OxMarco

Open source tinkerer building at the edge of hardware and software.
Check it out yourself 🔍

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@yacineMTB Too bad PCB production and assembly for a single prototype will cost you $200 just in setup fees

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@sytaylor The UX of card payments still remains superior, not to mention by paying in crypto you waive any refund rights

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

This oversimplifies the role of card networks, "risk" is far more nuanced than it appears.

There's:
1. Technical risk: what if you withdraw from an ATM, your bank receives the order but the response to the ATM fails to be delivered?
2. Disputes: card networks provide a unified framework for dealing with those, regardless of the merchant type or location.
3. Fraud: velocity rules, MCC and BIN filters to limit card cloning and common carding fraud.

Anyone who’s worked with Visa or Mastercard knows the engineering effort and complexity required to achieve at least once delivery on every message, massive throughput and near-zero downtime.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@josephdelong @BowTiedIguana Fun fact - card networks don’t prosecute fraudulent chargebacks, the system is just heavily unbalanced toward consumers

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@digit Are you going to get EMV lvl 1 and 2 certification on your hardware and kernel + lvl 3 for the schema connection?
Why use your own hardware when there are ODM companies with pre-certified devices?

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@mikaelpeydayesh @iamsebdeb @asanwal Not really, card networks also enforce chargebacks and adjudicate disputes.
E-commerce without them would be impossible

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@openabookmoron @pkuhar @immad Check out Curve, https://t.co/MXKnX6cn7w

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@base This video clearly shows why crypto payments (done this way) don't work.

1. UX is terrible compared to tap-to-pay cards
2. EU acquiring fees (0.7-1%) beat Coinbase Commerce (1%)
3. Offramping is still a majour pain point

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@timjrobinson Existing payment terminals can do it already and can process both crypto and fiat transactions, so that the merchant doesn’t need to manage multiple hardware terminals.

Innovation is going to be on the payment routing not on the hardware side.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@DanteReminick Acquiring that makes sense

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@glazecl Crypto cards complicate the payment stack by adding an extra step: converting crypto to fiat.
To truly see a benefit, we as an industry still need to solve the acquiring side and fully accept crypto payments.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@0x_Abdul Another point to consider is that merchants are used to paying these fees on payments and for many the real pain point isn’t even the fee itself.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

I'd doubt that. What we've seen so far:

1. Direct replacements like QR codes, which likely won’t work, at least in the US and EEA, because the tap-to-pay user experience is simply too good
2. Crypto cards and processors that add an extra layer of complexity to existing payment rails, ultimately resulting in higher fees and worse UX.

A proper replacement to the existing payment stack would ideally leverage the existing tech and slowly cut off intermediaries to reach a fully on-chain transaction.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@fido_cm How do you make sure liquidity is always available for withdrawal? What if one of the underlying protocol fails, will the users bear the losses?

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@MarvinJanssen Congrats! Building software is tough, but hardware takes it to another level. Can’t wait to see the metal version!

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@DanDeFiEd Adding some color to that: https://t.co/qZ9SMHjrFO raised $25 million in a Series A round, after already building fully autonomous tanks. Meanwhile, crypto companies raise hundreds of millions to fork open-source code. Let that sink in.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

the businesses are very different and the tech stacks aren’t the same → that changes when you consider card or P2P payments. Owning both the processor and the issuer enables internal settlement of transactions, bypassing third-party fees (such as those from card schemes - Visa/Mastercard), while leveraging the same underlying technology.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@lucho_alpha @pitdesi @TheOneandOmsy He’s got a point. Offramping crypto is still not as easy as you might think and the fees applied are often atrocious, up to 10% sometimes. And all of this is a way worse UX vs just sending a bank transfer via Wise.

[Keyring Research @KeyringResearch]

MPC-TLS & ZK-TLS

Ever wondered how we can prove data authenticity from websites without exposing sensitive information? Let's explore two cryptographic approaches: MPC-TLS and ZK-TLS.

[OxMarco @OxMarco_]

@DefiIgnas @Yoyo_343_ Card schemes are much more than just simple intermediaries, they manage compliance, fraud prevention, inter-party credit issuance and remittance at the very least