Bitcoin vs. Credit Card Transactions: What’s the Difference?
Bitcoin vs. Credit Card Transactions: What’s the Difference?
Overview:
Most individuals hold credit cards to delay making a complete payment on large purchases. Yet others can use Bitcoin as well. How can you optimize your finances if you have access to both?
- Bitcoin is more similar to cash because it is traded directly between users without needing a central bank.
- Despite the widespread use of credit cards, many intermediaries between stores and buyers add extra fees for “essential” services.
- While most suppliers of credit cards also provide fraud protection, Bitcoin does not.
- More and more businesses are beginning to accept Bitcoin as payment.
Bitcoin Transactions:
Bitcoin was created to facilitate individual transactions, eliminating intermediaries in the process. What may keep bitcoins in a digital wallet that you control and keep in your possession? You may save yourself the trouble of keeping your money in a bank.
Payments are “pushed” straight from one party to another, much like wire transfers or cash transactions, but without needing a third-party financial institution to function as a go-between. Each transaction is recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain, but the payment processing is carried out through a private network of computers.
No personal information, such as name or address, is required to make a Bitcoin purchase. Thus, no one is keeping tabs on your money dealings or putting restrictions on what you may do.
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Credit Card Transactions:
In contrast, when you use a credit card, you essentially permit a merchant to “draw” money from your account after a banking institution has processed it. For instance, in a typical Visa transaction, the credit card company, the store, the acquiring bank (which processes the payments to the store), the issuing bank, and the customer all play roles. Depending on the transaction, a sixth party may be involved: the payment processor.
Credit has been granted to individuals for millennia, but credit cards as we know them today have only been around since the 1950s.
Fees incurred by one party are often paid by another and ultimately by the cardholder. Physical custody of credit cards requires similar precautions. While technology is improving, the credit card information is still vulnerable to theft, mainly if stores can keep customer data on file. Even if you don’t, hackers may still obtain your card details by gaining access to the store’s computer system.
Key Differences:
To send and receive Bitcoin, users need a public key (an anonymous alphanumeric address that changes with each transaction) and a private key. You may use QR codes associated with your wallet to make purchases on your mobile device. Although credit card payments made via a mobile device must go through many verification and approval steps, this is becoming increasingly common.
One significant distinction is that with the former, you don’t often have to do much more than pass your card to another person or scan it at a POS machine. Hackers using phoney terminals may steal credit card information from these devices. If the cashier is dishonest, they may steal your credit card information and use it themselves or sell it online. In the case of Bitcoin, there is no go-between between your digital wallet and the recipient of your payment.
The significant difference between Bitcoin and credit card transactions is that the latter may be cancelled, and the former cannot. For businesses accepting Bitcoin, this implies that they are protected against chargebacks. A chargeback occurs when a credit card company requests reimbursement from a merchant for a disputed or fraudulent purchase.
Bitcoin-accepting businesses also benefit from reduced credit card processing costs, which may vary from 0.5% to 5%, plus a flat charge of $.20 to $.30 for each transaction. In Bitcoin, transaction costs are proportional to the size of the transaction or the wallet used, making it possible to send and receive payments for next to nothing.
Despite the number of people and institutions involved, processing a credit card payment only takes a few seconds. However, depending on the current hash rate and volume of Bitcoin transactions, this time might quickly increase to 10 minutes or more.
The benefits of accepting Bitcoin as payment for goods and services are readily apparent to retailers. Compared to traditional payment methods, digital money results in significant cost savings and no chargeback risk.
Bitcoin offers many benefits to consumers over other payment methods, including lower transaction costs, more anonymity for users, and fewer delays or disruptions from go-betweens.
Credit cards come with perks like cash advances and rewards programmes. Many more shops and suppliers take them too. The use of credit cards, however, may have negative consequences, such as increased interest rates, penalties for making purchases in a foreign currency, or even worse credit scores due to late payments.
Which one you go with relies on how you feel about cryptocurrencies and current banking systems and your preferences for fraud prevention, simplicity of use, and anonymity.