5 ms·

Could Bitcoin ease the pain of Africa's migrant workforce?

23 points by Sami_Lehtinen 12y ago

TylerE 12y ago
No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
- dang 12y ago
  It may be time to retire Mr. Betteridge. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=betteridge&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=betteridge&sort=byDate&prefix&...
  - TylerE 12y ago
    But it's so totally appropriate given the deluge of BITCOIN WILL SAVE THE WORDL articles.
    - dang 12y ago
      This is not such an article.
      - davidgerard 12y ago
        It is, you know. "Remittances!" is a standard Bitcoin selling point. Because it sounds plausible. Even if it doesn't actually work out that way, because it turns out that last mile is the expensive bit.
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    Terms come into currency to fulfil a need; as long as headlines like this are on the front page, then "Betteridge" will remain useful.
    - Centreal 12y ago
      Maybe that need is why change (log) currency is so important. With headligns we say yes or no rules, there is forced error between terms. Where really terming needs worthy space (safe) to audit psychotechnological/narrative trails, we fight judging betters as-if technology today has limited memory. A. https://archive.today/memdu https://archive.today/memdu (see History, judge yourself)
    - dang 12y ago
      It isn't a term, it's a platitude. Mentioning it upon sight of a question mark has become a local tic—little more than a specialized "first!". Predictable comments add no new information and so dilute the threads. But what's worse is the attempt to stop discussion. Yes, baity titles often ask baity questions, but HN has other means to deal with those. Meanwhile, other questions are legitimate and deserve sincere consideration. Betteridge was interesting when pg first brought it up [1]. It was fun to toss about for a while. Three years and hundreds of invocations later, it is long past cliché. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880
    - vacri 12y ago
      I haven't once seen Betteridge's Law be 'useful'. It's an academic quirk, and there are enough exceptions that 'law' is a misnomer. I can't recall a single time when someone has mentioned it and it's actually added to the conversation.
      - davidgerard 12y ago
        Almost every time someone asks a question in a headline, it's because it's BS and they don't think they could get away with making the statement directly. It's a more specific way of stating that an article is clearly space-filling BS. As this one is.
        vacri 12y ago
        So, you're saying that stating Betteridge's Law is a way of making an empty, contentless comment that doesn't look like an empty, contentless comment? We can do without either. If you think something is nonsense, say so, and give a reason. Don't just make a useless comment.
  - sireat 12y ago
    This is the first time I see Algolia in action. So far it seems to do the best job of all HN search engines that I have seen. Does it mean HN is paying Algolia for this service or is this just a trial ?
    - dang 12y ago
      Algolia has been HN's official search for a long time now!
lnguyen 12y ago
Given the plundering of insecure Bitcoin exchanges, I'm reminded of this passage from Gibson's Count Zero: The Wig punched himself through a couple of African backwaters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar https://books.google.com/books?id=7RpZX8mYKVMC&pg=PT139&lpg=PT139&dq=count+zero+africa+sharks&source=bl&ots=gw_n4CDXB2&sig=wlcUlfQs7moT3l5KWSRp5SfXIis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GKj-VLWeJYbtoASKg4DwDw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAw https://books.google.com/books?id=7RpZX8mYKVMC&pg=PT139&lpg=...
camperman 12y ago
Possibly, even given Betteridge's Law of Headlines. The article is quite right that sending money is very expensive in Africa. I have employed (and still do employ) a few migrant workers and I can assure you half their pay goes home and that it costs a hefty cut for them to do so. I've experimented with various ways of making it easier for them, but short of sewing US dollars into their clothing when they travel home, there isn't much out there. The more SADCC countries start accepting Bitcoin, the easier this will become.
- sanswork 12y ago
  Are they working legally? If so why don't they just carry the money home with them. As long as they declare it if it's over the threshold($10,000 in the US) and they have proof of work which they should have if it was legal work they will almost certainly have no problems.
  - dagw 12y ago
    almost certainly have no problems. would you trust your life's savings to a bored and underpaid customs official in a poor country not 'fining' you for not having the correct paper work, or even just accusing you of forging the paperwork and confiscating the cash?
    - sanswork 12y ago
      More than I'd trust some random person promising to give me cash for my bitcoin.
      - DickingAround 12y ago
        No way. You'd really trust you luck with crooked cops on both sides of the border (look up civil forfeiture)? Even if it took a sec to find a bitcoin broker, it's far harder to steal so you'll eventually get your fiat money even if you have to look around for a buyer.
  - glomph 12y ago
davidgerard 12y ago
tl;dr no. Someone actually tried to crowdsource a Bitcoin remittance case that worked out ahead of existing mechanisms, and nobody could: http://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/2ne03g/the_buttcoin_remittance_challenge/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/2ne03g/the_buttcoi... It turns out: that last mile? That's the bit you're paying Western Union for. (This is without getting into how hard it is to convert actual money to Bitcoin [Know Your Customer] and how hard it is to get actual money back out of Bitcoin exchanges [the only reason the spread here http://www.thebtcindex.com/ http://www.thebtcindex.com/ can exist at all]. Bitcoin exchanges are sufficiently awful hives of scum and villainy in the first world.)
- CookieMon 12y ago
  If I'm reading your link right, bitcoin did win in the China case, with a cost of 0.4%? But your link is to compete against scenarios where "existing mechanisms" cost 1.2%, and bitcoin came close to that. While BBC is talking about scenarios that cost an average of 12.3% In addition, the linked case is tipping the field slightly by requiring that the money start in a bank and end in a bank, while the BBC article is discussing underbanked people.
  - sanswork 12y ago
    Bitcoin works great at small scale where you have a company on the receiving side willing to buy up the excess incoming volume at par with international costs. If a lot of people started doing it though there would be a lot more local sell pressure and the prices people could get in that country would drop and raise the overall cost of the transaction. Bitcoin can be good for remittances but if it becomes popular in a region it will out price itself for that and other reasons. Also almost all bitcoin services I've seen so far have saved money two ways. 1. They have offloaded the last mile cost on another service(a banks ATM network, or corner store, etc). If it becomes popular those services are going to start wanting their cut much they same as WU would pay them. 2. They ignore KYC. Again if they get popular the banking industry will definitely apply pressure to get them to start following this which will again increase costs.
  - notahacker 12y ago

23 points by Sami_Lehtinen 12y ago

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

dang 12y ago
It may be time to retire Mr. Betteridge. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=betteridge&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=betteridge&sort=byDate&prefix&...
- TylerE 12y ago
  But it's so totally appropriate given the deluge of BITCOIN WILL SAVE THE WORDL articles.
  - dang 12y ago
    This is not such an article.
    - davidgerard 12y ago
      It is, you know. "Remittances!" is a standard Bitcoin selling point. Because it sounds plausible. Even if it doesn't actually work out that way, because it turns out that last mile is the expensive bit.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  Terms come into currency to fulfil a need; as long as headlines like this are on the front page, then "Betteridge" will remain useful.
  - Centreal 12y ago
    Maybe that need is why change (log) currency is so important. With headligns we say yes or no rules, there is forced error between terms. Where really terming needs worthy space (safe) to audit psychotechnological/narrative trails, we fight judging betters as-if technology today has limited memory. A. https://archive.today/memdu https://archive.today/memdu (see History, judge yourself)
  - dang 12y ago
    It isn't a term, it's a platitude. Mentioning it upon sight of a question mark has become a local tic—little more than a specialized "first!". Predictable comments add no new information and so dilute the threads. But what's worse is the attempt to stop discussion. Yes, baity titles often ask baity questions, but HN has other means to deal with those. Meanwhile, other questions are legitimate and deserve sincere consideration. Betteridge was interesting when pg first brought it up [1]. It was fun to toss about for a while. Three years and hundreds of invocations later, it is long past cliché. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880
  - vacri 12y ago
    I haven't once seen Betteridge's Law be 'useful'. It's an academic quirk, and there are enough exceptions that 'law' is a misnomer. I can't recall a single time when someone has mentioned it and it's actually added to the conversation.
    - davidgerard 12y ago
      Almost every time someone asks a question in a headline, it's because it's BS and they don't think they could get away with making the statement directly. It's a more specific way of stating that an article is clearly space-filling BS. As this one is.
      - vacri 12y ago
        So, you're saying that stating Betteridge's Law is a way of making an empty, contentless comment that doesn't look like an empty, contentless comment? We can do without either. If you think something is nonsense, say so, and give a reason. Don't just make a useless comment.
- sireat 12y ago
  This is the first time I see Algolia in action. So far it seems to do the best job of all HN search engines that I have seen. Does it mean HN is paying Algolia for this service or is this just a trial ?
  - dang 12y ago
    Algolia has been HN's official search for a long time now!

lnguyen 12y ago

Given the plundering of insecure Bitcoin exchanges, I'm reminded of this passage from Gibson's Count Zero: The Wig punched himself through a couple of African backwaters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar https://books.google.com/books?id=7RpZX8mYKVMC&pg=PT139&lpg=PT139&dq=count+zero+africa+sharks&source=bl&ots=gw_n4CDXB2&sig=wlcUlfQs7moT3l5KWSRp5SfXIis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GKj-VLWeJYbtoASKg4DwDw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAw https://books.google.com/books?id=7RpZX8mYKVMC&pg=PT139&lpg=...

camperman 12y ago

Possibly, even given Betteridge's Law of Headlines. The article is quite right that sending money is very expensive in Africa. I have employed (and still do employ) a few migrant workers and I can assure you half their pay goes home and that it costs a hefty cut for them to do so. I've experimented with various ways of making it easier for them, but short of sewing US dollars into their clothing when they travel home, there isn't much out there. The more SADCC countries start accepting Bitcoin, the easier this will become.

sanswork 12y ago
Are they working legally? If so why don't they just carry the money home with them. As long as they declare it if it's over the threshold($10,000 in the US) and they have proof of work which they should have if it was legal work they will almost certainly have no problems.
- dagw 12y ago
  almost certainly have no problems. would you trust your life's savings to a bored and underpaid customs official in a poor country not 'fining' you for not having the correct paper work, or even just accusing you of forging the paperwork and confiscating the cash?
  - sanswork 12y ago
    More than I'd trust some random person promising to give me cash for my bitcoin.
    - DickingAround 12y ago
      No way. You'd really trust you luck with crooked cops on both sides of the border (look up civil forfeiture)? Even if it took a sec to find a bitcoin broker, it's far harder to steal so you'll eventually get your fiat money even if you have to look around for a buyer.
- glomph 12y ago

davidgerard 12y ago

tl;dr no. Someone actually tried to crowdsource a Bitcoin remittance case that worked out ahead of existing mechanisms, and nobody could: http://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/2ne03g/the_buttcoin_remittance_challenge/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/2ne03g/the_buttcoi... It turns out: that last mile? That's the bit you're paying Western Union for. (This is without getting into how hard it is to convert actual money to Bitcoin [Know Your Customer] and how hard it is to get actual money back out of Bitcoin exchanges [the only reason the spread here http://www.thebtcindex.com/ http://www.thebtcindex.com/ can exist at all]. Bitcoin exchanges are sufficiently awful hives of scum and villainy in the first world.)

CookieMon 12y ago
If I'm reading your link right, bitcoin did win in the China case, with a cost of 0.4%? But your link is to compete against scenarios where "existing mechanisms" cost 1.2%, and bitcoin came close to that. While BBC is talking about scenarios that cost an average of 12.3% In addition, the linked case is tipping the field slightly by requiring that the money start in a bank and end in a bank, while the BBC article is discussing underbanked people.
- sanswork 12y ago
  Bitcoin works great at small scale where you have a company on the receiving side willing to buy up the excess incoming volume at par with international costs. If a lot of people started doing it though there would be a lot more local sell pressure and the prices people could get in that country would drop and raise the overall cost of the transaction. Bitcoin can be good for remittances but if it becomes popular in a region it will out price itself for that and other reasons. Also almost all bitcoin services I've seen so far have saved money two ways. 1. They have offloaded the last mile cost on another service(a banks ATM network, or corner store, etc). If it becomes popular those services are going to start wanting their cut much they same as WU would pay them. 2. They ignore KYC. Again if they get popular the banking industry will definitely apply pressure to get them to start following this which will again increase costs.
- notahacker 12y ago