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0 pointsincrudible4y ago0 comments

Bitcoin is slower than VISA, but faster than an international bank wire - and comparable in cost. If VISA is so much faster, then why do bank wires exist?

There are Layer 2 solutions (Lightning Network) for cheap and instant transfers that do not warrant the security of a full Bitcoin transaction.

Anonymity has never been a purported feature of Bitcoin. This is not a downside, it keeps regulatory scrutiny somewhat at bay.

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cosmotic4y ago

I don't know a lot about bank wires except for when I put a down payment on a house. There was a flat rate if I recall, close to $90. Few if any have a credit limit approaching a housing down payment and those rates are percent based I believe. I was told it could take days to complete but it took hours. I did not feel safe doing the transfer but had no other option. I believe that's what title insurance is for (at least in part?). I've completed thousands of visa transactions in the same time, so transaction cost and speed are probably why people use visa instead of wire transfer. There are additional perks like warranty extension, fraud prevention, fraud insurance, etc.

Anonymity has certainly been a purported feature of bitcoin. Obviously erroneously. It's mentioned in the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#:~:text=anonymity%20en...

janekm4y ago

If you're using bitcoin for international money transfers you're using exchanges on either end of the transaction to convert to bitcoin and back.

You may as well use an International money transfer service like Transferwise (which essentially is similar to a bitcoin exchange but currency to currency), that performs the same function without the bitcoin in the middle... Transaction costs will be lower and it will be faster.

incrudibleOP4y ago

> If you're using bitcoin for international money transfers you're using exchanges on either end of the transaction to convert to bitcoin and back.

That is not a given.

> You may as well use an International money transfer service like Transferwise (which essentially is similar to a bitcoin exchange but currency to currency), that performs the same function without the bitcoin in the middle... Transaction costs will be lower and it will be faster.

I could ask the same question: If Transferwise exists, why do we still have international bank wires? It's a different financial instrument with different properties. Transferwise is some company from Finland that you need to register with to send a limited amount of money to a limited amount of countries. Maybe that's better than Bitcoin under some circumstances, but it's a different thing.

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