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I agree. It's almost hilariously counterintuitive. I recently needed to send a moderate sum of money (4 figures) to someone who lives across the country. There'
by bscphil 8y ago
I agree. It's almost hilariously counterintuitive. I recently needed to send a moderate sum of money (4 figures) to someone who lives across the country. There's no obvious reason why this should cost me anything or not happen in the same day. However,
* Checks / ACH takes days to close, plus in many situations you might have to actually mail the person a check
* EFT seems reliable, but takes days and requires having been previously set up and authenticated (which borders on impossible if you don't own both accounts).
* Wiring seems like the obvious solution, but depending on your combination of banks fees are going to be >1% for transactions of my size. I also failed to get a wire to happen in <24 hours online for reasons I still don't understand.
* Using a money sending service like Google Pay sounds reasonable enough, but even assuming you're under the transaction limit and have already set up everything necessary to satisfy their fraud prevention systems, any large amount will still take multiple days to fully clear.
On the other hand, while Bitcoin's slow transaction times are a pain for in-person merchant payments, being able to send even large sums of money reliably in less than an hour for (comparatively) a small fee seems almost miraculous. It's true that if you need to go USD -> BTC -> USD it takes much longer, but that's more a problem with currency exchange than an inherent limitation of the currency itself.
- rrdharan 8y agoLast week I needed to make a highly time-sensitive transfer of ~20k that had to clear the same day. Chase charged me a flat fee of $25 for the wire (and Ally Bank would have been happy to do it for $20). Chase temporarily froze my account since the payment was so large it was immediately flagged, but I spoke to someone on the phone within a few minutes, verified it was all legitimate, and the transfer was then processed without issue. I fail to see how Bitcoin could have helped any of this.
- whopa 8y agoI had to do similar a month ago, around $20k as well. It was from my account at BofA to an account at a different bank. I did it all online, and it cost $10 and cleared the next day, so within 24 hours. I did this all online without talking to any person, though I did have to 2FA into my account. I get that some banks might not be as competent yet, but signs look like they'll all get there in the end.
- keymone 8y agois this sarcasm? > I fail to see how Bitcoin could have helped any of this. how about: - not having to pay $25 (btc fee of $0.03 is confirming within an hour, $0.10 is almost guaranted to confirm in 10m) - "frozen account" is not even a thing - not having to speak to anyone on the phone you must be joking.
- dj43nq 8y agoWith the price fluctuations, maybe that 20k arrives as 19k. Don’t leave it in bitcoin for too long either. Might turn into 15k.
- coryfklein 8y agoYou're fortunate that it was processed without issue. Banks and governments have vested interest in large money transfers and it could just have easily gone the other way; they could have suspected the money and witheld the transfer and the money until you provided paper documentation of its legitimacy.