There are real world use cases. Paying sex workers, international transfers with zero vig, paying drug dealers. For a more boring answer, the whole world of DeFi investments where you don’t have to pay banks their vig should be attractive for all the middle age people on this board. See Cole South’s great intro video series on that one.
Why is crypto superior to cash for privacy when doing a face to face transaction?
Also, isn’t there some kind of transaction cost associated with Bitcoin transactions? How does Bitcoin compare to something like Xoom with respect to convenience and fees if I wanted to send $300 to my family in Mexico or Philippines? Let’s assume they would immediately want to turn the Bitcoin into cash MXN Peso.
The idea that cryptocurrency reduces transaction costs is laughable.
Not to mention, when someone scams me via a bank, I get my money back.
Banks are regulated the way they are for a reason!
Drug dealers are usually are happy to get paid in cash ime.
This is a privileged response. Many people don’t have the same easy access to banking that you take for granted.
If you’re sending money to a foreign third-world country - your current options are slow and very expensive. Once you learn how to use crypto - it’s faster, cheaper, and safer than something like WU. Good luck getting your money back from a fraudulent WU transaction.
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Oh god, we’re back to the “actually, it’s to help the third world” defense of crypto.
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Are poker players the shrewdest investors of our time or were they just fortunate enough to be caught using the currency of the future for half a decade before it ever blew up.
There is literally not a cheaper or faster way to send money to someone in Japan than crypto. By like an order of magnitude in fact. The next best option is likely paypal and it will cost you 4% in forex fees.
What’s the process for someone in the Philippines or Mexico with limited access to technology and/or technical expertise to receive a Bitcoin transfer and turn it into cash? What are the total fees involved?
So the use case for why Americans should speculate in cryptocurrency is that poor people in Africa will acquire the knowledge of and technical ability to transact (with zero regulatory protection of any kind and with enormous fees!) in fake money. JLaw OK
The yield farming stuff or w/e you want to call it makes me the most nervous. Im not an exhaustive expert or anything, so maybe a lot of it is fine, but the stuff Ive delved into wasnt like real off the run DeFi stuff and still turned out to be like yeah you earn 8% or w/e to provide unsecured funding for a black box trading operation. Thats the piece I worry most about eventually causing problems for the “real” economy.
They have coinbase and coinbase alternatives in Mexico.
How do I get the cash? Is there a coinbase ATM card I can use? What would the total estimated fees involved from end to end to get $300 USD cash in MXN Peso?
Fees? It looks like WU is about $8 for $300 to go USD cash-> MXN cash in-person pick-up. Not sure how badly you get hosed on the exchange, but I assume this applies to the crypto transaction as well.
You could google some of this stuff, but I’ll give a few quick answers.
One example is for sex workers and cam girls who get their accounts shut down with Paypal/Venmo/traditional banking. Scroll up a few days for an article about this. They could just take cash, but that will cause problems if depositing to a bank and if you’re just going to keep a pile of money then cyrpto is for sure safer (plus you get interest!).
Also, isn’t there some kind of transaction cost associated with Bitcoin transactions? How does Bitcoin compare to something like Xoom with respect to convenience and fees if I wanted to send $300 to my family in Mexico or Philippines? Let’s assume they would immediately want to turn the Bitcoin into cash MXN Peso.
Each country cashes out slightly differently, so I can’t speak to Mexico, but it will cost you about 14 cents to send on your end.
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https://www.compareremit.com/money-transfer-guide/cheapest-ways-to-send-money-to-mexico-from-the-us/
This is a somewhat dated article, so I’m guessing more crypto options now and crypto is a larger share of transactions.
I would think that the exchange rate screwing would be less with crypto as you can shop around and not forced to use WU.
ENORMOUS FEES!!!
Good to see you’re not bothering to learn anything about how crypto actually works.
I finally get some of the crypto regs frustration in answering questions in here XD. This is like “but how much did you lose?” level of questions in 2004.
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I don’t know about Bitcoin trx fees, but for Ethereum transferring funds from one wallet to another costs about $3 if you do it at low usage times. There would be additional fees if you want to turn dollars into eth and eth into pesos.
Thanks. 10% market share for USD->MXN remittances is higher than I would have thought.
I remember first learning about crypto 10+ years ago and being intrigued, because back then just sending money for casual transactions was such a nightmare. For example someone at work wants to run Super Bowl squares, or I want to pay my yard guy $200. But a lot of services have stepped in since then to meet that need.
Overall, I think we’ve way undershot my expectation of the utility of crypto since we seem to be limited to the original grey/black market activities where cash is not feasible and small dollar international remittances.
It seems wholly out of line with the amount of hype/marketing going on, which seems to mostly be built around just simple speculation on the price of crypto going higher.