4 ms·

I don't travel anywhere without Bitcoin. It saved me many times when banks created arbitrary problems. (I use travala.com and cheapair.com)

winternett 4y ago
Great trying to spend it after a value plummet I tell you what! Everything is terrible. The US dollar is on par with the EURO though.
renewiltord 4y ago
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing that.
smcl 4y ago
In what situations has Bitcoin saved you, and where (country, city)? The reason I ask is because I cannot recall seeing any shops which would accept bitcoin, and the last ATM that bought BTC for cash I knew of in my locale disappeared a little while ago.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  I usually travel with $10000 cash with me and use Bitcoin to pay for hotels and flights. Shops accept USD at a lot of places around the world. I travel for half year every winter to south / central america from Europe, and there have been cases when my bank cancelled my credit card because of technical problems with contactless payments even though I didn't need contactless. Another time Revolut just blocked my access to their app for a few days until I could prove where I got the money from. Another time a bank blocked my card because I was travelling and they thought it's a fraud. Depending on banks for long travels far from my home is scary, so I make sure I always have enough BTC and cash to survive.
  - blisterpeanuts 4y ago
    That’s a lot of cash to travel with.
    - 988747 4y ago
      Yep, I would never carry this much on me. In most countries you need to declare such amount when crossing the border, and explain why you have it. And of course in the US any cop on the street can just take it from you, with no recourse. I would carry 500-1000 USD at most.
      - weberer 4y ago
        There is recourse. The USA has due process.
        988747 4y ago
        One thing about civil asset forfeiture is that it is an action against the property, not the person. So, the cash itself is a "suspect" not you. You can't even file a complaint, because you are not a party to the whole case.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - lambertsimnel 4y ago
        Exactly. Airports in the European Union have signs warning passengers about such rules for carrying large sums of cash. When carrying €10,000 or more into or out of the European Union, you must complete a cash declaration. In practice, I'd feel uncomfortable carrying more than I'd be happy to count while hurrying for a plane, especially if the value were close to the limit and in a currency other than Euros. (Other currencies are explicitly included in the EU rules, which makes sense, not least because some EU member states use other currencies instead of Euros.) I don't know whether you can complete a cash declaration in case the exchange rate changes such that the value of your cash crosses the threshold, but if you can't then maybe carrying cash close to the limit would attract a lot of attention from customs or airport security (because it might look like you're violating the rules until the cash had been counted and the interest rate checked).
        4y ago
  - 988747 4y ago
    > Another time a bank blocked my card because I was travelling and they thought it's a fraud. I was traveling recently and when trying to pay for a hotel room the transaction was declined. I needed to call my bank to explain that I am traveling, so they tuned down their anti-fraud alerts. Thankfully, one phone call was all it took to resolve this. However, this block was only triggered because the transaction in question was relatively high amount ($1500), the very same card would still work perfectly for small transactions.
  - smcl 4y ago
    You're brave to have $10k in cash on you!
- leppr 4y ago
  While traveling through Europe this summer, I noticed many small currency exchange shops process cryptocurrencies. What surprised me most is that many shops handled a wide selection of what I would call shitcoins, not just BTC and ETH.

winternett 4y ago

Great trying to spend it after a value plummet I tell you what! Everything is terrible. The US dollar is on par with the EURO though.

renewiltord 4y ago

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing that.

smcl 4y ago

In what situations has Bitcoin saved you, and where (country, city)? The reason I ask is because I cannot recall seeing any shops which would accept bitcoin, and the last ATM that bought BTC for cash I knew of in my locale disappeared a little while ago.

xiphias2 4y ago
I usually travel with $10000 cash with me and use Bitcoin to pay for hotels and flights. Shops accept USD at a lot of places around the world. I travel for half year every winter to south / central america from Europe, and there have been cases when my bank cancelled my credit card because of technical problems with contactless payments even though I didn't need contactless. Another time Revolut just blocked my access to their app for a few days until I could prove where I got the money from. Another time a bank blocked my card because I was travelling and they thought it's a fraud. Depending on banks for long travels far from my home is scary, so I make sure I always have enough BTC and cash to survive.
- blisterpeanuts 4y ago
  That’s a lot of cash to travel with.
  - 988747 4y ago
    Yep, I would never carry this much on me. In most countries you need to declare such amount when crossing the border, and explain why you have it. And of course in the US any cop on the street can just take it from you, with no recourse. I would carry 500-1000 USD at most.
    - weberer 4y ago
      There is recourse. The USA has due process.
      - 988747 4y ago
        One thing about civil asset forfeiture is that it is an action against the property, not the person. So, the cash itself is a "suspect" not you. You can't even file a complaint, because you are not a party to the whole case.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - lambertsimnel 4y ago
      Exactly. Airports in the European Union have signs warning passengers about such rules for carrying large sums of cash. When carrying €10,000 or more into or out of the European Union, you must complete a cash declaration. In practice, I'd feel uncomfortable carrying more than I'd be happy to count while hurrying for a plane, especially if the value were close to the limit and in a currency other than Euros. (Other currencies are explicitly included in the EU rules, which makes sense, not least because some EU member states use other currencies instead of Euros.) I don't know whether you can complete a cash declaration in case the exchange rate changes such that the value of your cash crosses the threshold, but if you can't then maybe carrying cash close to the limit would attract a lot of attention from customs or airport security (because it might look like you're violating the rules until the cash had been counted and the interest rate checked).
      - 4y ago
- 988747 4y ago
  > Another time a bank blocked my card because I was travelling and they thought it's a fraud. I was traveling recently and when trying to pay for a hotel room the transaction was declined. I needed to call my bank to explain that I am traveling, so they tuned down their anti-fraud alerts. Thankfully, one phone call was all it took to resolve this. However, this block was only triggered because the transaction in question was relatively high amount ($1500), the very same card would still work perfectly for small transactions.
- smcl 4y ago
  You're brave to have $10k in cash on you!
leppr 4y ago
While traveling through Europe this summer, I noticed many small currency exchange shops process cryptocurrencies. What surprised me most is that many shops handled a wide selection of what I would call shitcoins, not just BTC and ETH.