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The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

decrypt.co

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Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#201

Post by lixtra »

jpkoning wrote: post #16

If we both join the bitcoin network, we can exchange $1B for $0.48. If we both join set up accounts at a regular bank like RBC, we can exchange $1B for free. The point I'm making is that fees are not bitcoin's strong point. Any financial network can undercut it. What is unique about bitcoin is that not everyone can get an account at RBC, but anyone can join the more expensive bitcoin network.

That bank transfer won’t happen for free. Both sides will have to go through KYC procedures and it will take plenty of time if one of the parties is new.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#202

Post by swagonomixxx »

thekuanysh wrote: post #177
erfgh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have to trust yourself to have 100% flawless security because one slip and you lose that $1B to a Chinese hacker with no hope of ever getting it back.

Why do you have to add “Chinese”?

Perhaps experience. In my experience, hackers are most frequently Russian, but of course as you suggested, they could be of any ethnicity.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#203

Post by jpkoning »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #97
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to argue that a financial transaction - a service provided by a bank where THEY take all the risk and responsibility of said transfer - should be free of charge? I mean if I transferred a billion and my bank made a mistake, I would not lose any money. Make a typo in your bitcoin transaction, and you're screwed.

> Are you trying to argue that a financial transaction - a service provided by a bank where THEY take all the risk and responsibility of said transfer - should be free of charge? I think that they are making the point that they actually are free of charge. Fees for moving money at banks are negligible. They might not actually be entirely free, but wire transfer fees are ~$20, and I've moved a million dollars this way…

>I think that they are making the point that they actually are free of charge.

That's right.

An "on-us" transaction, one that simply requires RBC to update its database by debiting funds from RBC customer A and crediting them to RBC customer B, is free. (If your bank is charging you for that, switch banks!).

A wire transfer is more complex than an "on-us" transfer because it involves two bank database. RBC has to debit its database, and Bank of Montreal has to credit its database, and the central bank is usually involved as an intermediary. This often involves a wire transfer fee.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#204

Post by Sargos »

enumjorge wrote: post #171
alexmingoia wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my life savings (all funds in my bank account) frozen, without notice, without explanation, and without recourse for 3 weeks. They literally couldn’t tell me why my account was frozen besides “social security has flagged the account.” This was at one of the largest banks in US. I never committed any crime or suspected of one, or had any weird transactions. When I protested at the branch asking how I’m supposed…

I’d argue that with Bitcoin being volatile enough to have double percentage point swings in a single day, that you’re not in full control of your money with Bitcoin either.

Most people will use stablecoins such as Dai or USDC. Bitcoin is just an example here.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#205

Post by londons_explore »

joosters wrote: post #91
whb07 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because the poor people can't move $10 around without paying $3 for it. Have you ever tried moving small amounts of money in poor countries ?

Have you not heard of M-Pesa? Very popular mobile phone-based money transfer service, low fees ( far less than $3 or the 30% you claim), you can even pay companies directly with it

If you want to convert it to real cash, the fee is pretty substantial...

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#206

Post by whb07 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #186
whb07 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I've heard of it. So bitcoin is this but better. I agree with you.

lol even the main people behind Bitcoin Core development have abandoned the idea of Bitcoin serving as means of day-to-day small transactions.

Why would it be the responsibility of one layer to deal with another layer?

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#207

Post by ipython »

regulation_d wrote: post #66
ipython wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion: why do we care so much about making it cheaper for rich people to move money around? Do we think somehow that will “trickle down” to us mere mortals and put western union and their ilk out of business?

I don't care about Western Union. I do care about Visa and MasterCard. And I'm definitely not saying that the current generation of crypto has figured this problem out, but I am hopeful for the sake of SMB that they won't always have to pay 3% fees on cashless transactions.

I would agree with you but all I see from “big tech” is further middlemen and more fees- orders of magnitude larger than 3%!!

Want to order food online? That’ll be 30% on top of your order, please.

Oh, you wanted to pay for some bits through our app on your iPhone? Apple will take 30% of that too, thank you very much.

We just switched HOA management companies and they had the audacity to charge a three dollar convenience fee if you pay your bill online! So I will just continue to pay via paper check and make life miserable for them because that incurs no fee.

All I see is hypocrisy and more hands in my pocket wanting my money, not less.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#208

Post by vmception »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #192
vmception wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50 if both using the same currency. $50 + a few basis point spread if using a different currency, but you don't know exactly what that spread will be from the sending bank and what the spread will be at the receiving bank, so you can lose anywhere from .001% to 4% with major currencies.

It's never .001%. I've done so many international transactions with currency conversion (one of the most liquid pairs - USR-EUR). On the best day a bank will get that 3% difference. I've been using TransferWise in the last year, it's definitely better, but still over 1%.

I get extremely tight spreads closer to .001% with Bank of America wire transfers, Wells Fargo wire transfers, and ATM withdrawals in foreign countries, specifically Mexican Pesos, Swiss Francs, Euros.

It exactly matches the spot FX rate that I would see on my broker's terminals.

Transferwise has not been better for me, except to easily allow me to have Euro bank accounts as an American.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#209

Post by sukilot »

londons_explore wrote: post #181
lenwood wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you contact a miner? Can you give an example of this? I've read this before but I'm curious to learn more specifics.

Assuming miners are smart, you can 'bribe' them without ever speaking to them. Your coins have been transfered to Mr Evil in block number 6000. Simply publish a transaction which pays your $1B in bitcoins to another address you control with a $200M transaction fee. Any rational miner who sees this will decide to 'undo' Mr Evils transaction and all that occur after it by acting as if those transactions don't exist. Th…

I presume double spends happen often, as people try to trick counterparties who don't wait long enough for transactions to settle. Note that neither branch of a double spend is the "real one" (the feelings of the double spender don't matter), only the future development of the chains picks which is real and which is fake. It's basically equivalent to putting a bank check in one envelope, and another check in another, for a total that overdraws your account, and then sending them out to pay people. It's unknown which payment is invalid, until later.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#210

Post by grapehut »

RL_Quine wrote: post #167
Drip33 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of someone successfully and unintentionally fat fingering a Bitcoin address typo to a valid Bitcoin address nobody owns. Fee box is a different thing, the recent $2.5m ETH headline you saw was not an accident but an attack/blackmail. Bitcoin core itself prevents you from using too high of a fee without an express override in the config.

You have a one in 2 32 chance of making a typo in an address and it being valid for P2PKH, its even less for modern bech32 addresses.

A 1 in 200 chance doesn't make much sense. In (legacy) addresses there's a 4 byte checksum done with sha256, so it should be something like a 1-in-4-billion (1 in 2^32) chance of a typo being valid. bech32 does something even smarter, but I'm not familiar with the details
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