The holders of crypto currencies in Europe again have a reason to use the digital money as means of payment — June 1, failed Visa system, which became unavailable payments using plastic cards.
According to the BBC, thousands of people found themselves in a difficult position, for the time being deprived of the possibility to pay for goods and services.
“Thank you to the kind person who helped us out this evening and paid for our dinner at @HogandHedge, given the upcoming long trip, we could stay very hungry. An act of kindness. He even allowed my daughter to keep the change for her piggy Bank,” wrote a Twitter user with the nickname Anna Church.
Representatives of Visa quickly confirmed the information.
“Currently there is a system failure that prevents the processing of some transactions in Europe. We study the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the problem. We will keep you informed” — this message appeared on Twitter account VisaNewsEurope 1 June.
A message immediately caused a new debate on the virtues of cryptocurrency.
“#Visa is not working. Not a problem. We have #Bitcoin,” wrote the developers of the crypto best wallet on his Twitter page, expressing the General opinion of the community.
As you know, centralized provider payments daily Visa processes 150 million transactions. As in the case of any centralised service, we are talking about servers that may be vulnerable to a single vulnerability problem, which is not a decentralized network, such as network bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.
Decentralized systems operate on nodes, distributed in different locations, often in different countries, in this regard, the system becomes more secure: the more nodes appear in the network, the less it is exposed to the risk of failure. Theoretically, the blockchain network can function continuously without requiring a shutdown of the system.
Of course, it is worth to mention the problem of scalability faced by the network based on the technology of the distributed registry. To confirm transactions in the network needs to be upgraded all the nodes, and given the fact that you have to handle more and more transactions are permanently fixed in the blockchain, the process slows down, leading to increased waiting time and higher transaction commissions.
However, could this be the reason for the rejection of the use of cryptocurrencies? You may want to bear in mind the enormous progress in technology adaptation, characteristic for the last years. So, 12 of the 26 Chinese banks have integrated blockchain technology last year, and their example is followed by many other large financial institutions — instant low-cost cross-border payments involving different currencies, have already become reality. Billions of dollars are collected through ICO for new projects industry and its development conducted by research centers at the state level.
In addition, developers and experts are actively working on a solution to the problem of scaling. As we remember the differences of the developers became the reason to fork the bitcoin network in 2017. Now, a team of BTC working on a solution for the second level, known as the Lightning Network, which will allow certain processes to be carried out outside the main blockchain to reduce the congestion of the network. The developers BCH for the same purpose have increased the size of the block. Other projects develop their own version of the technology scaling — for example, acne Buterin sure that Ethereum will be able to handle 1 million transactions per second.
Probably that the solution will somehow be found, no doubt, no supporter of cryptocurrency: no one who is interested in only financial side of the question; nor the one who wants to live outside of established systems and rules that govern government; nor the one who believes that technology sooner or later does put an end to this system, ending the monopoly of financial institutions.
There are companies that refuse payments in bitcoin, assuming, however, return, if appropriate. And yet, faced with the fact that debit card “unsinkable” giant Visa is not working, it cannot be denied that cryptocurrency vengeance compete with traditional centralized financial institutions, forcing them at least to offer better services.
