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Personal experience: not only bitcoin was the only practical way I was able to receive funds in Russia from an Indonesian client, it was cheaper than just one l

Personal experience: not only bitcoin was the only practical way I was able to receive funds in Russia from an Indonesian client, it was cheaper than just one leg of converting Indonesian currency (to USD). Think of it. Buying bitcoin, sending and selling resulted being cheaper than just buying USD. The spread was that much lower. (It was in a relatively static price period in summer 2016) And regular banks just didn't do such transactions between Russia and Indonesia, like, nope. And PayPal was somehow banning the client for some reason.

thegjp210 6y ago
how much counterparty risk does the rapid price fluctuation result in? Can't imagine pricing a contract in bitcoin, as someone's getting screwed at payment if the BTC/fiat rate has changed during the lifetime of the contract
- cambalache 6y ago
  You can peg the contract in USD (or better put, the original price was in USD) and just accept the bitcoins within a very small window, say 30 min/1h.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  We just accepted the price of bitcoin in USD at the time the client bought BTC, and I accepted the risks of fluctuating price to myself. I actually gained somewhat, though, way less than if I'd just hold those coins till today. :)
- TheCoelacanth 6y ago
  Don't you have a similar problem with Russian currency? From Jun 2014 to Jan 2015, it lost more than half of it's value relative to USD.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    In the past 110 years Russian currency depreciated against USD at a something like trillion times. It's a safe bet that it'll continue the trend (with some occasional and not too long lapses of stae slowish decline), and actually bitcoin is a rather safe bet against rouble. After all, it's not backed by Putin's government!
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      This is an utterly ridiculous statement. Not only is the trillion fold devaluation not at all a reasonable assessment of the situation, the exchange rate only matters at the time of the exchange, not after. That's the point.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        I was answering to a person who said that RUB lost half of its value against USD in a span of a year. I just pointed that it is a part of a general trend, what do you find ridiculous about that? Btw, 'a trillion times' is an understatement. Exact figure in 2014 was... 57 460 000 000 000 000 (fifty seven quadrillion four hundred and sixty trillion) times [1], and just add some more since that time. Still thinking that bitcoin is a risky currency, huh? [1]: https://zhartun.me/2014/12/usd.html https://zhartun.me/2014/12/usd.html
        arcticbull 6y ago
        Yes of course it's the risky investment. BTC has seen 3 drawdowns of -86% in the last couple of years, and also, what happened to XRP shows that the football can be deflated in seconds with the right SEC memo. Currency isn't an investment. Currency has never been an investment. You're not supposed to hold currency. You're supposed to use currency to buy assets. A spot exchange rate means absolutely nothing. This is ECON-101.
        Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        Is gold an asset or a currency? Now it is definitely the former, but throughout history it was mostly an asset and a currency, with rather vague lines between them. Bitcoin is not a USD replacement. It's more of a gold replacement: finite supply, great malleability, but with modern benefits regarding storage and transfer.
- candiodari 6y ago
  every currency transaction creates this risk. Nothing to do with Bitcoin. I suppose you could say that this is a problem Bitcoin doesn't fix ... but judging by the Bitcoin market cap, it's not as much as a problem as normal banks.
  - rualca 6y ago
    > every currency transaction creates this risk. This is a disingenuous straw man and a desperate attempt to brush away Bitcoin's failure as currency. The OP explicitly referred to cryptocurrencies' inherent high volatility, and volatility is not a mere transaction risk. Seeing your debt explode, because you either borrowed or deferred payments, due to cryotocurrency volatility is not a transaction risk. It's simply the fact that cryptocurrency fails as being money.
gruez 6y ago
>And PayPal was somehow banning the client for some reason. Maybe the russian was on OFAC's sanctioned entities list? (only half joking)
- eli 6y ago
  Or just had a similar name or used a “bad” word. The data quality for those lists is very poor.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  The banned person was Indonesian. Something something his bank account. (One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin)
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    > One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin That's not possible with a public ledger and current state of analysis - instead of proactive cancellation of the transaction on the legacy banking system, you'll get a delayed reaction from the authorities. When you file your tax return you'll get a notice to explain transaction ID 0x...34 to a certain banned individual. So it will be about as "permissionless" as tax-fraud: you will only be able to get away with it for a while, and I don't doubt there will be future analytical tools (and laws) that will make tracing payments even easier. It is politically untenable for bitcoin payments to be opaque when "Funding Terrorism" is a high-priority security issue.
    - candiodari 6y ago
      Bitcoin payments might be traceable from wallet to wallet, but wallets don't have a name on them. Not even for governments. So if anyone takes basic precautions, you can't trace them. Although I assure you a normal person can't read bitcoin transactions lists like they can a bank statement, and this goes for people working at the tax office too. And they can't forbid those transactions, either. It raises the bar significantly on Tax offices, and therefore means less enforcement. And if need be, there are several anonymous cryptocurrencies that would love nothing more than to replace Bitcoin, and of course they will as soon as governments actually start tracing payments. https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/is-cryptocurrency-anonymous https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/is-cryptocurren...
cpursley 6y ago
What's the easiest, cheapest and legal way to convert Bitcoin into rub?
- qwantim1 6y ago
  Since “find a geeky massage therapist” is not helpful, my guess would be to convert BC -> USD -> RUB.
yarcob 6y ago
Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? My experience is that bank fees vary greatly. My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. My Austrian bank on the other hand has much better rates and low fees. I think it was less than 1% for transfers of a few thousand USD last time I checked. And finally, there are services like Transferwise; I just checked and they show rates of 1.5 - 2% for converting IDR to RUB.
- tekknik 6y ago
  > My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. You need to shop around for a better US bank account. This is not a common thing for us to do so if you pick up a random bank then you’ll be paying close to 10% in various conversion and fx fees. There are definitely US banks that charge 1%, some even 0%.
  - yarcob 6y ago
    The problem in that case was with a partners bank, not my own. The solution was to request payments in USD rather than EUR and have my bank do the conversion.
- dwild 6y ago
  > Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? I like how you consider that opening an account on another bank was both cheaper and easier than using Bitcoin.
  - yarcob 6y ago
    Opening bank accounts is pretty cheap and easy in Austria. I don't know what it's like in Indonesia, hence my question.

thegjp210 6y ago

how much counterparty risk does the rapid price fluctuation result in? Can't imagine pricing a contract in bitcoin, as someone's getting screwed at payment if the BTC/fiat rate has changed during the lifetime of the contract

cambalache 6y ago
You can peg the contract in USD (or better put, the original price was in USD) and just accept the bitcoins within a very small window, say 30 min/1h.
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
We just accepted the price of bitcoin in USD at the time the client bought BTC, and I accepted the risks of fluctuating price to myself. I actually gained somewhat, though, way less than if I'd just hold those coins till today. :)
TheCoelacanth 6y ago
Don't you have a similar problem with Russian currency? From Jun 2014 to Jan 2015, it lost more than half of it's value relative to USD.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  In the past 110 years Russian currency depreciated against USD at a something like trillion times. It's a safe bet that it'll continue the trend (with some occasional and not too long lapses of stae slowish decline), and actually bitcoin is a rather safe bet against rouble. After all, it's not backed by Putin's government!
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    This is an utterly ridiculous statement. Not only is the trillion fold devaluation not at all a reasonable assessment of the situation, the exchange rate only matters at the time of the exchange, not after. That's the point.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
      I was answering to a person who said that RUB lost half of its value against USD in a span of a year. I just pointed that it is a part of a general trend, what do you find ridiculous about that? Btw, 'a trillion times' is an understatement. Exact figure in 2014 was... 57 460 000 000 000 000 (fifty seven quadrillion four hundred and sixty trillion) times [1], and just add some more since that time. Still thinking that bitcoin is a risky currency, huh? [1]: https://zhartun.me/2014/12/usd.html https://zhartun.me/2014/12/usd.html
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        Yes of course it's the risky investment. BTC has seen 3 drawdowns of -86% in the last couple of years, and also, what happened to XRP shows that the football can be deflated in seconds with the right SEC memo. Currency isn't an investment. Currency has never been an investment. You're not supposed to hold currency. You're supposed to use currency to buy assets. A spot exchange rate means absolutely nothing. This is ECON-101.
        Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        Is gold an asset or a currency? Now it is definitely the former, but throughout history it was mostly an asset and a currency, with rather vague lines between them. Bitcoin is not a USD replacement. It's more of a gold replacement: finite supply, great malleability, but with modern benefits regarding storage and transfer.
candiodari 6y ago
every currency transaction creates this risk. Nothing to do with Bitcoin. I suppose you could say that this is a problem Bitcoin doesn't fix ... but judging by the Bitcoin market cap, it's not as much as a problem as normal banks.
- rualca 6y ago
  > every currency transaction creates this risk. This is a disingenuous straw man and a desperate attempt to brush away Bitcoin's failure as currency. The OP explicitly referred to cryptocurrencies' inherent high volatility, and volatility is not a mere transaction risk. Seeing your debt explode, because you either borrowed or deferred payments, due to cryotocurrency volatility is not a transaction risk. It's simply the fact that cryptocurrency fails as being money.

gruez 6y ago

>And PayPal was somehow banning the client for some reason. Maybe the russian was on OFAC's sanctioned entities list? (only half joking)

eli 6y ago
Or just had a similar name or used a “bad” word. The data quality for those lists is very poor.
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
The banned person was Indonesian. Something something his bank account. (One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin)
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin That's not possible with a public ledger and current state of analysis - instead of proactive cancellation of the transaction on the legacy banking system, you'll get a delayed reaction from the authorities. When you file your tax return you'll get a notice to explain transaction ID 0x...34 to a certain banned individual. So it will be about as "permissionless" as tax-fraud: you will only be able to get away with it for a while, and I don't doubt there will be future analytical tools (and laws) that will make tracing payments even easier. It is politically untenable for bitcoin payments to be opaque when "Funding Terrorism" is a high-priority security issue.
  - candiodari 6y ago
    Bitcoin payments might be traceable from wallet to wallet, but wallets don't have a name on them. Not even for governments. So if anyone takes basic precautions, you can't trace them. Although I assure you a normal person can't read bitcoin transactions lists like they can a bank statement, and this goes for people working at the tax office too. And they can't forbid those transactions, either. It raises the bar significantly on Tax offices, and therefore means less enforcement. And if need be, there are several anonymous cryptocurrencies that would love nothing more than to replace Bitcoin, and of course they will as soon as governments actually start tracing payments. https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/is-cryptocurrency-anonymous https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/is-cryptocurren...

cpursley 6y ago

What's the easiest, cheapest and legal way to convert Bitcoin into rub?

qwantim1 6y ago
Since “find a geeky massage therapist” is not helpful, my guess would be to convert BC -> USD -> RUB.

yarcob 6y ago

Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? My experience is that bank fees vary greatly. My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. My Austrian bank on the other hand has much better rates and low fees. I think it was less than 1% for transfers of a few thousand USD last time I checked. And finally, there are services like Transferwise; I just checked and they show rates of 1.5 - 2% for converting IDR to RUB.

tekknik 6y ago
> My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. You need to shop around for a better US bank account. This is not a common thing for us to do so if you pick up a random bank then you’ll be paying close to 10% in various conversion and fx fees. There are definitely US banks that charge 1%, some even 0%.
- yarcob 6y ago
  The problem in that case was with a partners bank, not my own. The solution was to request payments in USD rather than EUR and have my bank do the conversion.
dwild 6y ago
> Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? I like how you consider that opening an account on another bank was both cheaper and easier than using Bitcoin.
- yarcob 6y ago
  Opening bank accounts is pretty cheap and easy in Austria. I don't know what it's like in Indonesia, hence my question.