Bitcoins

it saves money by not providing fraud protection/dispute resolution why dont u see

Spent five weeks in HK this year and since I had a bank account there I decided to transfer a couple thousand in cash to 'save money'

Ended up finding a place that operated out of the 17th floor of a room that beat my bank's exchange rate by at least 5 points

Also used a credit card w/ no foreign exchange rate, its rate ended up being the same as my bank's rate, without a $15 charge

Felt pretty silly, should have just brought straight cash and exchanged it at the 17th floor place

Point being that if a tiny little place operating out of an apartment in HK can beat bank rates with ease then I'm sure xe.com or w/e can too

Also best part about the place is 1.) they are called the Berlin Currency Exchange and 2.) their website is a blogspot http://bcel1985.blogspot.hk/

its kinda funny how these computer dudes dont even realize theyve strayed way far from their area of expertise

a credit card w/ no foreign exchange rate

Sorry should be no foreign exchange fee

I don't really see how remittance through bitcoin would be cheaper than an online-only exchange service that didn't have to worry about the cost of B&M overhead like banks do

― 龜, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 7:56 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya like what INTRINSICALLY is cheaper about providing a bitcoin service

― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:04 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because ordinary banks and international money transfer services don't have a way to, like, magically make money disappear and reappear halfway around the world. They rely on massive international transfer networks that handle settlements. Not to mention that there are lots of licensing and regulatory costs (I'm not making the libertarian argument here, I'm just trying to answer a question). You CAN'T just be like "hey, I'mma start a money transfer website out of my garage, boom."

I mean bitcoins basically travel through the internet on their own. Ordinary money doesn't actually do that, even though it sometimes feels like it does.

Bitcoin -> real currency exchanges would be subject to the same licensing and regulatory costs, no?

Isn't that the hook that the Feds are using to clamp down on Bitcoin exchanges

it saves money by not providing fraud protection/dispute resolution why dont u see

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's true too, but like 1/2 of the reason (note, I am not saying all of the reason) for fraud protection on credit cards in the first place does not apply to bitcoin, namely that someone who gets your credit card info can make additional purchases on your card.

xp currency exchange costs perhaps yes, if the govt decides to regulate it (which yeah they probably should), but perhaps not the cost of going through international settlement networks, which, to be honest, I have no idea what the costs are and I don't think any of us do.

What mandates that a currency exchange operator has to go through an international settlement network tho?

pretty questionable to make a cycling joke when the high diving joke was so crucial to the coneheads lols imo xpost

I am no expert on this, but I thought you needed a way to actually transfer the money from entity A in the US to entity B in hong kong or wherever. I don't think you can just have the guy at one office call the other office and say "We're straight now, Moneyz X-Change now has $1000 less on its books, and Moneyz X-Change Hong Kong now has $1000 more." I mean otherwise you could just make money appear out of thin air.

xposts

I'm guessing that most of the costs associated with a wire transfer are in the origination and termination rather than in the actual transfer. So unless you can go an buy a loaf of bread with bitcoin you're still stuck with those and given that these costs are somewhat uniform irrespective of the amount transferred small transfers are going to be penalised proportionately.

that's not to say that BTC can't carve out a niche and challenge incumbent platforms. There are already mechanisms outside of traditional banks, the Hawala system for one.

At the moment I feel like someone has the opportunity to use bit coin as the basis for a lyca mobile or corner shop phone card of money transfer systems.

Hmm isn't the simplest way just to have Entity A hold both HKD and USD and make appropriate additions/deductions as necessary

Not an expert in this either, I guess you're saying the international settlement network works as some sort of verifier? xp

Are you talking about a single currency-exchange shop or an international remitter? A storefront exchange can just keep USD and HKD and keep track via bookkeeping. But if you're talking about actually sending money overseas, that's different. Yes, it's basically a verifier, is my understanding.

And remember even the same company in two different countries generally involves different entities.

I'm sort of thinking of an online only shop that you'd keep bank account info from your HK bank and your US bank in, and you'd do the whole thing online - a virtual storefront exchange ; )

I suppose that you'd want some sort of guarantee that the place would be relatively liquid in all the currencies it trades in

xp Yeah, not sure if not having a physical presence in a territory would still require separate entities

But anyway seems to me that the only advantage of bitcoin is that bitcoin, as an intermediate holding unit, is a self-verifier so you can bypass the international settlement network

But you'd be opening yourself up to a bunch of other dangers. Are your accounts insured against theft/fraud, for example

Because ordinary banks and international money transfer services don't have a way to, like, magically make money disappear and reappear halfway around the world.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:46 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah just wait until they get computers its gonna change everything

I am no expert on this

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:02 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mm

Banks can't just send money via computer directly to each other without a third party involved. There would be no way to verify the credit/debit if they could

Really, just take a few mins and think about that before you try to zing me again.

you really think there are banything more than negligible costs associated with banks moving money around the world

Anyway how many middlemen does bitcoin cut out of the transaction, doesn't seem like enough of a cost-saving to be worth it given its other problems

like there's a lil guy in a room counting the money they have to pay

ill def make super sure to check myself before stepping to the bit god hurting again tho

he has read some blog posts by delusional nerds

xp yes they are called the costs of being a bank

lol oh i thought the costs were associated with third third party verification guy

a random dude with a website can't even get that. It's not just like hiring a "guy" to verify, it's being a part of the international banking system.

Well Hurting's not wrong in that interbank transfers are handled by the

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Clearing_House

I'm not sure it's supposed to make any money tho

Domestic US interbank transfers, I think

And it's one of several I think

I'm opening up Wikipedia pages as fast as I can

a random dude with a website can't even get that. It's not just like hiring a "guy" to verify, it's being a part of the international banking system.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:38 PM (7 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so what youre saying now is that its not some transfer fees that prevent the banks from competing with bitcoins ability to move money around for "free" its that banks have too much overhead

Where is the post where I said that it's "some transfer fees" that might make it harder for banks from competing with bitcoin?

Because ordinary banks and international money transfer services don't have a way to, like, magically make money disappear and reappear halfway around the world.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:46 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

again, where is the part where I said it was "transfer fees"?

oh sorry you need an example of you using those exact words lol

Bitcoin is tearing us apart

not just saying things that amount to that over and over

it costs money to have the ability to transfer money around the world, you can't just do it because you have "computers"

now you are beginning to see

but the marginal cost of a bank moving a dollar around the world is 0

But you can't do it unless you are a bank, and it costs money to be a bank

well if the only thing you did as a bank was move money around the world you might have a point

if every bank was paypal say

The marginal cost of time warner allowing the internet to work on my home cable is zero too, why does it even cost money?

They just beam the signal over their lines, boom, zero cost.

thats not really true but lets pretend it is, cable is their primary product its how they make their money, the marginal cost of operating an atm is actually non zero but my bank still lets me use it for free, do you think if some crypto currency was threatening banks financial services domination they would have any problem lowering their prices to compete, they would not

this is of course accepting all of bitcoins ridiculous assumptions re regulation and cash in/out

the point is bitcoin doesnt do anything banks cant do