4 ms·

In my country the spreed to exchange eur or usd to local current is huge, you lose at least 10%

psergeant 8y ago
Thanks for the data point! What’s the spread between BTC and your local currency vs BTC/USD? Is Bitcoin legal in your country? Are there reliable exchanges? What’s the cash-out wait? Thanks in advance!
throwaway13337 8y ago
I use transferwise all the time for usd to eur. The loss is closer to 1%. E.g. 1k usd costs $10 to transfer at the googled exchange rate. Better solutions are out there. Bitcoin is, as always, a solution looking for a problem.
- anonoholic 8y ago
  I have used TransferWise, and yes, <1%; however https://revolut.com/ https://revolut.com/ have recently added virtual bank accounts, and currently add no fee for market rate transfers.
- jgh 8y ago
  i recently used transferwise to convert a bunch of money and it seemed like all in the fees were closer to 0.1% than 1%. I think if you do larger sums of money the fees get cheaper though because the cost to transfer into transferwise is around $20 or something for ACH pull, but the fees for the currency exchange is a slightly worse exchange rate (though still much better than you would get at a bank)
- yani 8y ago
  Transferwise is good but its network goal is to make money out of the transfers. Cryptos network doesnt share this goal
  - DasIch 8y ago
    Miners don't get paid anymore?
  - anonymouz 8y ago
    Great that all those exchanges aren't charging any fees and there's no transaction cost for Bitcoin... I recently did a lot of EUR-USD transfers and have evaluated several options. I came to the same conclusion as other posters here: Services like Transferwise and Currencyfair are all very cheap, and do the job well and without risk. Going through Bitcoin was not even close to competitive.
    - joering2 8y ago
      Did you at least google Transferwise to see all horror stories of people getting their wires frozen? Really curious of your definition of “without risk”
      - anonymouz 8y ago
        By that I mean that they are registered and regulated within the EU and other countries they operate in. The people operating the service are known and comply with applicable regulation, so that I can be reasonably confident nothing shady is going on and that I can get legal recourse in case something is wrong. And no, despite doing some research on Transferwise before using them I didn't run into horror stories of them freezing wires. Transferwise has always been very professional and helpful in interactions with me (more so than my own bank).
        joering2 8y ago
        Have you ever transferred 120,000 EUR with them, or - you know - any serious amount?
        anonymouz 8y ago
        My transfers were in the 1k-10k range, I guess that's not "serious" for you. But no, if I were putting such a big amount of money in their hands at once I would certainly do more research and look for better safeguarding.

Thanks for the data point! What’s the spread between BTC and your local currency vs BTC/USD? Is Bitcoin legal in your country? Are there reliable exchanges? What’s the cash-out wait? Thanks in advance!

throwaway13337 8y ago

I use transferwise all the time for usd to eur. The loss is closer to 1%. E.g. 1k usd costs $10 to transfer at the googled exchange rate. Better solutions are out there. Bitcoin is, as always, a solution looking for a problem.

anonoholic 8y ago
I have used TransferWise, and yes, <1%; however https://revolut.com/ https://revolut.com/ have recently added virtual bank accounts, and currently add no fee for market rate transfers.
jgh 8y ago
i recently used transferwise to convert a bunch of money and it seemed like all in the fees were closer to 0.1% than 1%. I think if you do larger sums of money the fees get cheaper though because the cost to transfer into transferwise is around $20 or something for ACH pull, but the fees for the currency exchange is a slightly worse exchange rate (though still much better than you would get at a bank)
yani 8y ago
Transferwise is good but its network goal is to make money out of the transfers. Cryptos network doesnt share this goal
- DasIch 8y ago
  Miners don't get paid anymore?
- anonymouz 8y ago
  Great that all those exchanges aren't charging any fees and there's no transaction cost for Bitcoin... I recently did a lot of EUR-USD transfers and have evaluated several options. I came to the same conclusion as other posters here: Services like Transferwise and Currencyfair are all very cheap, and do the job well and without risk. Going through Bitcoin was not even close to competitive.
  - joering2 8y ago
    Did you at least google Transferwise to see all horror stories of people getting their wires frozen? Really curious of your definition of “without risk”
    - anonymouz 8y ago
      By that I mean that they are registered and regulated within the EU and other countries they operate in. The people operating the service are known and comply with applicable regulation, so that I can be reasonably confident nothing shady is going on and that I can get legal recourse in case something is wrong. And no, despite doing some research on Transferwise before using them I didn't run into horror stories of them freezing wires. Transferwise has always been very professional and helpful in interactions with me (more so than my own bank).
      - joering2 8y ago
        Have you ever transferred 120,000 EUR with them, or - you know - any serious amount?
        anonymouz 8y ago
        My transfers were in the 1k-10k range, I guess that's not "serious" for you. But no, if I were putting such a big amount of money in their hands at once I would certainly do more research and look for better safeguarding.