On June 1, the Visa system crashed, causing payments with plastic cards to temporarily be unusable. Holders of cryptocurrency in Europe had an occasion to use digital money as a means of payment. This caused new discussions about the merits of the cryptocurrency.
According to the BBC, thousands of people were in a difficult situation, for the time being deprived of the opportunity to pay for goods and services.
Thanks to a kind man who helped us out this evening and paid for some of our dinner at the @HogandHedge with a long drive ahead we could have left very hungry. True act of kindness. He even let my daughter keep the change for her money box. #visadown #visa
— Anna Church (@AnnaWeather) June 1, 2018
Visa representatives quickly confirmed information about the failure in the system.
We are currently experiencing a service disruption which is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation. We will keep you updated.
— VisaNewsEurope (@VisaNewsEurope) June 1, 2018
The message that the cards of such a giant as Visa does not work, immediately sparking new discussions about the fact that cryptocurrencies compete with traditional centralized financial institutions, forcing them to offer better services."Visa is down. Not a problem. We have Bitcoin," - wrote Trezor developers on their Twitter, expressing the community's general opinion.
#Visa is down.
— TREZOR (@TREZOR) June 1, 2018
Not a problem. We have #Bitcoin.
The centralized payment provider Visa processes 150 million transactions daily. It is about servers that can be exposed to a single vulnerability. This is a problem that a decentralized network does not have, such as a bitcoin network or other cryptocurrency.
Decentralized systems operate on nodes distributed in different locations. Often they are in different countries, and in this regard, the system becomes more secure. The more nodes that appear on the network, the less it is subject to the risk of failure. Theoretically, the blockchain-network can function continuously without requiring the system to stop.
By Ekaterina Ulyanova