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It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

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Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#161

Post by ekanes »

kelnos wrote: post #151
agumonkey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of Uber and Ryanair. They scrape out of sight properties and claim lower prices when it's just playing on words. Later when people realize they quite wanted the full thing, the magic disappear. A decade of memory loss disguised as innovation. Not even a new error.

I get what you're saying with Ryanair (a sub-standard product sold cheaply), but I don't see the link with Uber. It's cheaper than taxis, and is a much much much better product. I consider Uber/Lyft "the full thing" these days, and taxis are archaic. Unclear if Uber's pricing is long-term sustainable, but even at higher prices I'd choose it every time over a taxi.

Interesting listen on how Uber is creating a massive consumer surplus: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/uber-economists-dream/

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#162

Post by daveloyall »

coryfklein wrote: post #150
daveloyall wrote: post #85

I'm interested in seeing a step-by-step explanation of how he should have done it.

If he's trying to deposit USD into an account, he should have just wired it rather than converting USD -> BTC -> USD. If, on the other hand, he already had $5-6k worth of Bitcoin somewhere, he could have eliminated one of those conversions and it would have cost about the same. Alternatively, he may have been able to find an exchange that accepts Bitcoin directly rather than through some intermediary with a conversio…

Which one? I don't know what these service providers do.

I have a GNU/Linux server. Which service providers can I eliminate?

Using my own server, suppose my neighbor has a bunch of BTC and I have a bunch of cash. If I want to buy BTC from her (by physically handing over the cash), what service providers do we need to use? Suppose my neighbor uses the same providers (or some subset) the author of this article uses.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#163

Post by davidgerard »

compil3r wrote: post #5

Bitcoin was never intended to reduce the cost of Banks, but rather supply an alternative.

Hands up everyone here with a memory longer than that of a goldfish who remembers the Bitcoin promise "no fees!" The one they don't seem to make any more.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#164

Post by mikeash »

brassic wrote: post #78

He is missing 55 cents because WB21 appear to be miscalculating the fee. They add 1% to the transfer amount ($5500) to get a total ($5555), and then take 1% from that ($55.55) as their fee. In other words, their fee is really 1.01%. If the author can be bothered he should explain this to them and ask for his 55 cents back.

Sounds like one programmer implemented it as "take 1% of the total, pay out 99%" and then another programmer incorrectly computed the total as "add 1% to the desired amount to pay."

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#165

Post by charlesism »

striking wrote: post #26
compil3r wrote: post #5

Bitcoin was never intended to reduce the cost of Banks, but rather supply an alternative.

Banks are an excellent piece of infrastructure, as it stands. If you don't need to use Bitcoin, or you actually care about what happens to your money, just use a bank.

> "Banks are an excellent piece of infrastructure, as it stands."

Not very excellent if you ever need to get money to/from the States and a foreign country.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#166

Post by bsder »

The only people really interested in BitCoin are only interested in the "untraceability" of it.

Consequently, nobody really cares about the fees as it's all about the ability to move your money around while avoiding government scrutiny. And these fees are what they are willing to pay to accomplish that.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#167

Post by turc1656 »

smokeyj wrote: post #145
turc1656 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good points. something else to consider - money derives its value from 2 sources: 1) the actual goods and services (GDP) that it represents and 2) the fact that government demands taxes be paid in it. BTC fills neither of these because no government does business with it and no one knows what it represents because it's not linked to a specific country or region of people. that alone should disqualify it from being co…

> money derives its value from 2 sources: 1) the actual goods and services (GDP) that it represents and 2) the fact that government demands taxes be paid in it. This is historically and factually inaccurate. Currencies typically originated as highly marketable commodities that are naturally scarce and fungible - salt, gold, silver, cigarettes in jail, etc.

sorry, i should have qualified that i was referring to FIAT money. otherwise, it would have no intrinsic value. The examples you give are all physical items that have intrinsic value because they can be used for something other than being money. what i said was directed at fiat only since that is what all modern economies use. without the 2 factors i described, fiat is nothing but useless paper with weird stuff printed on it.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#168

Post by aianus »

runeks wrote: post #155
zajd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because one of the espoused values of Bitcoin is the ease of transferring it across international borders.

But the goal is to transfer USD across international borders...

Usually you need something other than USD on the other side of an international border. In which case, USD to BTC to XYZ is very likely to be cheaper than a wire transfer.

I've been doing it myself for years. You have to use limit orders on cheap exchanges (not brokers!) and sometimes wait for the spread to close but you can usually get it within 25 basis points of spot.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#169

Post by striking »

charlesism wrote: post #165
striking wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks are an excellent piece of infrastructure, as it stands. If you don't need to use Bitcoin, or you actually care about what happens to your money, just use a bank.

> "Banks are an excellent piece of infrastructure, as it stands." Not very excellent if you ever need to get money to/from the States and a foreign country.

...which is where you use Bitcoin, as these crooks figured out.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/money-mule-gangs-turn-to...

Again, Bitcoin is a great alternative to banks where banks fail. Just, you know, I wouldn't advise using it as your first choice.

Re: It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin

#170

Post by brighton36 »

shawnb576 wrote: post #42

You can't separate the currency from the ecosystem for anything but academic purposes. The ecosystem is a mess. A commonly cited benefit of crypto-currencies is that they'll eliminate friction and fees in the system, and I think this is only because the systems don't exist. People want security, verifiability, and reversibility when dealing with money. There has to exist companies to do this whether they are Citibank…

You don't use bitcoin because you want to. You use it because you have to. In my country, the government requires that you use bitcoin if you order some things online. Such as heroin, gambling, and software randsoms. I'd rather pay in credit card for these services if I could.
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