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Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

One key difference right now, though, is that I can use my Mastercard to pay for just about anythying just about anywhere I happen to be. In comparison to this worldwide acceptance as a means of payment, BTC seems just about worthless.

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I've got two credit cards, a Visa and a MasterCard, both of them backed by my Bitcoin wallet. Where's the problem? I can pay with Bitcoin anywhere I could've paid with Visa/Mastercard .. this isn't about BtC vs. Visa/Mastercard.

Its about BtC vs. US$, &etc.

What you are saying is that "I can pay with currency $x anywhere, I just need to exchange it first"

If you use Visa/MasterCard, you will not pay _in_ BTC but in dollars/euros/whatever.

I pay in BtC. The card provider does the conversion automatically - but I, personally, pay in BtC. I have nothing to do with US$.

Is there a guide I can use to set this up?

http://wirexapp.com/

There are quite a few others, but this is the one I know about.

They list the current price of BTC at $2,456.15 on that page. Hope it's out of date and not the exchange rate they use ;-)

Um yeah, that might be something local. For me it shows $9,704.50, which is pretty close to what coinmarketcap is showing ..

BTC is the gold of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's strength is not being a practical payment system. Instead, with Bitcoin, you can trade with any other currency.

Perfectly right. This will only change if several factors converge to create the right conditions. One big factor would be a new "Google" of bitcoin, namely a disruptive new entry in the payements space, marketing BTC for the end user and threatening the incumbents to the point of forcing them to drop barriers to entry, and even start adopting the new technology.

True, however BTC isn't that different from a credit card in terms of liquidity. Plastic is accepted at more merchants, BTC can be digitally cashed in anytime with only a short delay.

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