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> it enables people to transact monetary value bypassing for-profit operators such as western union and paypal You are not even getting rid of that, you are ju
by this_user 3mo ago
> it enables people to transact monetary value bypassing for-profit operators such as western union and paypal
You are not even getting rid of that, you are just replacing them with a different set of middlemen in the crypto ecosystem who are demanding substantially higher fees than, say, a Wise does.
- sanex 3mo agoYou're entirely wrong about that. A bitcoin transaction costs me pennies a wire transfer costs me $40.
- ac29 3mo agoMost real financial transactions need to start and end in fiat though, and that's where the costs are
- sanex 3mo agoThat depends though. I recently bought a car in south America and they were willing to take USDT through Bianance Pay. As a US person I don't have access to that so ended up having to wire transfer. I don't know why they wouldn't accept a Bitcoin deposit which they could have easily converted to tether but I suspect it's just a momentum and learning curve thing.
- himata4113 3mo agoThere are pretty big markets in these countries because of crypto and even then it never reaches the native currency a lot of the market uses either us dollar or euro. Businesses are glad to accept dollars and euros for most bigger purchases especially p2p marketplaces. The myth that you have to off-ramp crypto is no longer true.
- zmgsabst 3mo agoCashApp doesn’t seem any different than Wise; I routinely use both — including CashApp for crypto.
- akoboldfrying 3mo agoWho are these middlemen? The miners?
- krelian 3mo agoAt the other end when you need to convert your crypto to real currency.
- raincole 3mo agoIt's a very weird comment as people who actually use crypto (not flipping or holding) are those who without other viable choices. They're not replacing something. Those transactions would simply not happen without crypto. Notice that the parent comment didn't use the word replacing.
- notpushkin 3mo agoThis. Wise is good as long as you can open an account there. For many people this is not a viable option.
- himata4113 3mo agoYep, they can open a wise account to send money, but they cannot receive money using WISE, they have to open a business account to receive money and they cannot open one in their countries.
- warkdarrior 3mo agoNo, the parent used the word "bypassing", which implies someone being replaced by nothing.
- drptech 3mo ago[dead]
- energy123 3mo agoWise demands a massive fee through bid-offer spread, they're more expensive than many regular retail banks for FX conversion. They're basically running a deceptive advertising campaign due to customers not knowing about bid offer spread. Wise is even worse than "zero-fee" stock trading platforms like Robin hood who do payment for order flow. At least PFOF is more competitive and regulated and you're only getting a few basis points stolen from you instead of like 80 basis points.
- notpushkin 3mo agoWise fees are sometimes big, but I find them fairly transparent about it.
- FredFS456 3mo agoFrom my own comparisons, when converting, say, $1000 USD with Wise the spread+fee is about half of any of the banks that I have accounts with. Where Wise takes a huge cut is if you convert $10 at a time.
- energy123 3mo agoThen I suppose it depends on the FX pair and the bank. I was looking at $8k USD equivalent and the bid offer was worse than my retail bank