4 ms·

Very bizarre to state the obvious use cases, then nullify it with handwaving. The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1

Very bizarre to state the obvious use cases, then nullify it with handwaving. The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency. As for current working use cases Factom[0] stores an auditable timestamped data trail in a merkle tree structure, which is then anchored into the bitcoin blockchain. This is a tech minded site, I would hope people here understand the value of immutability. Real immutability, data that can't be altered or undone in anyway. Many seem upset at bitcoins meteoric rise and the rampant speculation for good reason, but make no mistake blockchains will be around long after we are gone. [0] www.factom.org

21 9y ago
I agree with you that bitcoin is a terrific innovation, with many use cases. But at the moment moving $10m through bitcoin is not one of them. For one, I don't need to be an op-sec expert to ensure that my money doesn't just vanish because I made a mistake or something was hacked somewhere.
freddie_mercury 9y ago
I have moved USD across international borders hundreds of times for free. Every international bank supports it. The same is probably true of EUR but I have no experience with it. You have mixed transferring a currency with converting one currency into another. You meant transferring $10m of USD to EUR isn't free. Which is true. But neither is converting $10m of Bitcoin to Ethereum.
nikanj 9y ago
What's the legal status for moving $10m across international borders like that?
- mschuster91 9y ago
  You don't, as a rich person, want to have all your assets in a single jurisdiction. You want to spread them as far as possible, for multiple reasons, and for this you need a cheap transfer way: - resilience against political "changes" (esp. China, Russia); money that is under foreign, unaffiliated regulatory regime cannot be seized by authorities at home - taxes: you want to secure your cash/assets from sudden taxes on property/equity - resilience against a bank going literally bankrupt. this happened in the financial crisis, even in the EU, and one bank's customers IIRC lost everything above 100.000 € on their accounts. Also, if you run an international business with regional offices or such, you don't want to spend huge amounts of both time and money when transferring company funds or buying machinery from vendors in other jurisdictions.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    Rich people who want to move $Ne+6 around without using a bank is an important and common use case.
tonfa 9y ago
> The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency. I'm fairly sure the cost is close to 0 for eur using SEPA. I've also transferred chf and usd across borders with no fees. FX fees are different (around 0.01% with a decent broker?) but I suppose BTC spread+commission is higher than that anyway.
SwellJoe 9y ago
And, yet, it cost me eight bucks to move a few hundred bucks from Coinbase BTC into USD. Also, are BTC transaction fees really that low ($1 for a 10m transaction)? I've been hearing complaints for a while now about how long it takes to process minimum fee transactions. I don't have any experience with it, as I haven't messed around with BTC in a few years, but, it's definitely part of the argument for the changes happening tomorrow.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  There was a spam campaign for the last 9 months from the pro-centralization camp to drive fees up to fit their narrative that we needed centralization (bigger blocks). But that stopped when segwit became clear it would lock in, and not free transactions are clearing. In the past several weeks I've done transactions for less than a dollar that cleared in the next block. (the cost is more to do with size than the amount of money-- $1m in a single address costs a lot less than $1m in 1M addresses) Unfortunately due to the lingering effects of the spam attack, some fee estimation software is way off.
- soared 9y ago
  Stop using coinbase then? They double your transaction fee and take half as revenue.
  - SwellJoe 9y ago
    Perhaps I should use BTC-e to convert to USD...Oh, wait... So, what other reputable exchange is there that works for BTC->USD and vice-versa and doesn't have ridiculous fees (I agree that Coinbase fees are outrageously high).
dboreham 9y ago
I bet Morgan Stanley can move their $10M pretty cheaply already.

21 9y ago

I agree with you that bitcoin is a terrific innovation, with many use cases. But at the moment moving $10m through bitcoin is not one of them. For one, I don't need to be an op-sec expert to ensure that my money doesn't just vanish because I made a mistake or something was hacked somewhere.

freddie_mercury 9y ago

I have moved USD across international borders hundreds of times for free. Every international bank supports it. The same is probably true of EUR but I have no experience with it. You have mixed transferring a currency with converting one currency into another. You meant transferring $10m of USD to EUR isn't free. Which is true. But neither is converting $10m of Bitcoin to Ethereum.

nikanj 9y ago

What's the legal status for moving $10m across international borders like that?

mschuster91 9y ago
You don't, as a rich person, want to have all your assets in a single jurisdiction. You want to spread them as far as possible, for multiple reasons, and for this you need a cheap transfer way: - resilience against political "changes" (esp. China, Russia); money that is under foreign, unaffiliated regulatory regime cannot be seized by authorities at home - taxes: you want to secure your cash/assets from sudden taxes on property/equity - resilience against a bank going literally bankrupt. this happened in the financial crisis, even in the EU, and one bank's customers IIRC lost everything above 100.000 € on their accounts. Also, if you run an international business with regional offices or such, you don't want to spend huge amounts of both time and money when transferring company funds or buying machinery from vendors in other jurisdictions.
- dboreham 9y ago
  Rich people who want to move $Ne+6 around without using a bank is an important and common use case.

tonfa 9y ago

> The current cost to move $10m of bitcoin across international borders is about $1. Attempt the same via conventional means and you'll quickly realise it's benefits go beyond monetary efficiency. I'm fairly sure the cost is close to 0 for eur using SEPA. I've also transferred chf and usd across borders with no fees. FX fees are different (around 0.01% with a decent broker?) but I suppose BTC spread+commission is higher than that anyway.

SwellJoe 9y ago

And, yet, it cost me eight bucks to move a few hundred bucks from Coinbase BTC into USD. Also, are BTC transaction fees really that low ($1 for a 10m transaction)? I've been hearing complaints for a while now about how long it takes to process minimum fee transactions. I don't have any experience with it, as I haven't messed around with BTC in a few years, but, it's definitely part of the argument for the changes happening tomorrow.

rothbardrand 9y ago
There was a spam campaign for the last 9 months from the pro-centralization camp to drive fees up to fit their narrative that we needed centralization (bigger blocks). But that stopped when segwit became clear it would lock in, and not free transactions are clearing. In the past several weeks I've done transactions for less than a dollar that cleared in the next block. (the cost is more to do with size than the amount of money-- $1m in a single address costs a lot less than $1m in 1M addresses) Unfortunately due to the lingering effects of the spam attack, some fee estimation software is way off.
soared 9y ago
Stop using coinbase then? They double your transaction fee and take half as revenue.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  Perhaps I should use BTC-e to convert to USD...Oh, wait... So, what other reputable exchange is there that works for BTC->USD and vice-versa and doesn't have ridiculous fees (I agree that Coinbase fees are outrageously high).

dboreham 9y ago

I bet Morgan Stanley can move their $10M pretty cheaply already.