Beware of buying cryptocurrency on Paypal

boing
1

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/12/beware-of-buying-cryptocurrency-on-paypal.html

…

1 Like
2

Beware of buying cryptocurrency o̶n̶ ̶P̶a̶y̶p̶a̶l̶

Fixed.

25 Likes
3

You beat me to it.

6 Likes
4

The very idea strikes me as a worse version of frequent flier miles:

  • Limited usability
  • Subject to rule changes at the whim of others
  • Liable to be devalued or expire without warning

No thanks. Then having a corporation like PayPal as the middleman makes the transactions traceable, doesn’t it? That’s a very big move in the opposite direction of cryptocurrency.

6 Likes
5

Robinhood is the same deal, you can buy and resell it, but you can’t transfer it out or in.

I see it as useful only for BC day traders, but you can do that elsewhere too.

So, pretty fuckin useless

4 Likes
6

Is the idea behind all this to just speculate and gamble on Cryptocurrency using Paypal?

You can’t send the crypto to anyone, you can’t receive crypto. You can’t shop with it. What’s the point of having it? To hope it goes up in value?

3 Likes
7

Beware of b̶u̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶r̶y̶p̶t̶o̶c̶u̶r̶r̶e̶n̶c̶y̶ ̶o̶̶̶n̶̶̶ ̶̶̶ PayPal

Addendum.

16 Likes
8

i ask myself the same thing - with regards to paypal’s other offerings as well. what a useless company. everything they do someone else does better/faster/cheaper/easier/less b.s… I feel sorry for them.

1 Like
9

It’s the modern, less cute, version of a Tamagotchi. Like it’s ancestor, it’s likely to die while you are sleeping or working or otherwise distracted from feeding it.

7 Likes
10

That seems to be it. Speculation. Or a hedge against inflation.

2 Likes
11

Like this, only riskier?

5 Likes
12

This is all a lot of extra work and time spent to do something money already does. Easier, quicker and with far less risk.

I guess everyone needs a hobby.

2 Likes
13

That cryptocurrency is untraceable is a surprisingly common misconception, when the entire design of it (or at least, of Bitcoin and similar systems) relies on the ledger of every transaction being completely public. The only anonymity it provides is obscuring your name behind a random account number, but it’s generally not hard to figure out who an account belongs to by tracing its transaction history - which, again, is completely public.

1 Like
14

First, you can’t actually use the cryptocurrency to buy and sell things,

no change there then

1 Like
15

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.