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Didn't you mind that by the time they converted that Bitcoin to local currency - it could have lost xx% of it's value?
by mupuff1234 5y ago
Didn't you mind that by the time they converted that Bitcoin to local currency - it could have lost xx% of it's value?
- tluyben2 5y agoOr gained.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoPeople generally do not intend to play roulette while also transferring money to their relatives.
- Scoundreller 5y agoI do a similar thing myself to exchange currencies. My broker will let me buy a stock in Canadian dollars on the Toronto stock market, and then sell it a few days later in US dollars on the US stock market. And vice versa. Many Canadian companies trade on both. Shopify is another that you may be more familiar with (though I don’t use that one). You take some volatility risk over those few days, but on average, you save a lot on fees and make a bit of money over those days. Over enough transactions, even the volatility averages out.
- el-salvador 5y agoHow large the spread between two stable currencies USD/CAD can be? Compared to USD and Bitcoin.
- Scoundreller 5y agoIf you’re a bank converting millions, you get good rates. When you’re converting 0-$100k at a bank, they charge you 1.5% - 3% (for lower amounts).
- wavefunction 5y agoThat seems like a second-order of complexity over simply buying Canadian dollars with US dollars and vice versa. Is there a benefit I'm missing?
- Scoundreller 5y agoSaving 1-2% in currency exchange fees.
- echopurity 5y agoPeople generally do not go from $0 to $50,000 playing roulette either.
- fnordfnordfnord 5y agoIf you really need to minimize that risk then you coordinate the exchange on SMS or something. Intra-exchange transfers are instant. The risk is really low almost all of the time.
- robot_no_419 5y agoI've used Bitcoin for many real world debt settlements and payments as well. This has never been a concern for me or anyone of my counter-parties. In fact, some of them even started asking me to only pay them back in Bitcoin because it's a lot easier to use and doesn't have cash limits like Venmo and other services.
- lottin 5y agoYou don't have to make stuff up.
- robot_no_419 5y agoWhy would you think Im making stuff up? I've been on the crypto train for a while now, I'm trying to eventually go only crypto one day but it's pretty hard. When you need to help your poor parents pay for medical appointments and car repairs, the venmo limit of $1000 or whatever gets really old really fast.
- rualca 5y ago> Why would you think Im making stuff up? Looking at your comment history, it does sound like you registered this user account just to jump on crypto discussions to pump it up. Even if you're being totally honest with your highly peculiar and definitely uncommon personal anecdote, circumstances do drive down your credibility.
- robot_no_419 5y agoI'm really only interested in talking about crypto, but that's because I'm really 100% about that life. I am for sure biased on this subject, but everything I've said is the truth. There is literally zero incentive for me to waste my time lying on the internet to try to pump my internet money. I cannot influence a multibilion dollar cryptocurrency market with a single HN account. In short, I just really like the coins.
- lottin 5y ago
- fnordfnordfnord 5y agoWe were aware of that as a possibility, but as I said in the post over several years of doing this we never lost more than the cost of a money order.