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An irreversible permissionless way to send funds near-instantaneously to anyone anywhere in the world is pretty darn good at a lot of perfectly legal use cases.
by mrb 3y ago
An irreversible permissionless way to send funds near-instantaneously to anyone anywhere in the world is pretty darn good at a lot of perfectly legal use cases. My personal favorite example is that I once used Bitcoin for an emergency so my (then-homeless) friend could receive cash in hands from a Bitcoin ATM, in a matter of less than 1 hour, on a Sunday, while I was vacationing remote. Nothing, and I truly mean it because we searched, nothing else would have worked that fast: try setting up a new Western Union/MoneyGram account online on a Sunday, and have it verified and activated... nope. Fun thing is my friend had never used Bitcoin before that day. Bitcoin ATMs are a very convenient gateway to "cash in hands", when needed.
- AlexandrB 3y agoCan do this for free in Canada with Interac as long as both parties have Canadian bank accounts. But for international transfer theres not a good solution AFAIK. Bitcoin ATMs are an interesting example because they involve at least one trusted third party - the Bitcoin ATM operator.
- mrb 3y agoInterac wouldn't have worked even if him and I had been Canadians. My friend was unbanked due to past financial issues (which is also the reason he was homeless at the time.) This is one significant advantage of Bitcoin, that it works for the unbanked.
- askonomm 3y agoWise (previously Transferwise) can do international transfer within seconds. If you're in Europe then payments between any bank in Europe take seconds (SEPA payments).
- mrb 3y agoWise wouldn't have worked as my friend was among the 10M American adults who are unbanked. Also I doubt him and I would have been able to do account setup on a Sunday, within 1 hour, which is the time it took us to do the transfer, despite this situation being his first time ever using Bitcoin.
- askonomm 3y agoI opened my Wise account in 20 minutes. The ID verification is all automated so it's really quick. I haven't heard of anyone who is unbanked before though, what would be a reason for that?
- yao420 3y agoI have not used the online version but you could have just as easily walked into a western union and done the exact same thing for substantially less fees.
- mrb 3y agoNope. The closest Western Union/MoneyGram/similar services to me were hours away by car. Hence why we tried to do it online. We tried MoneyGram because my friend was banned from Western Union. But even MoneyGram wasn't possible quickly online.
- im_down_w_otp 3y agoThe TAM on homeless friends who need fast cash internationally on Sundays is probably huge.
- mrb 3y agoNice little bubble you live in. 18% of US population is unbanked or underbanked.
- im_down_w_otp 3y agoI’m straining to see the relevance of that, especially since at one point in my life I was a member of that statistic. One thing I definitely didn’t need any more of back then was glamorized systems of financial predation and exploitation targeting me because of it. There’s no version of the world where the cryptocurrency ecosystem as it actually is, rather than how it is idealized to be, would have made my plight better had it existed at the time. In any case, it still seems like a non-sequitur. I’m just laughing at the premise that the many, many, many billion dollar investments and valuations of cryptocurrency firms, and the unending deluge of fraud and scams they reliably leave in their wake is meaningfully offset by the total amount of money transacted in the niche of homeless friends who need fast cash from their wealthy friend who is half way around the world outside of normal business hours. I mean, if that’s the case, then it would really behoove Western Union and MoneyGram to keep a few locations open on the weekend.