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> Given many banks will transfer money without any fee within that bank What about in between banks? My bank still offers this for free, but I know that that'

> Given many banks will transfer money without any fee within that bank What about in between banks? My bank still offers this for free, but I know that that's not the case for everyone. If you want to receive money for anything on the internet or pay for services on the internet, that means international transfers becomes the most common use-case because there is no way to guarantee that the sender and recipient resides in the same country. I'm constantly amazed by the amount of people who completely disregard this scenario as something "esoteric" and which doesn't need to be addressed. This is the core requirement* for a universal payment-solution in a internet-enabled world. Quite frankly, just talking about "banks" and in-bank transfers makes you look like something out of the 1920s. My bank will do international transfers, but at a considerable fee. This is where even "evil" actors like PayPal completely trump banks and this is why PayPal and its likes are very popular, at least on the internet. Bitcoin gives you all the internet-based benefits of PayPal (low cost) with none of its evil. I don't think calling it low cost is misleading or false advertising at all.

Swizec 11y ago
My bank does super fast wire transfers from Slovenia to the US. It's not free, but at $40 to transfer ~$4,000 almost immediately, it's not bad either. If I initiate the wire at 1am PST it hits my US account at 8am PST. Sure, most of the speed is because of timezones, but still. It works, it's reliable, and if something goes wrong and the money doesn't show up on my US card, I know exactly who to complain to.
notsony 11y ago
> Bitcoin gives you all the internet-based benefits of PayPal (low cost) with none of its evil. I don't think calling it low cost is misleading or false advertising at all. For now. A block size stuck at 1MB as transaction volume grows will result in a fee market, eventually making Bitcoin impractical/not so competitive for daily use as P2P cash... ...resulting in transactions being pushed off-chain onto centralised and regulated payment hubs (lightning, sidechains) which will most likely turn out to be just as "evil" as PayPal.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Sidechains don't need to be centralised. Lightning network hubs can refuse service to you, but I don't think they can outright take your money, which makes them better than Paypal.
raverbashing 11y ago
A lot of banks offer free SEPA transfers in Europe, to any bank account anywhere (in the EU) Meanwhile in US/Canada people still write cheques to each other.
danbruc 11y ago
Bitcoin's currently low transaction fees are an illusion hiding the real transaction costs because people holding Bitcoins for extended periods are paying for the real transaction costs with the devaluation of their Bitcoins. This is not a sustainable model and the only way out is a large increase in the number of transactions while at the same time not increasing mining costs. Theoretically one could also decrease the mining costs but that would make the Bitcoin network less secure. Or of course an increase of the transaction fees to reflect the real transaction costs.
- commentzorro 11y ago
  Not quite, but sort of. First, I don't think the transaction costs are hidden at all. But that aside, the transaction costs are exactly where they belong: with the miners. Effectively, all the transaction costs up front and applied once. The problem with existing financial transactions is that they take a cut every time a transaction is made. In fact, they take little cuts every time a transaction passes through their system/network/etc. Start with one dollar and send it through enough "transactions" and you end up with nothing. Bitcoin effectively solves this problem. No middle-man scum sitting between a financial transaction ever "adds value" (how a I hate that term). They just leech off the capital of the people. This is why I want bitcoin to succeed. (Ended up a bit ranty there at the end. Sorry.)
  - danbruc 11y ago
    Not sure if I misunderstand you or disagree. Why should the miners bear the transaction costs? They provide a service, running the network and processing the transactions, to the users wanting to transfer money so they have to pay for this service.
    - commentzorro 11y ago
      >...bear the transaction costs. > ...users wanting to transfer money so they have to pay for this service. Wrong! ;-) You are misunderstanding and implying, once again, that transaction costs are somehow "adding value." Bitcoins, like all financial instruments, exists _because_ of the transactions. The transactions _are_ the thing that makes financial systems live. Only parasites live at and leech off the system at the transactional level. Miners don't mine because of any arbitrary value in a product. They mine because the results of mining is going to be transacted. Putting all the costs, at the point of the miners means the "most fair" deal for everyone. (You can read that as Socialism if the word sticks in your craw. ;-) The costs go up-front at the point where the bitcoin goes into the system. It doesn't mean the miners get less overall so much as it mean everyone gets less but effectively only one time. As time goes on and resources become scarce and mining costs go up, transaction "costs" are subsumed into mining to a vanishing small amount. Transactions are effectively free which means that the market is open to everyone, regardless of wealth, without siphoning off capital into the hands of the 0.1% and out of the pockets of the rest of the people.
viraptor 11y ago
Actually I do fair amount of international transfers and I'm painfully aware of the costs. (both of the transfer and the currency exchange fees) Still, 1. huge majority of my transfers go via local bank only, 2. huge majority of people don't have any reason to send money abroad. It's not esoteric, it needs to be addressed, but it's still definitely not common. Please take a moment to reflect on that and not try to offend me about being oldschool :P > Bitcoin gives you all the internet-based benefits of PayPal (low cost) You mean the benefit of being a hosted service, handling payment cards, processing complaints and funding item returns, integrating into bank payments, contacting other side for dispute resolution? How do I access those features in bitcoin? As for the actual fees, for example lloyds uk will max out fees at 10 GBP and I guess for frequent / large amounts you'll find out what that "promotional code" field is for. For once-every-few-months international transfer 10 GBP is not a huge amount either. In general: depending on your usage pattern bank transfers averaged over months may not be bad at all.

Swizec 11y ago

My bank does super fast wire transfers from Slovenia to the US. It's not free, but at $40 to transfer ~$4,000 almost immediately, it's not bad either. If I initiate the wire at 1am PST it hits my US account at 8am PST. Sure, most of the speed is because of timezones, but still. It works, it's reliable, and if something goes wrong and the money doesn't show up on my US card, I know exactly who to complain to.

notsony 11y ago

> Bitcoin gives you all the internet-based benefits of PayPal (low cost) with none of its evil. I don't think calling it low cost is misleading or false advertising at all. For now. A block size stuck at 1MB as transaction volume grows will result in a fee market, eventually making Bitcoin impractical/not so competitive for daily use as P2P cash... ...resulting in transactions being pushed off-chain onto centralised and regulated payment hubs (lightning, sidechains) which will most likely turn out to be just as "evil" as PayPal.

ikeboy 11y ago
Sidechains don't need to be centralised. Lightning network hubs can refuse service to you, but I don't think they can outright take your money, which makes them better than Paypal.

raverbashing 11y ago

A lot of banks offer free SEPA transfers in Europe, to any bank account anywhere (in the EU) Meanwhile in US/Canada people still write cheques to each other.

danbruc 11y ago

Bitcoin's currently low transaction fees are an illusion hiding the real transaction costs because people holding Bitcoins for extended periods are paying for the real transaction costs with the devaluation of their Bitcoins. This is not a sustainable model and the only way out is a large increase in the number of transactions while at the same time not increasing mining costs. Theoretically one could also decrease the mining costs but that would make the Bitcoin network less secure. Or of course an increase of the transaction fees to reflect the real transaction costs.

commentzorro 11y ago
Not quite, but sort of. First, I don't think the transaction costs are hidden at all. But that aside, the transaction costs are exactly where they belong: with the miners. Effectively, all the transaction costs up front and applied once. The problem with existing financial transactions is that they take a cut every time a transaction is made. In fact, they take little cuts every time a transaction passes through their system/network/etc. Start with one dollar and send it through enough "transactions" and you end up with nothing. Bitcoin effectively solves this problem. No middle-man scum sitting between a financial transaction ever "adds value" (how a I hate that term). They just leech off the capital of the people. This is why I want bitcoin to succeed. (Ended up a bit ranty there at the end. Sorry.)
- danbruc 11y ago
  Not sure if I misunderstand you or disagree. Why should the miners bear the transaction costs? They provide a service, running the network and processing the transactions, to the users wanting to transfer money so they have to pay for this service.
  - commentzorro 11y ago
    >...bear the transaction costs. > ...users wanting to transfer money so they have to pay for this service. Wrong! ;-) You are misunderstanding and implying, once again, that transaction costs are somehow "adding value." Bitcoins, like all financial instruments, exists _because_ of the transactions. The transactions _are_ the thing that makes financial systems live. Only parasites live at and leech off the system at the transactional level. Miners don't mine because of any arbitrary value in a product. They mine because the results of mining is going to be transacted. Putting all the costs, at the point of the miners means the "most fair" deal for everyone. (You can read that as Socialism if the word sticks in your craw. ;-) The costs go up-front at the point where the bitcoin goes into the system. It doesn't mean the miners get less overall so much as it mean everyone gets less but effectively only one time. As time goes on and resources become scarce and mining costs go up, transaction "costs" are subsumed into mining to a vanishing small amount. Transactions are effectively free which means that the market is open to everyone, regardless of wealth, without siphoning off capital into the hands of the 0.1% and out of the pockets of the rest of the people.

viraptor 11y ago

Actually I do fair amount of international transfers and I'm painfully aware of the costs. (both of the transfer and the currency exchange fees) Still, 1. huge majority of my transfers go via local bank only, 2. huge majority of people don't have any reason to send money abroad. It's not esoteric, it needs to be addressed, but it's still definitely not common. Please take a moment to reflect on that and not try to offend me about being oldschool :P > Bitcoin gives you all the internet-based benefits of PayPal (low cost) You mean the benefit of being a hosted service, handling payment cards, processing complaints and funding item returns, integrating into bank payments, contacting other side for dispute resolution? How do I access those features in bitcoin? As for the actual fees, for example lloyds uk will max out fees at 10 GBP and I guess for frequent / large amounts you'll find out what that "promotional code" field is for. For once-every-few-months international transfer 10 GBP is not a huge amount either. In general: depending on your usage pattern bank transfers averaged over months may not be bad at all.