Does Bitcoin/Blockchain make sense for international money transfers? | Hacker News Reader

Does Bitcoin/Blockchain make sense for international money transfers?

saveonsend.com

11 pointspropter_hoc5 comments

Goods/services purchased from a business? Given the fees for completing a Bitcoin transaction, I'd say no unless you start getting into at least mid three-figures USD. (That's not counting any fees to convert fiat into BTC.)

Person-to-person transfer (e.g. remittances)? It'd probably make more sense to use Xoom or Transferwise where available.

The big (legitimate) use for Bitcoin international money transfers is dodging capital controls imposed by illegitimate governments, e.g., you're in Venezuela and you want to send money to your family in Colombia/Brazil/US.

Whoops... missed the link to the article for some reason and thought it was a question? I must be under-caffeinated; pls ignore kthx.

> Goods/services purchased from a business? Given the fees for completing a Bitcoin transaction, I'd say no unless you start getting into at least mid three-figures USD. (That's not counting any fees to convert fiat into BTC.)

what? 15-20 cents is not a major transaction fee, especially when compared to WU and other alternatives

You may have had a point with fiat conversion fees which can be hefty, but you specifically didn't count them.

I've only paid a > $.50 transaction fee on the bitcoin network for about 45 days during the huge runup in Nov/Dec 2017. Any other time and the fees are in the double-digit cents for nearly guaranteed confirmation on the next block.

Edit: Whoops, just saw your reply. Leaving this up for posterity :)

>The big (legitimate) use for Bitcoin international money transfers is dodging capital controls imposed by illegitimate governments, e.g., you're in Venezuela and you want to send money to your family in Colombia/Brazil/US.

Exactly. I wish this was possible in China - but as a foreigner, you can't use RMB to buy Bitcoin (or other coins) on any of the big exchanges. The only option is to use localbitcoins.com and pay person to person, but the conversion rates are usually not too good, so you end up having to use wire transfers.

Sure it does. Under normal circumstances, Bitcoin or Ethereum transactions cost only a few euro cents regardless of the amount transferred, while international remittance businesses always charge much more.

I read somewhere that the top 3 money remittance businesses (WU, etc) make as much profit as we (EU + US) spend in international aid. If those in the diaspora can send money back home without these middlemen, we could all stand to gain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com