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I bought my smartphone from Hong Kong, in part because I wanted a specific variant that would be more likely to work with open-source ROM's. The seller initial

I bought my smartphone from Hong Kong, in part because I wanted a specific variant that would be more likely to work with open-source ROM's. The seller initially requested payment via Transferwise, who sought crazy amounts of personal information and bullied me into a privacy-hostile customer agreement. Days went by and they still hadn't activated my account. Growing frustrated, I convinced the seller to accept Bitcoin, which was comparatively instant. The phone arrived a few days later, meanwhile the Transferwise morons still had their heads up their arses with no movement and no good explanation. I'm not a financial risk; I'm a good little citizen with no red flags. Reading between the lines my sense was their staff were overloaded or their onboarding system was simply broken. Bitcoin was incredibly helpful for me that day, and my favorite feature about the phone is the way I paid. In addition to a great story, I've got to admit there was something liberating and empowering about giving what felt like a big middle finger to the slow, decrepit, old-fashioned institution who couldn't even deliver on their core business proposition. Like saying "screw you, I don't need you and your crappy service anymore, come back when you can compete on merits". Whatever else you criticize about Bitcoin, it's still "cash you can email", and even if that's all it ever amounts to I still find it a bloody useful innovation.

bob33212 6y ago
Western Union is also very useful, but the vast majority of transactions are not made by Western Union because it has tradeoffs that make other things like credit/debit cards and checks a better option. Bitcoin Evangelists are trying to pump up the price by advocating that bitcoin will be the best method of making payments for a huge variety of use cases. I'm not going to call it a pump and dump scam because I think that a lot of these people truly think that it is going to 500k and beyond and that they will never need to dump it all.
- tluyben2 6y ago
  WU is very expensive though; btc, if you know what you are doing, does not come close. WU is a horrible but unavoidable evil for millions of workers worldwide. This is one of the cases that should be disrupted.
  - dkersten 6y ago
    Yeah, I had to transfer a few hundred dollars between Australia and Eurpoe last year and both bank transfer and WU would have cost a lot more and taken longer than using btc. With bitcoin, the transfer was complete in about 30 minutes and due to price volatility, I was able to cash out when the price was up enough to cover all fees. It was definitely very helpful.
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    I just checked, it seems that WU charges approximately 1% for transfers relative to the nominal exchange rate. I don't transfer money much, but superficially that doesn't seem too expensive considering the volatility risk to WU due to fluctuating exchange rates combined with the overheads of regulatory requirements. It seems to me that Bitcoin is only as cheap as it is because it sidesteps those regulatory overheads. So it's great, I suppose, as long as everyone is fine with it being used to launder money from human trafficking, the drug trade, corruption, or whatever...
    - 55555 6y ago
      IME, the real fees charged by WU often add up to 10-20%.
      - jiggawatts 6y ago
        How? The pricing calculator literally says $0.00 fees for me, the only charge is the 1% spread on the exchange rate.
        tluyben2 6y ago
        I know WU from the dropoff points where cheap labour bring their money to send home; they use an extremely bad conversion rate. Like paypal but even worse. Sources: official WU dropoff points in HK, SG, TH, NL and ES. The exchange rates + fees are indeed 10-20% removed from what they really are. Maybe if you send online it is 1%, but most use it to bring cash (from cleaning houses etc) to families abroad. Edit: > The pricing calculator literally says Please go to a meatspace WU point and compare the conversion rates with the inter bank rates.
- bigphishy 6y ago
  bitcoin has beaten western union, international wire transfers for years now and will continue to do so as notoriety and adoption of crypto-asset grows. However, that in no way justifies its marketcap, which is just over 500 billions. However overvalued it is, and however many times the price crashes dramatically, it is likely that the blockchain will continue to exist in 50-100 years. As long as computers and the internet still exist that is.
majewsky 6y ago
Can we have "cash you can email" that doesn't consume as much electricity as several nation states combined?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Looking solely at that criterial, ACH transfers work.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Not across countries.
  - justusthane 6y ago
    Does it work internationally though? Edit: Or I should say, “Could it work internationally?” Because afaik it does not currently.
  - syshum 6y ago
    ACH is US Banking only. You can not do Direct person to person transfers, you must go through a US Bank for ACH ACH is also SLOW and painfully insecure relaying on the banking institutions to stop gap the security and its built in slowness to allow for reversals of fraud or error transfers ACH is not a model people should be promoting as good method to do money transfer
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Thanks, I didn't know ACH was US only. As for slow, I've had things go through literally instantly, where I make the transaction, login to my bank account, and see it posted. When it's been slow, that always seems to be a factor with the sending entity (like PayPal) not my receiving bank. (Could be bank specific though)
      - Izkata 6y ago
        Might be something else going on (wire transfer, maybe?); ACH payments are batch-processed a couple times a day, and so can't be instant.
ineedasername 6y ago
It wasn't so much Bitcoin that saved the day, but a choice of payment processor by the seller that caused the problem to begin with. Heck, PayPal works in HongKong. Ultimately bitcoin made your transaction much smoother, but it was a sufficient, not a necessary condition in making it smoother.
- kikimora 6y ago
  Being deeply rooted in financial system payment processors often compete not with service quality but with how they can deal with various stupid or intentional government requirements and restrictions. Bitcoin and crypto is an ultimate alternative which (I hope) triggering change in this industry.
- rkagerer 6y ago
  Fair point, for sure! Though I've gained a lot of frustration toward PayPal the last few years, as both a buyer and seller. Their platform has really gone downhill from my perspective and I wish there were enough alternatives in use out there that I could sever the business relationship (particularly for eBay transactions). Non-crypto competitors are just as welcome.
- Jenda_ 6y ago
  You can find lots of stories about PayPal freezing accounts for random reasons. With well-known projects this usually resolves by public shaming, but I guess this can be impossible to solve for a small seller in a non-US/non-West-Europe country. Example: https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project
reactspa 6y ago
Interesting story. Question: was there any possibility of escrow here? What if the phone never showed up?
- rkagerer 6y ago
  I took on the counterparty risk. To be honest, the sellers I've dealt with with the last few years have turned out to have head-and-shoulders better customer service than their intermediaries like PayPal etc. I think escrow (and other risk mitigation techniques, e.g. reputational ratings) are definitely opportunities for enhancing the crypto ecosystem. Long term I suspect some sort of arbitration mechanism may play a role in crypto realizing its full potential (law and commerce are deeply intertwined, and the proliferation of hacks suggest a potential thirst for more effective justice) but I don't yet know what that would look like and many hard core enthusiasts would balk at the suggestion.
ta2987 6y ago
> my favorite feature about the phone is the way I paid The phone is that bad?
steeve 6y ago
That must have been one expensive phone.
freewilly1040 6y ago
In payments the 99% case where everyone acts in good faith and no one makes a mistake is the easy part. It's when eg the seller refuses to send the phone that the extra overhead of the traditional payment system comes into play.
- bigphishy 6y ago
  Establishing trust between seller and buyer is not a new problem. The same scenario that you described could be had with mailing checks, physical cash etc. wherever there is not a trusted escrow service. Ironically, blockchain technology is the first technology that actually solves the age old problem of how to establish trust within a truestless system. imho Bitcoin is a novel implementation of open-source technology, cryptography, and decentralized networks. I realize hackernews community has a disdain for greed and the avarice that is commonly connoted with "cryptocurrency" aka crypto-assets, but the reality is that bitcoin and crypto-assets are here to stay, and I for one am glad they are open-source.
  - freewilly1040 6y ago
    My critique is not about greed. My critique is about crypto proponents claiming it does things it doesn’t do. The GP complains about the overhead and data collection of traditional solutions, implying it’s a bunch of unnecessary cruft. In fact it’s to comply with local laws and protect the consumer and merchant from fraud. GP used Bitcoin to get around this hassle, renouncing any rights in the event of a dispute. Now, maybe that’s a win, but it’s a much more nuanced and less generalized win than is put forth by crypto proponents. Notice also the goalpost move of declaring Bitcoin a win over mailing cash. Ok, have you ever done that in your life? I have not been involved in mailed cash transactions aside from receiving $5 from my grandma in the mail 20 years ago.
    - bigphishy 6y ago
      actually yes, every month I pay my rent by mailing a check. Also, what is the acronym 'GP' ?

bob33212 6y ago

Western Union is also very useful, but the vast majority of transactions are not made by Western Union because it has tradeoffs that make other things like credit/debit cards and checks a better option. Bitcoin Evangelists are trying to pump up the price by advocating that bitcoin will be the best method of making payments for a huge variety of use cases. I'm not going to call it a pump and dump scam because I think that a lot of these people truly think that it is going to 500k and beyond and that they will never need to dump it all.

tluyben2 6y ago
WU is very expensive though; btc, if you know what you are doing, does not come close. WU is a horrible but unavoidable evil for millions of workers worldwide. This is one of the cases that should be disrupted.
- dkersten 6y ago
  Yeah, I had to transfer a few hundred dollars between Australia and Eurpoe last year and both bank transfer and WU would have cost a lot more and taken longer than using btc. With bitcoin, the transfer was complete in about 30 minutes and due to price volatility, I was able to cash out when the price was up enough to cover all fees. It was definitely very helpful.
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  I just checked, it seems that WU charges approximately 1% for transfers relative to the nominal exchange rate. I don't transfer money much, but superficially that doesn't seem too expensive considering the volatility risk to WU due to fluctuating exchange rates combined with the overheads of regulatory requirements. It seems to me that Bitcoin is only as cheap as it is because it sidesteps those regulatory overheads. So it's great, I suppose, as long as everyone is fine with it being used to launder money from human trafficking, the drug trade, corruption, or whatever...
  - 55555 6y ago
    IME, the real fees charged by WU often add up to 10-20%.
    - jiggawatts 6y ago
      How? The pricing calculator literally says $0.00 fees for me, the only charge is the 1% spread on the exchange rate.
      - tluyben2 6y ago
        I know WU from the dropoff points where cheap labour bring their money to send home; they use an extremely bad conversion rate. Like paypal but even worse. Sources: official WU dropoff points in HK, SG, TH, NL and ES. The exchange rates + fees are indeed 10-20% removed from what they really are. Maybe if you send online it is 1%, but most use it to bring cash (from cleaning houses etc) to families abroad. Edit: > The pricing calculator literally says Please go to a meatspace WU point and compare the conversion rates with the inter bank rates.
bigphishy 6y ago
bitcoin has beaten western union, international wire transfers for years now and will continue to do so as notoriety and adoption of crypto-asset grows. However, that in no way justifies its marketcap, which is just over 500 billions. However overvalued it is, and however many times the price crashes dramatically, it is likely that the blockchain will continue to exist in 50-100 years. As long as computers and the internet still exist that is.

majewsky 6y ago

Can we have "cash you can email" that doesn't consume as much electricity as several nation states combined?

ineedasername 6y ago
Looking solely at that criterial, ACH transfers work.
- wmf 6y ago
  Not across countries.
- justusthane 6y ago
  Does it work internationally though? Edit: Or I should say, “Could it work internationally?” Because afaik it does not currently.
- syshum 6y ago
  ACH is US Banking only. You can not do Direct person to person transfers, you must go through a US Bank for ACH ACH is also SLOW and painfully insecure relaying on the banking institutions to stop gap the security and its built in slowness to allow for reversals of fraud or error transfers ACH is not a model people should be promoting as good method to do money transfer
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Thanks, I didn't know ACH was US only. As for slow, I've had things go through literally instantly, where I make the transaction, login to my bank account, and see it posted. When it's been slow, that always seems to be a factor with the sending entity (like PayPal) not my receiving bank. (Could be bank specific though)
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Might be something else going on (wire transfer, maybe?); ACH payments are batch-processed a couple times a day, and so can't be instant.

ineedasername 6y ago

It wasn't so much Bitcoin that saved the day, but a choice of payment processor by the seller that caused the problem to begin with. Heck, PayPal works in HongKong. Ultimately bitcoin made your transaction much smoother, but it was a sufficient, not a necessary condition in making it smoother.

kikimora 6y ago
Being deeply rooted in financial system payment processors often compete not with service quality but with how they can deal with various stupid or intentional government requirements and restrictions. Bitcoin and crypto is an ultimate alternative which (I hope) triggering change in this industry.
rkagerer 6y ago
Fair point, for sure! Though I've gained a lot of frustration toward PayPal the last few years, as both a buyer and seller. Their platform has really gone downhill from my perspective and I wish there were enough alternatives in use out there that I could sever the business relationship (particularly for eBay transactions). Non-crypto competitors are just as welcome.
Jenda_ 6y ago
You can find lots of stories about PayPal freezing accounts for random reasons. With well-known projects this usually resolves by public shaming, but I guess this can be impossible to solve for a small seller in a non-US/non-West-Europe country. Example: https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project https://neo900.org/news/paypal-trouble-delays-project

reactspa 6y ago

Interesting story. Question: was there any possibility of escrow here? What if the phone never showed up?

rkagerer 6y ago
I took on the counterparty risk. To be honest, the sellers I've dealt with with the last few years have turned out to have head-and-shoulders better customer service than their intermediaries like PayPal etc. I think escrow (and other risk mitigation techniques, e.g. reputational ratings) are definitely opportunities for enhancing the crypto ecosystem. Long term I suspect some sort of arbitration mechanism may play a role in crypto realizing its full potential (law and commerce are deeply intertwined, and the proliferation of hacks suggest a potential thirst for more effective justice) but I don't yet know what that would look like and many hard core enthusiasts would balk at the suggestion.

ta2987 6y ago

> my favorite feature about the phone is the way I paid The phone is that bad?

steeve 6y ago

That must have been one expensive phone.

freewilly1040 6y ago

In payments the 99% case where everyone acts in good faith and no one makes a mistake is the easy part. It's when eg the seller refuses to send the phone that the extra overhead of the traditional payment system comes into play.

bigphishy 6y ago
Establishing trust between seller and buyer is not a new problem. The same scenario that you described could be had with mailing checks, physical cash etc. wherever there is not a trusted escrow service. Ironically, blockchain technology is the first technology that actually solves the age old problem of how to establish trust within a truestless system. imho Bitcoin is a novel implementation of open-source technology, cryptography, and decentralized networks. I realize hackernews community has a disdain for greed and the avarice that is commonly connoted with "cryptocurrency" aka crypto-assets, but the reality is that bitcoin and crypto-assets are here to stay, and I for one am glad they are open-source.
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  My critique is not about greed. My critique is about crypto proponents claiming it does things it doesn’t do. The GP complains about the overhead and data collection of traditional solutions, implying it’s a bunch of unnecessary cruft. In fact it’s to comply with local laws and protect the consumer and merchant from fraud. GP used Bitcoin to get around this hassle, renouncing any rights in the event of a dispute. Now, maybe that’s a win, but it’s a much more nuanced and less generalized win than is put forth by crypto proponents. Notice also the goalpost move of declaring Bitcoin a win over mailing cash. Ok, have you ever done that in your life? I have not been involved in mailed cash transactions aside from receiving $5 from my grandma in the mail 20 years ago.
  - bigphishy 6y ago
    actually yes, every month I pay my rent by mailing a check. Also, what is the acronym 'GP' ?