Interesting that the title says all operations are suspended, but description basically says that foreign cards won't work in Russia and Russian cards work abroad, but does it mean local Russian cards will still work in Russia? That's probably majority of transactions anyway. A bit confused here.
It doesn't really matter how many Mir cards are—they're just a home-grown Russian brand of a card.
The real issue is that all transactions inside Russia using Visa, MC or Mir are processed inside Russia by the same entity that runs Mir brand, and therefore won't stop working.
Which they created in 2015, after we threatened SWIFT removal for the Crimea invasion, along with a SWIFT alternative called SPFS.
It really wouldn't surprise me if the Russian state fully anticipated and expected these financial sanctions from the West, and have positioned themselves to profit from it after some short term pain.
Which, tbh, was pretty much the stated intention before starting the conflict - cut off the new superpowers and their historic satellite states dependence on [insolvent] western financiers.
Very. They (China, Russia, India) are calling it "the multi polar world". Knocking swift, visa, mastercard and the dollar out of every country they can has been a goal for years, and now they are handing it them on a plate. Sigh.
Commenting more in the sense they are supporting non democratic states. The same way companies/consumers(?) are moving out of Russia, they could reduce spending on products from places that fail at environmental, social, governance and democratic levels (it comes with its own set of problems though)
It's phrased very carefully "cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by the Mastercard network", which sounds like they still might work in Russia even if they are not supported by the network. Next sentence is "any Mastercard issued outside of the country will not work at Russian merchants". Why make this clear distinction? Why not just say that all Mastercard won't work in Russia?
I worked in credit card acquiring business (implemented credit card application for the terminal).
Cards with Mastercard or Visa logo can still work without Mastercard or Visa processing the payments.
Obviously, they do work in ATMs.
For normal payments it is possible for another company to step in and process the payments. That would be massive effort but not impossible to get done in say couple of weeks.
But that would still mean that the system would be cut off from the rest of the world -- cards issued by Russian banks would not be valid outside of the new system. Cards outside of Russia would not work because it cannot communicate with Russian system. And cards issued outside of Russia would not work inside Russia for the same reason -- the transaction would not be possible to authorise across the border.
> For normal payments it is possible for another company to step in and process the payments. That would be massive effort but not impossible to get done in say couple of weeks.
Per another comment, the massive effort has already happened over the preceding years, out of the expectation that something like this was going to happen sooner or later: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30572790
> But that would still mean that the system would be cut off from the rest of the world
Could Russian banks adopt China's UnionPay as an alternative to Visa/MasterCard? UnionPay is already accepted in many Western countries due to the desire to gain the business of Chinese nationals (tourists, business travellers, international students, etc). Would it be technically possible for a Western intermediary processor to distinguish a Russian UnionPay card from a Chinese one?
Yes, all cards issues by russian banks (Mir, MasterCard, Visa) work inside of russia, because in 2014 Russian central bank forced all payment systems to work through processing center in Moscow.
Besides, Russian banks are already promoting new cards - "Mir + UnionPay", where Union Pay is Chinese alternative to MC and Visa and it should be possible to use new Mir cards everywhere abroad where UnionPay is accepted.
According to the nytimes cards might still work in the country.
"The suspensions announced on Saturday evening will prevent Mastercards and Visa cards issued by Russian banks from working in other countries and block people with cards issued elsewhere from purchasing goods and services from companies in Russia.
But other transactions may still go through. Cards branded with the Mastercard or Visa logo that were issued by Russian banks may still work inside the country, because the transactions are handled by a local processor, officials at both companies said."
while this action is clear based on the sanctions, MasterCard, Visa and Paypal have not done themselves any favors based on the past actions of acting cartel like in other situations which were not based on sanctions.
It is easy (for me anyway) to see how some people could consider their actions to be in the same vein of their previous attempts to regulate the speech and actions of private individuals they find politically disagreeable. MC and Paypal being the much bigger offenders of that...
Thanks for implying I don't know what an economic sanction is. I do not believe this is part of the economic sanctions announced by gvts. This is a private initiative.
Apologies for any confusion, I wasn't implying, I was *stating* that you have no idea what economic sanctions are.
"As a result of sanction orders, we have blocked multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network. We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve."
An article from yesterday regarding SWIFT explained this. The western govs issued a "commander's intent" to sanction Russia.
That's basically a direction that every financial entity which does transactions with Russia must assume that they too should suspend operations, unless explicitly cleared otherwise.
Russia was declared "untouchable", unless you have explicit permission to touch it (like energy markets).
I don’t think that’s true. Otherwise, Mastercard/Visa/Paypal wouldn’t have waited this long.
I think Russia is being ‘canceled’. They have become toxic to companies. It’s PR related, not because of government orders.
Dealing with Russia is now problematic for top level corporate management and attention of top level management is always a scarce resource. General rule products and customers that require too much of it for the profits generated get the axe.
Russia is about to get a lot poorer. So any business you have with Russia is going to shrink.
No, it's the exact same meaning as when it happens to a person. What vkou said.
https://twitter.com/ConallLaverty/status/1499414982429224974
Almost none of these companies left because of sanctions, they left voluntary. Companies could still get paid without swift access if they wanted to, that's not the issue. Doing business in Russia has become toxic. It's a race to get out.
In this context when one actor pulls out, the eyes turn on the others who either pull out or will have to accept being seen as supporting the regime. The coordination doesn’t have to exist for it to look coordinated. No one wants to be seen as late to leave.
Plus the longer you stay, the more the value of ruble, and exchange rates drops and stocks/etc of those affiliated w/ the sinking ship that is Russia, the more likely you are to be holding the 'hot potato' and lose the most money when everything drops....in other words better to get going while the going is good.
It also takes time to interpret how the sanctions affect an industry and what actions need to be taken, and those interpretations are going to be pretty correlated.
I remember reading an analysis of (I believe) WWI that said that by that point, the rulers of Europe had successfully completed the hard work of discouraging war among themselves through a long-term project of intermarriage. They were all related to each other and therefore mostly uninterested in going to war against each other.[1]
But at some point popular demand for war started to rise and the noble houses weren't able to stop it.
We're seeing something similar here.
[1] This can't be the whole story; European history is replete with brother-brother and father-son wars. But I think the idea is worth considering anyway.
Nothing new here. The large tech and financial corporations have moved in lockstep for a long time, and the rest of the Fortune 500 isn't far behind. The average person and small business is rapidly losing the right to transact.
> It does feel coordinated. I know corporate law is kind of irrelevant in a context of war, but it feels more than ever like a cartel.
You don't need a cartel to coordinate. If someone shoots a gun and everyone ducks, their ducking was coordinated by the gunshot. They didn't need to get together and have a discussion to all duck together at the same time.
> MasterCard/Visa cards issued in Russia will not work abroad, cards issued abroad will not work in Russia.
So it does nothing then. So russians will be able to use visa/mastercard within russia? They just won't be able to use it outside russia. And foreigners can't travel to russia and use visa/mastercard.
How many russians are going to travel to another country and use visa/mastercard in the near term? How many foreigners are going to travel to russia to use visa/mastercard in the near term? Now compare that to russians using visa/mastercard in russia. I'm guessing that's 99.99% of russians with visa/mastercard.
Just like with SWIFT "ban", it's all for show. The SWIFT ban doesn't affect russian banks tied to oil/gas trade. How convenient.
MIR cards are often also co-branded with China's UnionPay, and UP is available everywhere Chinese tourists/business people travel, which is pretty much anywhere relevant enough.
If you want to travel to Russia, you just need to bring with you a UnionPay card, they are just as widely accepted as Visa in Russia, apparently.
I'm not sure what exactly this ban was even supposed to accomplish. Punish Russian citizens, who according to the West, don't even have free elections and therefore had no input whatsoever in this? Seems like an excellent way to win hearts and minds, I'm sure. /s
“ With this action, cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by the Mastercard network. And, any Mastercard issued outside of the country will not work at Russian merchants or ATMs.”
I don’t believe it’s clear that cards issued in Russia are not still being accepted within Russia. Which is what I believe Visa is still doing:
“ all transactions initiated with Visa cards issued in Russia will no longer work outside the country and any Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia will no longer work within the Russian Federation.”
If MasterCard is matching Visa it’s effectively cross border transactions that have stopped - not withdraw access to Russian issued cards within Russia.
If they have withdrawn access to Russian cards within Russia it’s going to put enormous pressure on Russian citizens. Visa and Mastercard apparently have 73% of the credit card market in Russia. This could be the type of pressure need for citizens to push back at the Russian administration (not that they aren’t already).
So individuals who recently left Russia out of fear for the regime and may be in very vulnerable positions have potentially unexpectedly lost access to their funds until they can sort that out...
Meanwhile, for The Real Russians, business as usual.
Anyone who ran across the border and hoped to get their savings from inside Russia once out were naive (or more likely just in a hurry). This is one of few good use cases for cryptocurrency.
What's wrong with getting savings across border using ATM cash withdrawal while abroad? Limits are quite high for debit cards (and could be customized via client support), ATM commissions in first world countries are more than reasonable (up to 0%).
There are ways to exchange fiat for cryptocurrency without going through a regulated business. Bisq, localcryptos, coordinating over chat and meeting up IRL.
To be more specific: They did not speak out about blocking "the country" but about closing accounts and restricting access for all Russian citizens/residents. They are, however, complying with targeted sanctions of the individuals on the sanction list.
If the scope of the OFAC sanctions forces the exchanges to start blocking Russian passport holders and/or residents, that will change, of course.
It's not theatre, between this, and the trade disruptions, it's currently crippling the Russian domestic economy.
People at different levels of society are, of course, affected differently, but everybody's affected at this point. Even for an aristocrat, drinking moonshine in Krasnodar just doesn't have the same caché as Don Perignon in Paris.
Lyon Feuchtwanger, a Jew and anti-fascist who fled Hitler's Germany, lost all his savings in banks in the US, Canada, Britain and France. Because of the sanctions imposed on him as a German citizen. The only bank he still had money in his account in 1945 was ...German.
But imagine the disruption for ordinary citizens. Like you won't be able to renew your domain names, or pay for office 365/gsuite/aws/azure. Companies who didn't migrate to the cloud won't look so stupid.
Stephen Kotkin warned in a recent interview that the russians have their own way they can wreck havoc in our economies, like cutting undersea cables. And I also wonder if at one point the loss of revenues from cutting gas to europe will be worth given the economic impact it will inflict on the west (power cuts/lack of heating all over europe, price of gas sky-rocketting, etc).
Note that cutting the gas aligns with what the West citizen broadly want: Being forced faster than later to get rid of fossil energy. EU leaders certainly didn’t aim to secure the gas supply, they put all their might into sanctioning Russia “even if it costs the gas supply”.
At this point I’m wondering whether Russia knows it and wants to impose any sanction except cutting the gas.
Western citizens to not broadly want that at all. They may say they do not that's conditional on a lot of unstated assumptions, like it not causing electricity to become unaffordable or entirely unavailable. Both of which would be likely consequences of an energy was with Russia. The moment that happens, people sitting in the cold will suddenly remember that Ukraine is a foreign country and they aren't actually at war.
On an completely unrelated note I'm sad to observe how corporate speech alters the language. I'm sure it's called "will be rejected" not "will no longer be supported".
I have an ancient smartphone that's "no longer supported" and it still works. I'm sure the message meant that Russian cards won't, but I guess as people got routinely scared to use anything but the vaguest terms it became a habit.
In Russia, all country-local Visa and MasterCard payments are processed by country-owned NSPK system https://nspk.com
So all local payments will work, but no abroad payments (and no foreign cards to pay locally in Russia). Probably, I will lost most of my cloud data and compute resources incl. VPNs. Fortunately, some providers do accept SWIFT payments.
It is partially banned/restricted for companies only. Personal transactions do work well. However, there 12% tax on buying currencies on currency exchange for both companies and personal accounts
I’m not pro crypto or pro Russia, but the fact that it’s so easy to lose ones freedom to transact[0] (regardless of the specific merits here) is troubling.
Hasn't really been a problem for other countries to avoid this problem, so I'm not sure how worried I ought to be. Like so many things, I'll worry about trends when there is a trend.
It has been a problem. There is pretty much a duopoly, look at the difficulties you face if they disapprove your business or politics. More competition is long overdue.
But we are testing modern finance by weaponising the financial system. The most problematic move I think has been freezing the central bank's reserve. It might achieve the short term gain of hurting Russia, but what about the long term impact on the trust in holding foreign currencies?
China is seeing that people who live in democratic countries have been given a timely reminder about how valuable that is.
They will fight to protect that status. And over the medium to long term, they will reorient their economies so that they are not dependent on autocratic countries.
The Chinese aren't dumb enough to pretend their economy wouldn't collapse if they got the sort of embargo Russia's seeing. Their #1, #2, #3, #5, #6, and #7 top trading partners are all US or US allies.
The United States would also face huge shortages and other problems if they couldn't trade with China. China also realizes that too-- it's a two way street. Globalization makes everyone vulnerable
Unfortunately for Russia, if it does need to significantly dip into it's gold reserves it is likely to crash that market. I think China will get to negotiate a sweet discount to convert it to Yuan, if for no other reason than China seems to be the only place the gold can be laundered at the moment. I think I heard about $US 180bn worth?
I believe it could be the other way around, i.e. other countries paying in gold for Russia's natural gas to bypass sanctions. Iran has been able to sell petrol using the same method despite of the embargo.
It’s hard to remember as long ago as last month when peaceful Canadian protestors had their assets seized without due process. We already live in a world where so-called first world nationals have this happen to them. It’s not about countries or individuals, it’s about power. And the rulers of the west have demonstrated the power to completely destroy someone financially by flipping a few bits as well as the willingness to use it at any scale. It used to be you had to send armed men to seize wealth, which doesn’t scale well. Now it’s all keystrokes which scale up to the total population just fine.
But wait you say, those are bad people, and I’m a good person, I have nothing to fear! Good luck with that.
Edit: It didn’t take long for a good person with nothing to fear to assure us of his status.
> It’s hard to remember as long ago as last month when peaceful Canadian protestors had their assets seized without due process.
I have never had any expectation that when I am actively committing a crime, I can expect authorities to wait for the courts to decide if I should face any immediate sanctions or controls to stop my behavior.
What would you rather have happen? Rubber bullets and tear gas? Or are you actually suggesting that it is okay to hold the public hostage until you get what you want?
>Or are you actually suggesting that it is okay to hold the public hostage until you get what you want?
Ghandi and MLK have already given us the answer to that question. It's fine to peacefully protest until you achieve your objectives. Yes, people will try to malign you (saying that you're 'holding the public hostage') and insinuate things about you, but ignore them. It's okay.
So you're suggesting they were peacefully protesting, not blockading an entry point? To what extent can a protest go before the public has the right to force it to stop? Does blaring so many horns continuously so that residential apartments are subjected to 100dB indoors count as peaceful? How bad does it get before the police are allowed to take whatever steps necessary to stop it?
And before you say anything about BLM, recall than many thousands of people were arrested last year during those protests, and there were plenty of rubber bullets, tear gas, and beatings.
I'm always amazed at the extent people will go to absolve their own tribe from responsibility while accusing the other side of doing the same thing.
Personally I abhorred the violence in downtown Portland last year and I'm glad they finally stopped. I think the police need to dial it back a little in many cases, but I want them to be able to put a lid on the ability of protesters to destroy the lives of innocent people. And I think January 6 was an insurrection, but of course it was. I find all of y'all kinda annoying :).
It's really weird how from my defence of peaceful protest you've totally pigeonholed me and are now diverging onto BLM and Jan 6. It's weird.
>their own tribe
This is the problem in your thinking. These 'tribes' you worry about aren't real. It's an artifact of twitter, of terrible reportage, of lazy journalism and muck-slinging that puts lots of different typs of people in one box because that makes it easy to pick out the craziest of them and and say that they're all like that.
By and large the protesters were/are just normal people who want to be able to get on with their lives and accept the risks they're comfortable with. They spend all their life in their trucks, alone. They interact with maybe 5 people per week, if that, but they're forced to get a vaccination whereas grocery clerks who interact with 5 people every 15 minutes aren't. Most of them already have the vaccination but it's the principle, dammit. And they're sick of journalists and twitterati calling them - and everyone else, for that matter - nazis because a few lunatics showed up to the protest with nazi flags and got kicked out. It's boring that the media keep falling for this shtick. Every single time. You have a group of normalish people with normalish goals and all of a sudden some crazy fucker pops up with a nazi flag. You eject them but then all you hear on the news for the next month is 'nazi truckers...' It's just shit reportage. Utterly shit lazy yellow journalism.
When you finally realise that people just want to be left alone and not slandered and tarred with labels they don't deserve so much of this pointless infighting will go away. But then the media would have nothing to report on.
> And they're sick of journalists and twitterati calling them - and everyone else, for that matter - nazis because a few lunatics showed up to the protest with nazi flags and got kicked out. It's boring that the media keep falling for this shtick. Every single time.
At least this time the provocateur remembered to iron out the creases on the flag he bought brand new for the occasion. It happens so frequently and so reliably that one can’t help but wonder if the media malfeasance is more than mere laziness. Honest errors are not always biased in one direction.
>wonder if the media malfeasance is more than mere laziness
Of course it is. The modern media is absurdly woke and out of touch with reality and pretty much without principle either.
The trucker convoy was a perfect example of a modern working-class struggle and the media lined up to portray them as anything but.
I remember literally reading in some op-ed words along the lines of 'the truckers are not the working class, they are the modern bourgeoise; they do not work with their hands but merely direct from padded comfort the toil of their mechanical slave.'
It would be funny if it didn't actually affect things.
The government invoked the emergencies act which gave them the ability to freeze bank accounts of people the suspected of supporting an ongoing illegal protest. This means that the due process changed from what it normally is to something that allowed the government to quickly de-escalate a protest that was anything but peaceful.
Due process was still followed even if we don't necessarily like what it was.
This is only possible because Russia is the first clear and acceptable Bad Guy since WW2 Germany.
There are very few gray areas about what they are doing in Ukraine, so everyone is firing with everything they've got. Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction someone called them.
We have had sanctions before, but at this level? It's pretty much unprecedented.
Usually sanctions are a bit of this and bit of that, just enough to put pressure on the politicians. Now we have companies left and right refusing to do business with Russia, all their foreign money is frozen and billionaires are getting their yachts taken from them. They can't even sell their oil anywhere, not even at a discount. (Although it seems Shell bought some, let's see how the fallout from that decision turns out).
Yes, in a few days Putin created a cartoonish evil villain image for himself like in B-category movies: invading a country, threatening the world with nuclear war, shooting at nuclear power plants, threatening prison for anyone of his subjects who dares criticize his actions.
Don’t appeal to emotion. This isn’t about the relative value of people, but about this conflict being more likely to escalate into a much more serious global conflict.
If we are going to talk objective politics, the US knew what they were doing when they were steering Ukraine into a collision with Russia, back when they had a serious part in that coup, then supporting the constitution change about neutrality, and finally taking steps for Ukraine to join NATO, all the while ignoring the Nazi proliferation in Ukraine (not very much important detail, but it did show their intents, and it was not democracy). What does that make the US? What was their end goal through all this? Are their goals in Ukraine that important to lead to today? They did know what would happen, with what they did with Ukraine, with what they had done with Georgia, which they also left helpless after steering it to war, and with all of the NATO's expansion towards Russian borders. They had given an example of what happens when you play dangerous games in the doorstep of a great power, with Cuba, threatening a WW3. And they DID NOT CARE. I am not taking away blame from Putin on this specific war. I am just reminding you, the US is playing the same game, and its goals are not concerned with global peace and human wellbeing.
None other than the hypocrisy of the US and the global standards it has set will be the cause of a global conflict. They just have to keep their forces in check, while an opponent does what they have been doing for decades on a non NATO country. Objectively speaking, THAT is the best decision for world peace. And it's all on the US alone. They can do it, and no one is forcing them otherwise.
If you asked me that a week ago, I might've said yes/maybe.
But now we have actual footage of Russia arresting people protesting against the war, just shooting artillery salvos at hospitals and schools. Oh, and FIRING AT A FUCKING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. You don't get much more cartoon bad guy than that.
It's a shame that the regular Russian people have to suffer, but the only way to get tiny-P off the throne is to turn the country against him and make stuff so unbearable that even the official news can't explain it away with "russophobia".
When you realise “bubble” just means “loose group of people I tend to have a lot of overlapping views and interests with”, then you are just saying “is the reason you think this is bad is because of your views on what is bad” and… well, yeah.
I think you can assume that it does occur to most of us that we are all in a bubble to some extent, and that it’s important to be aware of that when forming your own views. It’s also totally possible for someone to come to a firm conclusion about the morality of a particular act without it having to be the effect of a bubble.
It’s easy to picture someone reasonably aware of the context of the invasion, including the restriction of water supplies to Crimea, NATO expansion, the background to the separatist conflicts, Euromaidan, the Azov Battalion, and all the other bits and pieces that we’ve all seen countless articles about over the past two weeks. It doesn’t seem invalid for that person to have a reasonably well-informed view that the actions of Russia are Very Extremely Bad Indeed and that there are “few gray areas”, does it?
Yeah I don't fault people for weighing all of the facts and coming down on one side or the other. But if someone doesn't see that there is a lot of "gray areas", then they have not weighed the facts beyond their bubble. That was my only point.
Except I can explain both sides of the conflict, and see how the pro-NATO Ukranian regime and Putin have both made moves that have led to this. I can also see how the US is knee deep in it as well. So yes, I see the gray areas.
Russians still have the freedom to transact in cash, and with domestic transfer companies. They do not have the right to have their transactions fulfilled by third-party facilitators.
I'll also mention that transactions work just fine in most countries ran by dictators who invade neighbours without pretext, and target civilians. Saudi princes seem to have no problems buying mega-yachts and futball clubs.
The key is that they tend to not invade European neighbours. So, yes, if you upset Europe, and all your transactions rely on European cooperation, you may no longer be able to transact.
In fact, if you upset Europe enough, and are not a nuclear state, you might even get invaded as a result. Your concerns about international financial transactions will be a bit academic at that point.
If anything, this episode should make you more confident about transactions just working. The point at which they stop working is 'We've done everything we could against you, short of declaring war.'
It's funny how people here on HN are always on about "it's a solution looking for a problem", etc. And then others try explain the use-cases, and they just try to refute it with all kinds of stupid arguments.
Now it's pretty clear how crypto can have a use case (as some of us already knew and were hammering on about it for a long time).
So can we set a new baseline here, and agree that crypto has a use-case? Or are you anti-crypto people still as short sighted as before?
I think we made some progress here on HN, and some of the "anti-crypto" people are now moving into "not pro crypto" space.
> I’m not pro crypto or pro Russia, but the fact that it’s so easy to lose ones freedom to transact[0]
I am absolutely sure that Transferwise is still available for Russians to use, so the freedom to transact isn't really lost. 'Cryptocurrencies' should not be used at all.
You need to keep up to date more about crypto before you keep misinforming, there are stable coins on proof of stake blockchains, no volatile, no scams or burning the planet.
> Imagine if they had social media in the 30s-40s.
I have thought about this, and given the amount of pro-Fascist sentiment in Western Europe, WWII probably wouldn't have happened. Germany would probably have gotten away with taking Austria, Czechoslovakia, possibly the lands forfeited to France after WWI and at least part of Poland.
The world would look VERY different to today. Assuming Japan stuck to their neck of the woods, the USA probably would never have gotten to be a super power (given it was WWII that really catapulted them into that category). The UK may still have reasonable parts of the empire. The super powers would probably be Germany, USSR and a lesser extent, UK, Japan.
This is the stuff of alt-historical fiction.
EDIT: apologies for straying off topic but I couldn't resist.
Nazi Germany had no choice but continue war in 1939. The economy was close to collapse and food shortages were coming. Nazi concept of Lebensraum would require conquest to the east. I think with social media in that period, national socialism and communism could win in more countries.
So what's the alternative? I can not trust global institutions all I want and rely on alternatives for everything, but would I be able to trust the alternatives, and what would stop powerful institutions from butting in all the same?
Wouldn't it be just easier to fix our institutions so that we can trust and rely on them?
The crypto economy for example is full of sharks. It's a bigger, insider, scammer dog eats smaller, outsider, bagholder dog world and there is no fixing it. It's a zero sum game. It's unsustainable. It's inhumane. It's too simple to hold up any practical economy at scale.
This is analogy is an over-vilification of the Russian people, but I do think it helps bring the intricacies of this into perspective:
Imagine there's one big bully in a schoolyard playground, alongside the one kid who is singled out. All the other kids (freely) choose to follow the bullies' lead and, at the very best, join in by ostracizing the victim. Who is in the wrong in that scenario?
The best thing Russian people can do is render Putin the king of an empty kingdom, and that was always the solution. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands, to millions and tens of millions of people (depending on where the poverty line is in Russia) for who that isn't an option. Equally so, those people wouldn't have been able to lift Putin's empire into what it is today. There would rather be no expertise for nukes, nobody to architect oil pipelines, and a terribly demoralized and disloyal army. Russia is has aspects of a developed country because of the fantastic people that live there.
Stop paying taxes to dictators, narcissists, and megalomaniacs.
We should widely open borders to Russian refugees and defectors. Patriotism is the love of a country, not a dictator.
This is both morally (are Americans responsible for Bush’s & Obama’s wars? Should they stop paying taxes? They’re clearly much richer than Russians) and factually (North Korea hasn’t collapsed yet) wrong.
I have a Russian friend living abroad for a longer period of time and paying his day to day expenses with savings through credit cards. They all stopped working and he has no way to pay for anything anymore.
I get why it’s done but it’s still sad to see people that have nothing to do with this situation get hit like this
That's like saying no American can escape their shared responsibility for Iraq, or Syria, or Trump. Doesn't matter how they voted, right. People vote in Russia too. Americans could have stormed the White House if they disagreed with the outcomes, or blockaded the city streets with trucks or something .... oh, wait.
The army has bullets stockpiled. If Russians refuses to run any factories starting today the war would still be on. It's not hard to find arms if you have money-- which Putin has
Russian citizens aren't getting bombed. They are getting economic sanctions. Considering these citizens are paying taxes that fund the war, I think they're fair game for economic payback.
they paid taxes on the money that is in the russian bank account still.
the money that i have in my debit account comes from my salary. the taxes are paid before the net part hits my bank account.
One could, yes. As far as I'm aware, even a matter of collective guilt (which is related but different from causation) is not exactly unanimously agreed upon between renown philosophers.
And just to be clear - I'm not saying it's true or false (heck, I have very mixed feelings), I'm saying it's arguable.
It's the first action against Russia that made me angry. It's so stupid and wrong at the same time.
So, in Russia all the cards will work, nothing is changed here (despite the statements of Visa and Mastercard). Cards issued by Russian banks would stop work abroad. The same is true for any foreign cards in Russia. So, foreigners in Russia are fucked. People who left Russia in a hurry because they didn't want to be part of this craziness or because it's dangerous for them to stay (i.e. they are known protesters against the regime) are fucked.
A little background on why the cards won't stop working in Russia.
After first sanctions due to Crimean & Donbass conflict started rolling out in 2014, Russian gvt saw the writing on the wall and gradually strong-armed Visa & MC to move all the local transaction processing to НСПК (National System for Payment Cards).
Here's some more info on this (you can use Google Translate):
People paying servers to selfhost are also fucked. This makes absolutely no sense since we all know the oligarchs etc will have oversea bankings and stay float. It's the average people who get punished, all for something they have no control over.
Disclaimer I'm not Russian but watching the roll out of the war, I am again fascinated by westerner's imagination of that an inidividual could achieve in a oppressive regime. People literally get arrested by holding a blank paper as a one-man demonstration on the street. People lose source of income and housing semi-permanently because of speaking out anything against the propaganda. The secret police can force mothers to knee down and beg their children to not being vocal. Tell me what I can do without losing my and my family's fucking lives if you think there's a way out of all this.
I do not deny the possibility of revolution of any form, but there is tons of things one fears worse than death, even a violent one. I really hope you guys get the chances to do the right thing under these circumstances. The wall between daily norm and hell is thinner than a piece of paper.
To all those armchair heroes lecturing the Russians about protesting, I advise to go to Russia (borders are still open) and try to demonstrate on the street. BTW there is currently a law punishing "fake news" with 15 years in gulag.
That's an instance of the prisoner's dilemma though. They can't really arrest every single person who is against the war. They can't even arrest 1% of population - detention system can't handle that.
This is always true, and yet dictators have existed since the dawn of humanity. I don't know why people expect Russians to function like a hivemind, rather than humans that disagree and have instincts for self preservation
Let me rephrase it for you: sure, even if it's "only" 30% of the population VS the government, the regime is fucked. However, the dilema is that they _will_ arrest some percentage, so, are you willing to be in that bucket, having no idea of whether the protest will turn out to be anything? If you don't, how can you ask (a very large number of) other people to make up their mind and get fucked in your favor? People and crowds do not act as a hivemind. Humans are not built for this.
I was in that 30% before leaving Russia permanently in 2012. Them others not joining for various reasons is the reason we are in that fucked situation in the first place. I have a word or two to say about inaction, and how it is an excuse.
The writing about authoritarianism has already been on the wall by 2010. The anti-ukranian fascism turned out to be a surprise though.
> By the end of 2019, the incarceration rate had dropped to the same rate as 1995 (810 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents).
Which is about 1 in 123.
> About 1 in 40 adult U.S. residents (2.5%) were under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2019. This represented a drop from 1 in 32 (3.1%) a decade earlier.
So you suggest we keep the economy of Russia going? That way the common Russians don't feel any consequences. Too bad we will all still fund the bombs that are dropping on Ukrainian houses and apartments.
Ukrainians can also end a lot of suffering by just agreeing with what Russia is requesting. It seems they decided not to.
You're suggesting that common Russians feeling "consequences" will change the war and I would like to disagree. They can do next to nothing, with a high stake. Most of the sanctions, especially the ones that certainly would not affect oligarchs or government personels, are purely psyops and a political gesture of the west.
> You're suggesting that common Russians feeling "consequences" will change the war and I would like to disagree
You misread my comment: I said that you want to save the impact on normal Russian and keep feeding the war economy. I suggest to stop feeding them money for their army, and the consequences on the common Russian is something that can't be avoided.
It's especially funny because when pressed on war crimes committed by their governments with their tax dollars, they will day "well listen it's not my fault our army did that, I'm not in charge! There's nothing I can do to stop our (democratically elected) leaders". But then they'll turn around and insist people in a dictatorship should be able to oust their dictator. I'm totally against Russia, but it's insane to me how people can think this way. It borders on cruel to have such unrealistic demands from people who aren't responsible
Let's say you feel responsible. I believe a lot of Russians feel awful to their stomach, too. What now? Are you willing to risk your job, housing, wellbeing and the wellbeing of your families to protest, knowing that protesting will not change anything at all? IIRC in this round the Russian government are drafting the people who were arrested in the anti-war protests.
Why would they be able to arrest them? Have you ever seen riots where people throw rocks at the police? For 10 years in jail, you better make sure you give them a reason for 10 years.
When you see those Russian protesters, they are all so compliant it blows my mind.
Throw rocks and get the fuck out. It ain't a crime if you don't get caught.
Arrest? Arrests are still mild. For more, they could be entitled to arrest their families as well. Let's say you throw a rock. All of a sudden, there is a possibility that the riot police are entitled to shot you or something - they will cite that they were attacked.
People throw stuff in riots where they have somehow figured out that the police won't open fire, or intentionally shot a rubber bullet in a way so that it'll do permanent damage (e.g. aiming the eyes), or use water canon with the intention of permanent damage (e.g. aiming at head & neck). If a crowd appear to be calm and compliant, or if people are enraged but can't bring themselves onto the street to protest - that is because of fear and really nothing else.
Protesting and rioting is absolutely different under dictatorships. It might be a right or a minor misdemeanor in the western world. I can assure you that it is a crime, worse than felony because this enters the lawless realm, in a lot of places.
This is another reason why people are interested in Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc. It's sickening to have arbitrary governments and entities decide on a whim to freeze or steal your hard earned money.
Political/humanitarian circumstances aside, this is a good reminder to all of us, everywhere, that 100% reliance on centralized electronic payment systems is risky because they have rare but total failure modes.
ALWAYS carry and travel with cash, no matter what.
ALWAYS keep enough cash hidden in your home to cover a month or more of expenses.
> ALWAYS carry and travel with cash, no matter what.
Funny, that's the exact opposite of the advice I hear to only travel with only petty-cash and rely on cards instead, so if you're mugged/robbed or simply misplace your wallet you won't be SOL far from home.
Exactly. Never mind that as you cross borders, there are legal limits to the amounts you can carry as well as the potential to be searched. If you've ever been through corrupt border crossings (hello Moc Bai), the last thing you want is to be carrying cash.
The main goal of this action is sound - cut off Russian economy from outside and it achieves it. There're undesirable side effects that you listed, but the main objective is still achieved. And we should keep prospective and direct the anger at right target, these inconveniences are not comparable to the terror millions of Ukrainians are under now.
I understand this logic, but in this particular case I don't think it's a good move. I can't see any really good effects here. People in Russia won't notice this change (I don't believe they're able to do with their government something right now, but even this argument is irrelevant, they wouldn't be triggered at all). For all the Russian business it's rather a gift, because if Russian isn't able to pay for something outside, he will pay to someone inside for the similar service. And all these Russian companies will pay taxes after that. There also will be new companies to collect money and roubles from clients so these clients could pay for some services outside of Russia via proxy et cetera.
I'm not against inconveniences per se. But this just doesn't really make sense. It's an inconvenience for a small minority of Russians outside the country and foreigners inside. But I don't understand what the main objective that was achieved here (except the beautiful press release).
I'd understand if they blocked all Russian cards, but it's technically impossible, and this measure looks like a PR move without any real meaning behind it.
>The main goal of this action is sound - cut off Russian economy from outside and it achieves it.
It doesn't achieve that. Their economy is only cut off from the west. China, for example, still is find to trade with them. The west is still buying their oil too.
Although I strongly despise Russia's (Putin's) war and agree that they need to be punished, I feel sorry for the non-oligarch Russians abroad in foreign countries who will suddenly be unable to pay with their Russian cards, as well as foreigners in Russia who can no longer use their credit cards.
Ultimately the legitimacy of these sanctions come down to how effective they will be in influencing a favorable outcome - ie. pressuring Putin to end the war. Unfortunately Russia is not a democracy - it's a country where you get arrested for protesting, and practically a dictatorship where Putin has been running the country for the last 20+ years. Thus I'm not sure how effective these blanket sanctions will be in changing things, and Putin has so far showed no signs of backing down. But I sure hope I'm wrong. This invasion is completely unjustified, and Putin must be stopped (without escalating to WWIII).
The West is erroneously acting from a viewpoint that the majority of Russians support democracy. Thus they think that actions like this will cause popular discontent with Putin. In reality, this reckless action will only strengthen Putin's support.
> West is erroneously acting from a viewpoint that the majority of Russians support democracy.
Sanctions have nothing to do beliefs about the presence or support for democracy.
> Thus they think that actions like this will cause popular discontent with Putin.
No, the West believes that the sanctions limit the productive capacity of the Russian economy, and thereby Putin’s capacity to maintain and expand the war, constraining his practical options
(They also think that targeted sanctions on oligarchs put pressure on their support of the regime, which may alter Putin’s choices and prospects, but that even more clearly has nothing to do with democracy.)
The Russian military has been extremely insular, and has insisted for a long time to produce everything they need domestically. It is unlikely Russia's warmaking potential will be halted long-term.
"We’re undergoing site maintenance.
But don’t worry — as there’s no impact to your ability to make Mastercard purchases or payments"
Unless you're Russian I guess.
As much as I enjoy the act this could backfire as a show of the tremendous power these companies have: shutting down credit card payments will likely impact large portions of online payments.
But at the same time every extra inefficiency in the Russian economy could translate into less bullets going to kill Ukrainians
I'm not sure that many people realise what economic sanctions mean, as I replied to someone else on this thread:
"As a result of sanction orders, we have blocked multiple financial institutions from the Mastercard payment network. We will continue to work with regulators in the days ahead to abide fully by our compliance obligations as they evolve."
> Also I'm not sure I'd call it a sanction since it's coming from a private company, not a government.
It's following sanctions, which blacklist all big Russian banks and remove them from international banking and financing arrangements. Even if Visa/MasterCard aren't explicitly prohibited from dealing in Russia, how are they supposed to move money around with the sanctions in place? It's because of the sanctions.
> If I were any country right now I'd also take it as a warning to not depend on Mastercard or Visa given the immense power they hold
They can try not invading other countries, that seems to do the trick. Joking aside, countries like France have their own independent networks ( Carte Bleue in France) over which payments pass in some scenarios ( honestly couldn't tell, but for instance there are weird cards from some banks that only work on the CB network and don't outside of France, even if they're supposedly Visa/MC).
I think the point the gp was making was with regards to sanctions from private entities. My note here is that while the scale of private entities sanctions currently is novel, they themselves are not, e.g. boycotts have happened in the past many times.
China is certainly thinking about expanding their influence right now. I don't know exactly to what extent they can do that, but I'm sure they can see the opportunity for what it is. They've been expanding their influence in the Eastern world for some time
Do companies of this size already have the infrastructure built, a kill switch of the sorts, to turn off an entire country’s payment system? I’m thinking not just technology wise, but also things like existing subscriptions and contractual legal stuff between countries, customers, etc. It seems like a monumental undertaking to integrate payment systems for a new country, turning it off seems even more impressive.
Sanctions aren't new, any sufficiently large international company likely has dealt with this before. And it doesn't happen all at once, you start by turning off new registrants, then you go through records of existing entities that need to be turned off and turn them off, then you continue to watch for whatever you missed.
I don't think this is act of war protest. These corporation know the inside score, they help write the narrative. I predict these companies are giving up Russia for good. This is a signal of a long term shift in world order and these corporate boards know it, because they engineer it with policies and propaganda.
Accenture and McKinsey both closed up shop in Russia. For those two to leave money on the table means there’s definitely something big happening behind the scenes.
Call me insane, but this feels insane.
It would be one thing if Visa/Mastercard were being forced to do this, but for them to take it upon themselves to "pick a side" during a global conflict feels really wrong.
It’s not picking sides it’s a result of economic sanctions. How are financial transactions going to clear when Visa/MC can’t transfer money in/out of Russia.
War is an insane situation! I’m a strong proponent of corporate neutrality in general, but if it were Microsoft who shot thousands of people last week, Mastercard would have long since cut them off and there'd be no surprise or concern about it.
No, its not insane for them to do this -- in fact the opposite. Every person has to make the decision for themselves in the end, this goes all the way to presidents and political leaders. You will either stand by, profit and watch, as a neo-Nazi regime rapes a country -- or you will take a stance. When this is all over people will be asking: Where were you and what did you do when the war was happening?
The people isolated in Russia won’t fight the regime - they’ll have to work for the regime at military facilities literally for food and utilities to provide for their families.
> It would be one thing if Visa/Mastercard were being forced to do this, but for them to take it upon themselves to "pick a side" during a global conflict feels really wrong.
Maybe they were forced. In any case, it really sucks.
"Picking a side" against a murderous dictator actively murdering innocent men, women, and children doesn't scare me at all or "feel insane". This is Putin's doing, all Visa and MC can do is react.
You'd think letting people transfer money outside of the sanctioned country is in accord to the stated goals of sanctions. Is this move really practical, or just a showing MC and Visa are politically in line with the rest of the businesses?
I'd imagine in a lot of cases the payment network doesn't know if you are moving your own money, or paying for something - the latter which could benefit Russia or a Russian company. E.g. if was Russian and paying Google for Google docs for my Russia based business - I think that might be disallowed by the current sanctions?
I suppose I'm trying to say - the payment providers see where the cash is going, but not what you are getting in return. Without that visibility it's hard to more selectively ban transactions.
It is your opinion. The fact that Putin is still the authoritarian there is a consequence of people failing to navigate the game theory. You can not fix stupid, but you can change the game for them in a way that ensures specific outcome in presence of certain fallacies.
The subjects are the ones in the best position to get rid of Putin. And in a way the subjects are responsible for their leader. Many are fine with the status quo and sitting comfortably at home while Ukrainians are in refugee camps.
The whole context here is that a man has invaded a country and is taking it over despite the very best efforts and extremely firm rejection of its citizens.
And yet your argument is that, in an adjacent territory he already controls, the citizens should somehow be more successful at removing him?
In what possible way??
Either he is not a dictator and the people of Ukraine shouldn't worry because they'll just be able to "get rid of him" anyway, or he is a dictator and blaming Russian civilians for being under his dictatorial control is victim-blaming.
We are isolating Russia and creating a pressure cooker with the intention to blow the lid off(Putin). West is supplying the heat, and the water is comprised of the Oligarchs and Russian people.
This is not a country that lives off taxes from the little people, it lives off the sale of natural resources.
Moreover, many people are in a grey area of the economy, paying no taxes at all: for example software developers making software for the West.
Looking at the ridiculous "sanctions" of recent days, I cannot say who they are directed against. In long run, they benefit Russia, preventing leaking of brains and capital.
Excellent! I hope this will at least make Putin less popular. And hopefully he will be replaced with somebody else.
The biggest mistake Putin made is that he was under impression that Russia can survive alone and isolated. That might be possible in 60s but not any more.
This particular move does not affect people living in Russia, Mastercard will continue to work within Russia as before. It only punishes people who escaped Russia and foreigners in Russia.
It doesn't work this way. For decades, media had been talking about how the collective West hates russian people and want Russia go down in flames. Now everybody sees it's true. I predict Putin's rating will be sky high in the upcoming months
I think you're right, but at some point, people have to ask why the West decided to do this at the same time as the Special Military Operation in Donbas. Then again, no one seems to think Putin bombed Russian cities and blamed it on Chechen rebels to gain power.
Nice. My friend just escaped Russia and left everything behind. Putin outlawed money transfers abroad. His card was the only way he could access funds in his bank account. Now he is stuck with family abroad penniless.
Good job, Mastercard (and Visa)! Now all people opposing Putin and trying to gather money for leaflets will have to use state-created MIR instead. Putin will be pleased!
Putin wants an isolated Russia and he appears confident he can mitigate dissent caused by putting the iron curtain back up. This is just playing into his hands and giving him exactly what he wants,
Even if he pulls out of Ukraine tomorrow he will have succeeded in destroying any chance Russia ever had of joining the West, which I’m becoming convinced has always been a key aim of this enterprise.
But he can blame the West for all of it now and roll Russia back to being a complete autocracy where citizens have no rights or freedoms at all because Ukraine.
> Putin wants an isolated Russia and he appears confident he can mitigate dissent caused by putting the iron curtain back up. This is just playing into his hands and giving him exactly what he wants,
This logic led to embracing China in the hope that it will make them grow more liberal and democratic. Instead it led to US media/sports/gaming industry/etc kowtowing to China and apologizing to them in Mandarin.
The only solution is to contain the totalitarian world.
> Even if he pulls out of Ukraine tomorrow he will have succeeded in destroying any chance Russia ever had of joining the West
This is Russia's doing. We are only reacting. It's beyond ridiculous to blame the west when Putin is invading a free country and threatening us with nukes.
As far as I can tell, this will mainly have an impact on people trying to leave, because payments within the country will still work (if badly because the substitute system, NSPK, is shoddy), but the Russian government doesn’t allow crossing the border with more than the equivalent of 10k USD in cash (since several days ago) and most other money transfer companies are refusing service as well.
So, for example, previously locals employed by companies that valiantly declared their condemnation of Putin by shutting down their Russian offices had three choices: work for a company that does support Putin, leave, or starve. Now it’s just work for a Putin supporter or starve.
(Not entirely true because at least some of those companies put their employees on paid leave for now, but that’s still probably what it will ultimately boil down to in the relatively near future. Passenger planes being arrested in foreign airports because of sudden lease termination make for a similar one-two punch combo together with Putin’s closure of the land border in 2020: it’s getting very hard—and expensive—to physically leave even if you don’t want anything to do with this [15-year jail sentence] and never did.)
As other threads have stated, outbound Russian flights have been permanently shut down beyond a few weeks from now (and all flights are full). It doesn’t seem to be the case that exit is an option for many Russians, money or not.
It's somewhat true, but there are still options, actually. Russian carriers canceled their flights, but some foreign carriers are still flying. It's quite expensive now, of course, and not very convenient, but if you desperately want to leave and you have some money, it's doable.
Care and buses are generally not an option. You cannot exit Russia (sic!) on a car/bus/legs unless you have a specific travel purpose and "tourism" or "just because I want to" is not one of them. This was one of COVID-related restrictions and it's still in effect.
Trains are somewhat better, I guess: the Allegro train between Saint Petersburg and Helsinki is open for Russian/Finnish citizens only, but does not require special travel reason.
Since the war started, and the repressions inside Russia tightened (e.g. news stations being taken off air for calling this war a "war"), a lot of us Russians including myself have been fleeing the country, fearing for our safety. Now Visa/Mastercard have left us all without access to money.
If I were more of a conspiracy type, I'd say they and Putin are on the same side now.
I honestly don't see how company pull outs that hurt citizens have any negative impact on Putin. Feels like we should be focusing on the oligarchs and Putin himself, not the average citizen.
The saddest thing really is that it was all for nought - the EU won't allow any new members for a generation or more, as it tries to complete the scalable political and economic infrastructure it already needs to work with 27 unruly members. Be it Ukraine, Turkey, Serbia, or whichever - nobody is getting in anytime soon, and making sacrifices towards that objective is delusional.
(Un)fortunately there is absolutely no credibility anymore behind any messages released by putins govt, they proved multiple times already that they are saying one thing and doing another.
And how exactly would Putin's pupet government work towards joining the EU? It's not like it's a job for normal citizens to work towards that. This requires a desire and a massive effort of a whole government, to achieve.
It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where these sanctions (not just Mastercard and Visa, but all of it as a whole) are reduced without a total regime change in Russia. This is becoming a massive divestment, and I'm not sure it's a great idea.
There's no guarantee that what replaces Putin is going to be more Western and not reactionary. For every Russian that is cosmopolitan and globalist, there's a dozen Russians in small villages that are True Believers and will see this foreign pressure for what it is: replacing a Russian president that, at least in their mind, they put there.
Even if you assume that it's going to be a democratic and Western government that rises from the ashes, I think the timescale for this is in years, not months, and I think that the impact on the average citizen in The West is going to be massive while we wait that out.
I paid north of $80 last night for 18 gallons of fuel, and it's only going to get worse. In Europe, they're staring down the barrel of a significant energy crisis next winter. Energy is everything: it's fertilizer and it's heat. And this is all on the tail of record inflation and a shaky economy.
Hot take: I think this is going to backfire and we're going to see destabilization in Europe and America before Putin is ousted. War tends to be a boon for the economy in the West, but I see good reason why this time could be different.
They are not true believers. They will believe what is on the TV.
If you start running new propaganda - they will start believing it.
And you don't need a western-oriented government in russia. All that is needed is to remove one psycho, after that things will mostly go back to normal after russia compensates all damages and returns all territories.
We are headed into a new Cold War that will last decades. The days of globocorps marching into countries in every corner of the world and setting up shop as happened in the 90s-present are now seemingly over. The world will now move away from a trend towards globalisation to one of multipolarity and spheres of influence.
Russia has been caught out by these sanctions, but China looks to have prepared very well with much of its own sovereign digital and financial infrastructure.
You also can't discount how current pro-Western Russians will feel a year from now from economic collapse and total isolation? Probably not so pro-West anymore.
> Hot take: I think this is going to backfire and we're going to see destabilization in Europe and America before Putin is ousted
That's probable, but it's not "backfiring". It's a risk taken in order to stand up to a war criminal. He got away with it lightly last times ( Georgia, Crimea), a line had to be drawn, finally, or he'd simply never stop. Most Europeans are aware of the risks, and many support taking them now, because a line was crossed ( the donation drives, manifestations of support, rearmament plans, polls, etc. - it seems most Europeans support Ukraine and want their governments to act on that). If anything, i think this will bring Europe together, finally end up creating better military cooperation and coordination.
And it's always a game. Europe is staring down the barrel of an energy crisis, but Russia is staring down the barrel of economic ruin. Let's see how stable Putin's regime is with lack of everything bar basic foodstuffs ( furniture, electronics, vehicles, internet).
As stable as Venezuela and North Korea. Isolation does not help to ruin such regimes it’s vica versa - the more you isolate the people inside - the more support the regime gains. E.g. you can make high skilled professionals work for food because they have no other options and produce enough value to go on.
Energy crisis started long before the invasion. How much of the war is already priced in there? Europe might have to delay its green plans and even go back to coal.
I think it's remarkable how little the markets reacted to this momentous event. Maybe it's not going to be as bad as rumored?
This seems like a PR play. What's the end goal of these sanctions? Haven't seen them able to topple governments in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, etc. They are even less likely to work with Russia.
It is not sanctions directly, It is change of perception on Russia. In one week, Russia become toxic economy and no longer viable to invest. This is much worse than sanctions.
This might not topple Putin, but it would bankrupt Russia in the next 3 months.
Please do not use crypto no matter how tempting it is to join the Ponzi scheme as I said before and many other critics like Stephen Diehl (@smdiehl), Molly White (@molly0xFFF) (@web3isgreat creator) and more reliable critics.
Please try use Paypal with a VPN or in another country, Moneygram, Western Union or use cash, better yet use Transferwise (Wise) or buy gift cards to get your money out.
It's almost trolling to suggest another centralized vendor that can lock out people from their money at any time. Paypal is arguably the worst offender in this regard.
I am sure that if my life savings lost 50% of their value in a few days, I was unable to transact with it or move it and faced the possibility of it being seized I would definitely take the advice of some silicon valley armchair experts with 6 figure salaries because they totally relate to my problem.
Just ignore this guy, he’s a troll. The Cyphertrace thing he is referring to is 2 years old and EXTREMELY overblown. There is a an unclaimed bounty from the FBI to trace Monero transactions. Wouldn’t cyphertrace have claimed it if they actually could trace Monero transactions? The Monero community is very open about discussing the tech and its issues. They are near-pure technologists, not get-rich-quick-cryptobros.
The 51% “attack” he is referring to is that a mining pool briefly had over 50% of the total hash rate. No attack took place, and within hours miners had moved to other pools bringing the hash rate of the 51% pool down to the mid-30s%. I’ll also mention that the power of 51% attacks is largely overstated too, especially in a privacy coin like Monero.
This still means that Monero as well as the other privacy coins still have issues, if there weren’t any issues why are they not being accepted by more exchanges?
Even a reportedly private ‘cryptocurrency’ called ‘Grin’ had an attack which rendered the coin useless.
The only usecase of privacy coins is for illegitimate purposes only.
Also: I think you mean ‘CipherTrace‘, ‘CypherTrace’ does not exist.
>The only use case of privacy coins is for illegitimate purposes only.
Excellent trolling. I have used monero for effectively anonymous online donations to legitimate non-profit institutions. Can you think of any other great alternatives for this online? You know it's not illegal to anonymously donate to someone, yes? Most of the non-privacy coins are much more susceptible to finding a KYC exposed starting point to find where the transaction comes from.
>f there weren’t any issues why are they not being accepted by more exchanges?
Kraken, one of the biggest and longest running KYC and AML compliant exchanges trades Monero in the US. Other exchanges may have simply made a business decision not to trade Monero, but there's clearly precedent that it can be done successfully at least in the US.
Are you very sure it was a business decision for Kraken to delist Monero in the UK?
Either way the so called privacy coins are not regulated and will soon be delisted from lots of exchanges, there is no use for them if the exchanges are removing Monero and coins like them.
> I have used monero for effectively anonymous online donations to legitimate non-profit institutions.
Just tick ‘give anonymously’.
It’s faster and compliant with laws, rather than using an unregulated and soon to be banned volatile crypto token used by criminals and speculators.
Isn't there still some way to trace the transaction this way? Usually through your bank, credit card provider, or something of that sort. With Monero there is basically no chance of anyone finding out I made the donation. I'm not interested in anyone knowing, including my bank. I like my privacy.
If there's some non crypto way to truly make an anonymous online transaction, I may be interested. Even with a prepaid gift card they can pull up the camera and possibly find me.
>Are you very sure it was a business decision for Kraken to delist Monero in the UK?
This is simply a legal decision in UK to flush Monero from KYC/AML compliant exchange to more anonymous exchange. All UK did was make it harder to find Monero users, with no impact on ability of someone in UK to trade it.
It all begins with a card and an exchange, it’s irrelevant who you send it to. The exchange already knows.
The ramps that allow these purchases to happen will be closed once tight regulation comes in and tanks the prices rendering the tokens useless.
> I'm not interested in anyone knowing, including my bank. I like my privacy.
What is the point when you need to buy the crypto tokens using a card? Even then I am sure Kraken and other exchanges have a log of what coins your purchased and they already know you through KYC anyway.
So it seems that privacy coins were a sly facade to get you give up information (card, kyc exchange, etc)
And when this happens, how do Monero users cash out? By meeting in a dark alley trading worthless coins?
>It all begins with a card and an exchange, it’s irrelevant who you send it to. The exchange already knows.
Already knows what? The exchange knows how much crypto I buy from that exchange, but with Monero they don't know anything beyond the first address it is sent to. There is no evidence they're able to find anything beyond that, including where I donate to.
>The ramps that allow these purchases to happen will be closed once tight regulation comes in and tanks the prices rendering the tokens useless.
As long as there is a ramp for you to obtain a pair that trades for your privacy coin, and reverse direction, there's little to no impediment to trading your privacy coin. In UK I would just buy litecoin or something, then trade it for XMR. If I wanted to cash out I would trade XMR for something else (goods, cash in another country, or another crypto that trades in my country).
>What is the point when you need to buy the crypto tokens using a card? Even then I am sure Kraken and other exchanges have a log of what coins your purchased and they already know you through KYC anyway.
Kraken knows how much XMR I buy and sell through them. Unlike with say BTC they have no idea where it goes after that. I know my bank knows I have money, so they aren't really getting any more useful information by looking at my purchases of XMR. If I donated with a card, my bank would see where that money actually went.
>And when this happens, how do Monero users cash out? By meeting in a dark alley trading worthless coins?
Explained earlier, Monero(XMR) can be cashed out by trading for something tradeable in your own country. Note Monero isn't illegal in the UK, there's nothing stopping someone in UK from owning Monero and buy goods or cash from out of the country or exchanging it for another coin.
> By meeting in a dark alley trading worthless coins?
The idea of it being worthless is certainly possible but at this point not reflective of reality.
-----------------
>Again, your will for this so called ‘privacy’ and all this hassle at the expense of the environment due to excessive Proof of Work (or Waste)
Can you quantify how much energy is acceptable to use when making a donation transaction to charity? If I were to drive to a charity and donate cash to Ukrainian refugees for example, would it be a sin to you?
>It is the privacy coins that will be banned first when regulations arrive.
But they aren't now, so I don't think you can say my charity donations are illegal, nor a 'terrorist' act.
>Monero has gotten even closer to zero from the start of this year and the trend is going down.
You can pick whatever arbitrary timeline you want. On a 5Y timeline Monero is down, on a 1Y timeline it is up. My transaction (from converting to fiat, to sending) usually take <1hr so the only timescale I'm interested in is some stability over an hour or so. 1Y is way too far for me personally to even care, but if your transactions take 1Y to clear or you use Monero as a long-term store of value that may be important to you.
>So yes, it is getting worthless as a currency buy useful for people betting and gambling on the price.
OK but that's not the only use case, you can do other things than gamble.
>Thanks for playing.
Monero has worked fine for my legitimate uses. It's fine if you haven't found them. 'Playing' has been an imperfect but effective experience for many.
Again, your will for this so called ‘privacy’ and all this hassle at the expense of the environment due to excessive Proof of Work (or Waste)
I’m sure you’re glad that you would prefer to burn the planet up with using Monero for some false sense of privacy knowing that the overwhelming majority that use it are criminals and terrorists.
Unfortunately this makes your anecdote not only irrelevant, but highly likely that Monero would be made illegal very quickly in the US, UK and other places.
It is the privacy coins that will be banned first when regulations arrive.
> The idea of it being worthless is certainly possible but at this point not reflective of reality.
Monero has gotten even closer to zero from the start of this year and the trend is going down.
So yes, it is getting worthless as a currency but useful for people betting and gambling on the price.
This is the question I've been asking. At first glance, one may think it's a great idea to go long crypto right now. But with RUB being radioactive, it's hard to imagine how RUB-crypto pairs can possibly have much impact on the market.
Using crypto is actually productive use of it. It s speculation that is bothering you; that is not going to happen here.
But crypto is not immune from censorship, just from centralized censorship. If bitcoin was widespread now, users would block addresses or wholesale fork the chain to oust russia
> Using crypto is actually productive use of it. It s speculation that is bothering you; that is not going to happen here.
Crypto is always used for speculation and nothing else and it cannot be used as a 'currency'. The slow speeds, the high gas fees, scams and rampant rugpulls and hacks make this an unregulated wild west that even the crypto exchanges have blocked Russian users (so much for no censorship) [0] so it is all broken to begin with.
'Cryptocurrenies' are not currencies and they should be called for what they really are: monopoly money tokens.
Regardless of what side you're on -- this is a wake-up call. If you ever, as a civilian, get on the "wrong" side of any local or global event: you get to freeze on a park bench.
Your keys, your coins. Their keys, their coins.
Anyone who is paying attention, globally, is now realizing that they need to begin moving at least some assets into cryptocurrencies, in their own, personal accounts.
The problem is: BIP-39 is a train-wreck, from any practical security and reliability perspective. Basically, any "normal" person setting up a Crypto account w/ BIP-39 seed recovery is just gonna lose their money. I estimate 10% a year probability of total account loss: probably greater.
It's not a wake up call for me. This is in line with expectations. If the economic sanctions don't work I assume the next phase is cyber war at scale. If that doesn't work, traditional hot war.
> because he's not expanding russia. hes not letting ukraine to join nato.
Previously you were all saying we're hysterical and there will be no invasion. Russia has the same MO as cancer: expand as much as possible. It's well known that it wants access to our (Romania's) mountains. He's not going to stop at Ukraine. Putin has already revealed that we want's the Republic of Moldova.
> Previously you were all saying we're hysterical and there will be no invasion.
Who "we? US intelligence knew about the build-up and Putin has allegedly suggested the possibility to Biden ad well.
> I've had enough of Russian propaganda.
How is US professor a russian propaganda? He was saying in 2015 that it's not a good idea for nato to meddle in Ukraine and that would lead to invasion. No one heard.
> It's well known that it wants access to our (Romania's) mountains.
Well known by whom? Maybe by Romanians but definitely not Russians because it's the first time I hear that.
> Putin has already revealed that we want's the Republic of Moldova.
The US cannot blame itself for being irresponsible in Ukraine (because the US is never wrong, not in the moment at least) hence the narrative of Putin being the new Hitler trying to build a new great russia (or similar).
> Visa Suspends All Russia Operations
https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.rele...
MasterCard/Visa cards issued in Russia will not work abroad, cards issued abroad will not work in Russia.
> MasterCard/Visa account for three-quarters of payments in Russia
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/150023911662537932...