin payment" 😅😅😅
Where I'm from we call $10 "fiat".
Coinbase 2
Not available in Europe, as always.