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Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

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Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#71

Post by xydinesh »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #49
RomanPushkin wrote: post #47

Meanwhile, I needed to pay folks who have fled the country, and now are located in Kazakhstan. I used... Western Union. Surprisingly, it was without any fees, I sent the exact amount in dollars from the US and they received exactly the same amount in US dollars in minutes. I don't know why Bitcoin today is something people want to use, since you can send Western Union or use other payment methods (like Wise) to almos…

Western Union being free is the outlier here.

I'm not sure if it is free. They may have made money from the exchange rate

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#72

Post by ralfhn »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #49
RomanPushkin wrote: post #47

Meanwhile, I needed to pay folks who have fled the country, and now are located in Kazakhstan. I used... Western Union. Surprisingly, it was without any fees, I sent the exact amount in dollars from the US and they received exactly the same amount in US dollars in minutes. I don't know why Bitcoin today is something people want to use, since you can send Western Union or use other payment methods (like Wise) to almos…

Western Union being free is the outlier here.

it's definitely not free. There's a fee but even if they waive it, they make more money from currency exchange rates.

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#74

Post by shp0ngle »

RomanPushkin wrote: post #47

Meanwhile, I needed to pay folks who have fled the country, and now are located in Kazakhstan. I used... Western Union. Surprisingly, it was without any fees, I sent the exact amount in dollars from the US and they received exactly the same amount in US dollars in minutes. I don't know why Bitcoin today is something people want to use, since you can send Western Union or use other payment methods (like Wise) to almos…

Some countries have capital control and thus cannot send money from there easily.

I lived in Vietnam for a while; there is lots of WU for people abroad sending money there, but it’s really hard to send money out.

But in the end expats usually just swapped the cash with each other and sent the money in Revolut. That worked (for small amounts anyway)

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#75

Post by kranke155 »

ploppyploppy wrote: post #66

Why do people insist on using Coinbase when Kraken has none of these issues?

Coinbase is well known. I agree, in the crypto community everyone avoids Coinbase (for many other reasons). It’s amazing to me that they shit the bed with business accounts tho.

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#76

Post by Chabsff »

la_fayette wrote: post #58
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what you're missing is that Bitcoin is still a prototype. The intent was for it to be decentralized but people are still trying to achieve that, and once it became popular, it became overrun with scams and get-rich-quick schemes.

You can critisize many things about bitcoin, but it is definitely decentralized...

Their point is that the current decentralised Bitcoin is functionally unusable and simply not ready for mass use.

In that sense, a truly decentralized Bitcoin that people can actually make use of doesn't exist.

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#77

Post by low_tech_love »

vlod wrote: post #30

I would like to get into crypto (for transfer, not for asset speculation) but can't understand the point of using a decentralized ledger and yet using these centralized exchanges which control the on/off ramps. Isn't the whole idea not to rely on gatekeepers? There's been news (Canadian truckers incident) where the government told Paypal/Visa/Mastercard etc to stop the flow on crypto currency. Am I missing something…

Because crypto is a solution looking for a problem and 99% of the people involved are in it to scam you.

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#78

Post by notahacker »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #49
RomanPushkin wrote: post #47

Meanwhile, I needed to pay folks who have fled the country, and now are located in Kazakhstan. I used... Western Union. Surprisingly, it was without any fees, I sent the exact amount in dollars from the US and they received exactly the same amount in US dollars in minutes. I don't know why Bitcoin today is something people want to use, since you can send Western Union or use other payment methods (like Wise) to almos…

Western Union being free is the outlier here.

True, but then the stuff Western Union charges a significant margin for is the stuff which is a very useful service (getting spendable local cash in someone's village). If you can get that at all with crypto, the guy in the village exchanging cryptos for local currency is going to charge even more...

Re: Tell HN: Coinbase is a joke (product and support)

#79

Post by la_fayette »

daveguy wrote: post #69
la_fayette wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can critisize many things about bitcoin, but it is definitely decentralized...

Unless you use an exchange. The best way to handle payments would be direct transfer from one personal wallet to another. No exchange necessary. No red tape. Buying the Bitcoin with fiat so you can put it in your own wallet for direct transfers is the problem. You generally need a centralized exchange for that. Also, the person you transfer btc to will generally need a centralized exchange so they can convert to fiat…

Hm, there is https://localbitcoins.com/ or https://coinatmradar.com/. It is way cheaper than moneygram or similar services, just check out the options... from where to where do you want to transfer? You would even find people on meetups which would help.
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