6 ms·

I admit $6 is very expensive when compared to credit card fees, but Bitcoin is the only way I know of sending someone in a different country $10k for just a $6

I admit $6 is very expensive when compared to credit card fees, but Bitcoin is the only way I know of sending someone in a different country $10k for just a $6 fee. It would still be $6 if you sent $1M.

arcticbull 6y ago
There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, therefore you need to pay a 1-2% fee at origin, $6 for a BTC TX, $90 in electricity socialized across the block reward and a 1-2% fee at destination. Moving $10,000 USD to CAD on the blockchain is roughly $399 not $6.
- brian_cloutier 6y ago
  I have used Bitcoin to send money internationally. I did not spend any money on turning my dollars into bitcoin, because I already had bitcoin. I did not pay $90 in electricity costs, it seems a little silly to bring the block reward up. You already have a good argument for what you're trying to say, you don't need to pretend that a cost others pay is a cost the transaction sender pays. As far as I know the recipients of my transactions did not pay any fees to convert the bitcoin back into their local currencies, because they were fine with holding on to it as Bitcoin. I am not trying to say that Bitcoin solves every problem. I agree with you that there are many problems it does not solve. The $399 number is disingenuous though, you're ignoring that there are situations where bitcoin really does have lower fees than the alternatives.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Ill grant you socialized cost of block reward is contentious and probably a distraction, though I personally stand by it. I’d argue your friends have simply deferred the conversion fee back to fiat, but I digress. There may be times when it’s less expensive, although it is also riskier, just ask the dude who lost $400K to the Quadriaga collapse.
    - brian_cloutier 6y ago
      Anyone who loses their money when an exchange collapses has not lost bitcoin, they already spent that bitcoin on a bitcoin-denominated-receivable and then lost that receivable.
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Yeah and anybody who loses their money on the stock exchange, already spent that money on a security and then the security lost value. What's the difference?
        brian_cloutier 6y ago
        The GP seems to be implying that using bitcoin is risky, which is true, but as evidence cites someone who lost money while not holding bitcoin. I'm sure people also lost CAD they had been storing in Quadriga; when you put money into an uninsured bank/exchange you might lose it, losing it is not evidence that bitcoin itself is risky.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        You can’t spend Bitcoin anywhere which means you need to rely on these exchanges to get something you can exchange for goods and services. This makes them a mandatory part of the exchange transaction and ecosystem as such their risk must be factored in. You can’t pretend the platonic ideal exists for crypto when comparing it to real world pricing and risk for existing solutions. That’s disingenuous at best.
        CJefferson 6y ago
        With bitcoin the choices seems equivalent to unsecured banks (trust someone else), or gold bars under the mattress (hope they don't get stolen, you don't get incapacitated and they get forgotten about, etc). I wouldn't want to store a significant chunk of my savings in either of those situations.
        6y ago
- gruez 6y ago
  >InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). but that only covers conversion, right? Or does IB also allow you to send to arbitrary accounts? >therefore you need to pay a 1-2% fee at origin [...] and a 1-2% fee at destination. That's only if you use the managed exchange service. If use the trading interface (ie. placing bids/asks manually), it's much lower. eg. 0.5% for coinbase pro[1], 0.25% for gemini activetrader[2] [1] https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading-rules-and-fees/fees https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading... [2] https://gemini.com/fees/activetrader-fee-schedule#section-active-trader-fee-schedule https://gemini.com/fees/activetrader-fee-schedule#section-ac...
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Indeed the IBKR approach is longer and there are more steps. You transfer cash to the account in the source country, make the FOREX transaction, transfer the money to your own bank account in the destination and the use a local payment system. It is however the cheapest option I’m aware of in the entire world. $20 per million + 0%. If you’re sending comparatively smaller quantities then the delta between that and TransferWise is negligible, and it is a one stop shop.
- alwillis 6y ago
  Moving $10,000 USD to CAD on the blockchain is roughly $399 not $6. This is so disingenuous it's not even funny. There are so many countries that US residents can't send to without going through a middleman, which takes a cut. Bitcoin isn't for sending money to CAD, which of course you can do. It really shines to sending money to places that don't have nearly as much financial infrastructure. A regular wire transfer can take up to 3 days and cost 5-10%. A bitcoin transaction that takes 1 day is cost 1 satoshi per byte. A satoshi is 1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin. Checking a realtime dashboard (https://bitbo.io https://bitbo.io), a satoshi is worth $0.00019225.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    (1) https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2571942/what-countries-can-i-send-to https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2571942/what-countrie... (2) the countries without infrastructure generally can’t afford to be spending even $6 on a transaction. Venezuela’s minimum wage is $2 per month. (3) Bitcoin isn't for sending money to CAD, which of course you can do. Funny how it’s always not for the thing I point out it doesn’t work for haha. Nobody can quite figure out what it is for except speculation and crime.
    - alwillis 6y ago
      Nobody can quite figure out what it is for except speculation and crime. Bitcoin is a non-sovereign, hard-capped supply, global, immutable, decentralized digital store of value. It’s an insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility from central banks and governments globally.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        I agree with part (1) but there's no reason (1) implies (2). After all, Chuck-E-Cheese tokens fit a large part of the definition in part (1). After all they're non-sovereign, limited issuance, global, immutable and decentralized. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone who believes that implies Chuck-E-Cheese tokens are an insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility from central banks and governments globally.
captn3m0 6y ago
The fact that credit card fees are high is not reason enough for Bitcoin to win this forever. Nothing stops interchange from switching from a % model technically - the costs to the issuer and the network scale on a txn basis (same as bitcoin). All it takes is banks to cap their interchange - which they can, if bitcoin ever becomes competitive?
9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
Its free in Europe between the countries, might be expensive in America where you tend to use credit cards to send money.

arcticbull 6y ago

There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, therefore you need to pay a 1-2% fee at origin, $6 for a BTC TX, $90 in electricity socialized across the block reward and a 1-2% fee at destination. Moving $10,000 USD to CAD on the blockchain is roughly $399 not $6.

brian_cloutier 6y ago
I have used Bitcoin to send money internationally. I did not spend any money on turning my dollars into bitcoin, because I already had bitcoin. I did not pay $90 in electricity costs, it seems a little silly to bring the block reward up. You already have a good argument for what you're trying to say, you don't need to pretend that a cost others pay is a cost the transaction sender pays. As far as I know the recipients of my transactions did not pay any fees to convert the bitcoin back into their local currencies, because they were fine with holding on to it as Bitcoin. I am not trying to say that Bitcoin solves every problem. I agree with you that there are many problems it does not solve. The $399 number is disingenuous though, you're ignoring that there are situations where bitcoin really does have lower fees than the alternatives.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Ill grant you socialized cost of block reward is contentious and probably a distraction, though I personally stand by it. I’d argue your friends have simply deferred the conversion fee back to fiat, but I digress. There may be times when it’s less expensive, although it is also riskier, just ask the dude who lost $400K to the Quadriaga collapse.
  - brian_cloutier 6y ago
    Anyone who loses their money when an exchange collapses has not lost bitcoin, they already spent that bitcoin on a bitcoin-denominated-receivable and then lost that receivable.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Yeah and anybody who loses their money on the stock exchange, already spent that money on a security and then the security lost value. What's the difference?
      - brian_cloutier 6y ago
        The GP seems to be implying that using bitcoin is risky, which is true, but as evidence cites someone who lost money while not holding bitcoin. I'm sure people also lost CAD they had been storing in Quadriga; when you put money into an uninsured bank/exchange you might lose it, losing it is not evidence that bitcoin itself is risky.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        You can’t spend Bitcoin anywhere which means you need to rely on these exchanges to get something you can exchange for goods and services. This makes them a mandatory part of the exchange transaction and ecosystem as such their risk must be factored in. You can’t pretend the platonic ideal exists for crypto when comparing it to real world pricing and risk for existing solutions. That’s disingenuous at best.
        CJefferson 6y ago
        With bitcoin the choices seems equivalent to unsecured banks (trust someone else), or gold bars under the mattress (hope they don't get stolen, you don't get incapacitated and they get forgotten about, etc). I wouldn't want to store a significant chunk of my savings in either of those situations.
        6y ago
gruez 6y ago
>InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). but that only covers conversion, right? Or does IB also allow you to send to arbitrary accounts? >therefore you need to pay a 1-2% fee at origin [...] and a 1-2% fee at destination. That's only if you use the managed exchange service. If use the trading interface (ie. placing bids/asks manually), it's much lower. eg. 0.5% for coinbase pro[1], 0.25% for gemini activetrader[2] [1] https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading-rules-and-fees/fees https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading... [2] https://gemini.com/fees/activetrader-fee-schedule#section-active-trader-fee-schedule https://gemini.com/fees/activetrader-fee-schedule#section-ac...
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Indeed the IBKR approach is longer and there are more steps. You transfer cash to the account in the source country, make the FOREX transaction, transfer the money to your own bank account in the destination and the use a local payment system. It is however the cheapest option I’m aware of in the entire world. $20 per million + 0%. If you’re sending comparatively smaller quantities then the delta between that and TransferWise is negligible, and it is a one stop shop.
alwillis 6y ago
Moving $10,000 USD to CAD on the blockchain is roughly $399 not $6. This is so disingenuous it's not even funny. There are so many countries that US residents can't send to without going through a middleman, which takes a cut. Bitcoin isn't for sending money to CAD, which of course you can do. It really shines to sending money to places that don't have nearly as much financial infrastructure. A regular wire transfer can take up to 3 days and cost 5-10%. A bitcoin transaction that takes 1 day is cost 1 satoshi per byte. A satoshi is 1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin. Checking a realtime dashboard (https://bitbo.io https://bitbo.io), a satoshi is worth $0.00019225.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  (1) https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2571942/what-countries-can-i-send-to https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2571942/what-countrie... (2) the countries without infrastructure generally can’t afford to be spending even $6 on a transaction. Venezuela’s minimum wage is $2 per month. (3) Bitcoin isn't for sending money to CAD, which of course you can do. Funny how it’s always not for the thing I point out it doesn’t work for haha. Nobody can quite figure out what it is for except speculation and crime.
  - alwillis 6y ago
    Nobody can quite figure out what it is for except speculation and crime. Bitcoin is a non-sovereign, hard-capped supply, global, immutable, decentralized digital store of value. It’s an insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility from central banks and governments globally.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      I agree with part (1) but there's no reason (1) implies (2). After all, Chuck-E-Cheese tokens fit a large part of the definition in part (1). After all they're non-sovereign, limited issuance, global, immutable and decentralized. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone who believes that implies Chuck-E-Cheese tokens are an insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility from central banks and governments globally.

captn3m0 6y ago

The fact that credit card fees are high is not reason enough for Bitcoin to win this forever. Nothing stops interchange from switching from a % model technically - the costs to the issuer and the network scale on a txn basis (same as bitcoin). All it takes is banks to cap their interchange - which they can, if bitcoin ever becomes competitive?

9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago

Its free in Europe between the countries, might be expensive in America where you tend to use credit cards to send money.