Bitcoin Forum

Venmo vs. Bitcoin

Venmo is a service of PayPal that allows anyone to send money via Facebook, phone or email, and has seen impressive growth, particularly among young professionals and social media users. In fact, over $2.1 billion has been transacted over Venmo, which integrates with Facebook and its 1.5 billion active users.

https://news.bitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2-681x441.png

Additionally, Venmo is also planning to steal Bitcoin’s thunder in another arena by integrating with PayPal’s merchant services, which have supported bitcoin payments since spring 2015.

“The social component (and free marketing) helped Venmo go viral,” explains Techcrunch. “When you go out to dinner with a friend or share a cab or go on a weekend getaway and want to split the bill, Venmo is almost always the easiest option.”

Read full:
https://news.bitcoin.com/paypals-venmo-beating-bitcoin-p2p-payments/

3 issues bitcoin has

1. no app that links bank account instantly
2. no 'address book' or facility to pay people via username
3. no billion dollar company to spend funds on advertising

apart from that a service like changetip would work great. as it has the facility to buy coin using debit cards etc.. it just needs tweaking to be more user friendly to send people funds without pressing lots of buttons

maybe changetip(social media integration), coinbase/circle(funding accounts), bitgo(secure transactions) all club together to make a user friendly app that can fund an account in seconds and able to move funds via qr code or social media username securely and fast

but then again. im going to expect a bit of rage from the blockstream camp who dont want users to buy small amounts of bitcoin and transact small amounts on bitcoins blockchain

what are the fees on venmo?

If there's still fees, its similar to paypal. 
so , big deal.

plus its still moving fiat around.

bitcoin is a true p2p currency.

https://venmo.com/about/fees/
wire transfers are free too

well 3% is big enough to discourage someone like me, and anyway bitcoin was meant to be spent directly not to dump for fiat and then spend, at that point spend directly your fiat, that's why there is no app for that

There are bitcoin wallets that send coins via SMS, emails and web links but still the Venmo app looks more hassle-free and is already integrated with Facebook which is a big plus.

its 3% to put funds onto the app.. then free to send within the app..
(far better than bitcoins 4cents for atleast 10 minute wait)

which actually if you look at the price of the cheapest bitcoin exchange.. and then look at the cost people actually pay to fund a coinbase account and then play the spread to get bitcoin.. there is not much difference.

its kind of why bitcoin is not good for remittance because getting fiat into bitcoin is not free.. and the same goes for the other side.. even if they say there is no "fee" the bitcoin exchanges/localbitcoin brokers adjust the spread by 1%-4%, so the cost is hidden

so 3% to fund a bitcoin app from fiat into bitcoin.... to then be able to pay anyone instantly(think bitgo's proposal) in bitcoin with a username (think coinbase internal payment or changetip social donations) would make bitcoin have something on par with venmo.

but i do agree paypals upfront in your face 3%.. or bitcoins 'hidden in the spread' cost of 1%-4% is still offputting.

but one day i hope to see a bitcoin version of an app thats functionally similar to venmo or other instant payment services (UK: Pingit) where its not much, if anything to actually get bitcoins at the cheapest price of the competing exchanges and completely free to send instantly once you have bitcoin

Wire transfer fees charged by the 10 largest U.S. banks:
Banks                    Domestic - Incoming   Domestic - Outgoing   Foreign - Incoming   Foreign - Outgoing
Bank of America               $15                     $25                           $16                            $45
Chase                       $15                     $30                           $15                            $45
Wells Fargo                       $15                     $30                           $16                            $40
Citibank                       $15                     $35                           $15                            $45
U.S. Bank                       $20                     $30                           $25                            $50
Capital One                       $15                     $25                           $15                            $50
PNC Bank                       $15                     $25                           $15                            $45
TD Bank                       $15                     $25                           $15                            $40
BB&T                               $15                     $25                           $18                            $65
SunTrust Bank               $15                     $25                           $30                            $50
AVERAGE                       $15.50                     $27.50                   $18.00                    $47.50

in my case is different, i earn via signature and i spend directly from my wallet(so no wasted satoshi for coinbase or other online wallet) using something like purse.io, total fee = ridiculous 2 cent, and also i get a discount of 30% on purse.io, far better than any other service out there

WTF! Is this real?

It's completely unfordable to have a bank account in USA, and impossible to do business with those costs...

I've never heard of Venmo, if it works just like paypal then I would choose bitcoin over any of these
Something that always holds me off from using services like these are the fees.

oh i new to hear this,never hear about venmo before,is this new relese?based on that graphic,i think its really good movement,and little bit worry if someday can beat bitcoin as alternative payment.

im not american.. im british.. and shocked that the US banks charge for that.

explains why america hates banks so much but loves bitcoin. but the uptake of bitcoin is slower in the UK
because we have had instead wire transfers that are free, for years. and easy userfriendly apps like Pingit

I use Paypal since 2004 or so and I don't even remember paying fees, I remember there was a 1 euro fee if one made a withdrawal less than 100 euros, now it's free.

I can say I've paid a lot more in fees using bitcoin in 2 and a half years than with 12 years of Paypal usage.

and people stilld efend fiat, fiat is the evil, even with my deutesche bank which is basically free for every transaction and for depsit and for everything else, i still need to pay more than 25 ero for an international transfer, that's absurd...

with bitcoin only 4 cent...

But you can use Purse.io only for products. What if you need that extra cash for emergency reasons? What will do then to convert bitcoins to money?

Can you really get a 30% discount on Purse.io buying stuff with bitcoins? Because on their state it says 5% but I suppose it could scale up to 30%? What is the max discount there?

depends..

they work by buying second hand giftcards off of people and then using those funds to bitcoiners. discounts can be anything depending on where u want to shop

Paypal is good for consumers and gives really good consumer protections, but sellers get shafted if any thing goes wrong, and the amount of hacked paypal accounts is ridiculous, and the seller usually has to pay for that.

yes, and it is my third buying on which i have 30% already, i saved 12 euro until now, bears in mind that i'm purchasing for now, low cost things, but i'm planning to buy expensive things in the future

Thanks for the clarification I didn't know they used second hand gift cards to provide the cash for the exchange. By the way do you pay the shipping costs to your respective country or it's free of charge?

yes you need to pay the shipping cost, but since this is amazon, we are talking about, most of the time the cost are free, if you ever used amazon(with fiat) you should know this

Why are you shocked? 

Most ordinary people don't use "wire transfers".

Because people too lazy to learn about bitcoin, they know it but not to use it. And they prefer to fiat than bitcoin.

I wonder if Venmo works with Bank accounts out of U.S well. While I was trying to sign up I noticed it didn't allow me to enter a Non US phone number, so I'm guessing this isn't really beating Bitcoin. Bitcoin is usable globally.

can not be compared between venmo and bitcoin , because each has its own advantages .

There is something called an ACH transfer, which is free for domestic to domestic bank. So wire transfers are more for international payments.

I was shocked that one is only supposed to use Venmo with trusted friends:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/09/venmo_scam_and_fraud_why_it_s_easy_to_get_ripped_off_through_the_mobile.html

Lots of people getting scammed by receiving green checkmark with notification of funds in Venmo, but the funds are not actually there and the transaction is later reversed. These people could all have used bitcoin and waited 1 hour for confirmation.

How can any of you compare Venmo with Bitcoin and think Venmo is better when they can reverse transactions? More like venom than venmo.

Why would we be interested in a centralized solution?

Until I will support bitcoin, I will develop bitcoin so that bitcoin is more interested by many people, now there are so many people who like bitcoin, working on bitcoin really helps my economy