3 ms·

Since I see a lot of people posting that there is no legitimate use case for Bitcoin, let me point out that the global remittance market is over $500 billion pe

Since I see a lot of people posting that there is no legitimate use case for Bitcoin, let me point out that the global remittance market is over $500 billion per year. Being able to cheaply and easily move money between countries is a huge need, and bitcoin is good at that. This isn't even touching grey-area financial services like evading capital controls, routing around artificially pegged currencies (ie what's happening Argentina), etc. This isn't to say that there isn't a big ugly correction coming, but it's not accurate to say that Bitcoin has no value/purpose.

maxerickson 9y ago
What do the people accepting the money in Argentina do with it? How do they get Bitcoin to begin with? Is value moving out of Argentina in a way that has little to do with Bitcoin?
- Tossrock 9y ago
  There's an interesting NYT article about all of those questions: "Can Bitcoin Conquer Argentina?" (2015) - https://nyti.ms/1JRVRmL https://nyti.ms/1JRVRmL
papabrown 9y ago
I used to believe that as well. I have business and family in other countries and the traditional approaches were way too expensive ($50 for a bank wire, $X fee plus horrible exchange rates via Moneygram, etc). I used Bitcoin a few times to move money from my US accounts to my overseas accounts where I could then transfer it in local currency through the local banking systems. But then it started taking longer and longer for bitcoin transactions to clear. And the price was often moving during this window between when I bought in one currency and I could sell in another currency. Now I just use TransferWise. Less hassle. Costs are much more reasonable (a few bucks for small amounts) and I don't have to have do multiple transactions to get money from Point A to Point B.
- Tossrock 9y ago
  Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I also experienced the long confirmation time issue, but it seems to have settled down after the segwit fork, which allowed more transactions per block.

maxerickson 9y ago

What do the people accepting the money in Argentina do with it? How do they get Bitcoin to begin with? Is value moving out of Argentina in a way that has little to do with Bitcoin?

Tossrock 9y ago
There's an interesting NYT article about all of those questions: "Can Bitcoin Conquer Argentina?" (2015) - https://nyti.ms/1JRVRmL https://nyti.ms/1JRVRmL

papabrown 9y ago

I used to believe that as well. I have business and family in other countries and the traditional approaches were way too expensive ($50 for a bank wire, $X fee plus horrible exchange rates via Moneygram, etc). I used Bitcoin a few times to move money from my US accounts to my overseas accounts where I could then transfer it in local currency through the local banking systems. But then it started taking longer and longer for bitcoin transactions to clear. And the price was often moving during this window between when I bought in one currency and I could sell in another currency. Now I just use TransferWise. Less hassle. Costs are much more reasonable (a few bucks for small amounts) and I don't have to have do multiple transactions to get money from Point A to Point B.

Tossrock 9y ago
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I also experienced the long confirmation time issue, but it seems to have settled down after the segwit fork, which allowed more transactions per block.