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Moving money internationally

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Re: Moving money internationally

#121

Post by syntheweave »

pavlov wrote: post #106
mmastrac wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that equivalent to dirty/clean USD? Except that laundering becomes pretty much impossible due to the blockchain.

Yes, if crypto actually became popular for international money transfers, it seems almost inevitable that it would acquire the same kind of regulatory regime that already exists for Western currencies. The exchanges can be compelled either directly or by choking their banking relationships.

As I've seen pointed out on crypto Twitter, the net effect of a public blockchain ala Bitcoin is that the actions of large whale accounts(hence oligarchs etc.) are highly visible and constitute prizeworthy targets for everyone who wants to take a shot(regulators, thieves, etc). Small accounts and transactions don't raise the same level of alarm. While you can try to spread out your balance among many wallets and small movements, that makes it logistically difficult to move money - more seeds to store and track, more transactions taking place, lower liquidity. People who succeed in grand on-chain heists have trouble doing anything with it...because everyone knows.

So Bitcoin therefore ends up being more useful to ordinary Russian citizens under sanctions than it does for oligarchical, globe-spanning wealth; the exchanges hold a similar role to the banks and can be brought to heel, but at a small scale you can self-bank. There's always a leak in the system because of this, even if you brought down the hammer on every exchange. Destroy Bitcoin and it'll just mushroom up again in some other form.

Crypto is game-theoretically useful even to elites who suspect they're under threat of being frozen out; they might not be able to keep 100% of what they have, but even 0.1% of vast riches is enough to sustain a comfortable life for some time. And if they lobby to keep exchanges open, they have the possibility of keeping more. This explains why there hasn't been a strong global consensus on crypto yet.

Re: Moving money internationally

#122

Post by thematrixturtle »

vineyardmike wrote: post #94
Aperocky wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yuan is highly stable over the past 2 decades, in fact it gained about 20% on the dollar over that time frame. The problem with Yuan are more with its low convertibility (read: usage rate outside China), but that may change eventually. Using currency sanctions to achieve political goals are simultaneously expending trust in those currencies.

> highly stable over the past 2 decades, in fact it gained about 20% Stable or gaining 20%? Also its not stable, nor trustworthy. You can't trust china to not manipulate it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the reason the US Federal Reserve exists is to "manipulate" the dollar.

Personally, I've always liked Singapore's approach of anchoring the Singapore dollar to a basket of major currencies. However, they also give themselves leeway by not publishing the basket's constituents or weightings, meaning they can still make the dollar dance by tweaking those.

Re: Moving money internationally

#123

Post by hanniabu »

izzydata wrote: post #75
bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

Algorand, Avalanche, Solana, Cardano and Terra are all cheap and safe, but like that other guy said. I have no idea what kinds of crypto are listed on foreign exchanges. I'd imagine anything sufficiently popular though.

I love how you list the lesser decentralized and therefore less secure options.

Re: Moving money internationally

#124

Post by lottin »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #122
vineyardmike wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> highly stable over the past 2 decades, in fact it gained about 20% Stable or gaining 20%? Also its not stable, nor trustworthy. You can't trust china to not manipulate it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the reason the US Federal Reserve exists is to "manipulate" the dollar. Personally, I've always liked Singapore's approach of anchoring the Singapore dollar to a basket of major currencies. However, they also give themselves leeway by not publishing the basket's constituents or weightings, meaning they can still make the dollar dance by tweaking those.

Currency pegs are vulnerable to speculative attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_attack

Re: Moving money internationally

#125

Post by lottin »

glerk wrote: post #77

For those saying that crypto is useless, here is a great use case. Authoritarian governments are currently preventing individuals from moving their property across borders. Crypto fixes that.

It fixes that in the same way as smuggling does, in other words it doesn't.

Re: Moving money internationally

#126

Post by lottin »

CyanBird wrote: post #108
virgilp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does not - or, to the extent that it does, it only does as a yet-unclosed loophole. If crypto is not currency, it needs to be converted to currency before use and as such can trivially be blocked with KYC rules at conversion. If crypto desires to be a serious currency, it needs to greatly improve efficiency and stop being deflationary. (Funnily enough, Tesla accepts dogecoin but not USDT, so maybe I am wrong w…

Crypto is infinitely divisible, and because of lack of physicality it does not really suffer from lack of liquidity on the same sense that you can't cut a 20usd bill in half to pay a 10usd item, you just swipe with your phone or wherever e-wallet you use The deflationary bit, is sort of a problem on the centralization of wealth yeah, but that's a macro problem, not a barrier of entry to individuals I think that your…

Liquidity has nothing to do with divisibility. Liquidity is the ease with which an asset can be turned into money. By definition, money is the most liquid asset.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_liquidity

Re: Moving money internationally

#127

Post by __d »

larrysalibra wrote: post #80

> “Sorry, you have citizenship from the High Risk Country list, accordingly I’m not allowed to open this account for you. This is a commercial decision of the bank and will not be reversed.” This sounds like what I heard from a lot of non-US financial companies when I used to be American and then didn't want to open accounts. Frustrating but predictable and probably intended outcome from regulator behavior.

FATCA made life difficult for non-US banks supporting US-citizen customers. Many won't open new accounts, some forcibly closed existing accounts.

Re: Moving money internationally

#128

Post by __d »

bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71
izzydata wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your only goal is to send digital value across the planet why would anyone use Ethereum or Bitcoin? There are a ton of alternatives that cost fractions of a penny in transaction fees.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

I use TransferWise (aka Wise now)

Re: Moving money internationally

#129

Post by blitzar »

bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71
izzydata wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your only goal is to send digital value across the planet why would anyone use Ethereum or Bitcoin? There are a ton of alternatives that cost fractions of a penny in transaction fees.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

> best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one.

A (traditional) bank does all 3 for me on a regular basis.

Re: Moving money internationally

#130

Post by virgilp »

anovikov wrote: post #107
virgilp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does not - or, to the extent that it does, it only does as a yet-unclosed loophole. If crypto is not currency, it needs to be converted to currency before use and as such can trivially be blocked with KYC rules at conversion. If crypto desires to be a serious currency, it needs to greatly improve efficiency and stop being deflationary. (Funnily enough, Tesla accepts dogecoin but not USDT, so maybe I am wrong w…

Thing is, there are, and will probably always be, enough purely criminal uses for money, where KYC is not a thing, that use of crypto for non-criminal purposes will be able to work too: criminals will function as "entry and exit nodes" between cash and fiat, and between them, legit users will just operate with crypto. Fiat is based on people's trust with governments. Crypto is based on people's distrust with governme…

If you're relying on criminals you already have excluded widespread/mainstream use.

The question is not if "crypto is a novelty that enables some people to go around some laws" - everybody can readily agree to that. The question is whether it is a systemic force/ agent of change, that can e.g. prevent enforcement of some kind of laws forever and thus have long-lasting societal impact. I think the jury is very much out on that. (and no, you can't rely on criminals as exit nodes if you claim to be an unstoppable agent of change)

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