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Please, stop that nonsense about that negative interest rate. Swiss banks still give positive interests to all their many customers' savings account.
Cost of living is high, but just like London and in the world's best places. Property is terribly expensive, but a soda at a supermarket in Geneva is half the price it demands in the French Riviera.
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I've stayed in wilderness for longer than a single night, and I certainly don't have any breast milk to feed me!
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I have found Bitcoin to be so much more convenient than my bank account. I must have had at least 3 different e-mails telling me on the 1st of the month that my card on file had expired. Companies that could withdraw funds from my account. My friend at work just had over $800 taken out of his bank account this week for his phone bill that was linked to his account. He was having trouble with his phone plan so he switched to a different one on the site. He did not realize that the new plan charged 40 cents per kB of data while all of the plans he used before had data included. I've had so many automatic fees taken out of my bank account that I've had to dispute. One that charged me $50 per month for over a year that I could not get the right number or department to turn it off, finally going to the bank to get them to block it.
With Bitcoin I control my money. My hosting service charges me monthly in bitcoins. If I want to stop my service I stop the payments. If I stay at a hotel and they want to tack on some fees after I've left...they cannot, I paid with bitcoins. I don't have to worry about insufficient fund fees kicking in because of a bad ordering of payments which then snowball for a bunch of tiny purchases. I don't have to pay yearly credit card fees or interest payments ever again.
I can get paid in bitcoins from my US company and sell those bitcoins for a profit in euros to spend instead of paying for a wire transfer and currency exchange fee plus ATM fees to get the money from my paycheck.
No, please, there are ways to avoid all that. No company has any right to make direct debits on my account, I haven't paid for any fee for a wire transfer for over a year, and I've only paid ATM fee once this year because I had no time to go to the fee-less ATM. I had a bank account with ridiculous fees, but I quickly closed it. With a bit of organization, banks work. You can make BTC works too, but BTC also calls for organization. The problem as I sse it today, is that if you want to avoid cards, you'll always end up spending more. You can fly Easyjet without a credit card, but you'll pay more. I bought a car in Germany last week. Germans usually don't pay the registration tax on the spot, they give their bank account details, and the money is taken off their account sometimes later. With me not having a bank account in Germany, I had to use the service of an agent, and I paid him cash, but I ended up paying more than a German with a bank account would have paid... I hope that someday, companies will give you a discount if you pay with BTC, but I don't see that coming soon for anything I usually buy. |
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Is the dirty money in BTC? If one's have to buy BTC then to sell it, that makes 2 traceable transactions, so it's doomed.
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I don't get why everyone's supporting the OP. It seems silly to limit your choices like this. Clearly credit/debit cards still bring a lot of convenience in this world. Why not take advantage of that?
Because banks and credit cards are also a huge pain, and the banking system will be quick to remind you about it if you do something they don't like. Regarding boats, I see 2 problems with them. The first is that unless you're in the Southern hemisphere, in Europe or Florida, you'll have to pay at any port to get in. Then boats don't last as well as houses, and their maintenance can get really expensive. I'll stick to land, but that doesn't mean to a fixed place. Freedom is in traveling. |
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Besides mixers, I also recommend to never buy BTC from an exchange in the country you're staying in. That's what I do.
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Exactly what I thought in my first post... Europe just isn't a good place to create a new country from scratch.
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I didn't know Greece had many assets to monetize...
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Elwar, that's where I am. I've cancelled my last credit card in October. I've been living with cash (most often) and BTC (rarely) since then, but I've finally decided to get another card. I travel a lot, and it hurts to see that paying for flights and hotels is difficult and often more expensive without a credit card. And it's impossible to rent a car!
I'm currently in Germany, which has a strong cash culture, with most people buying cars cash (I know, I just did), but in neighboring France, living without a credit card is really difficult, and it's worse in the US, where you can't get into a decent hotel without a credit card.
You deserve all my congratulations, but as you probably know, a few things will now be harder.
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I don't think there's a single country where it would be legal to pay for a property in BTC.
Most countries have taxes on property transactions, and all property transaction must be registered, with the price in local currency included in the registration process. So you may exchange the fiat income from the transaction in BTC, after the transaction, then to Sterling, and then you'll pay tax. I'd recommend to keep the money outside of the UK.
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We all know that. The Tor network is probably the last place where there's unrestricted freedom of expression. This is really sad.
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I've said it many times. Not London, nor Scandinavia. Argentina's very promising for BTC. Just like every country where the government, and local currency, aren't trustworthy.
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Denmark? No way, the people there love the state too much to appreciate anything disruptive like BTC.
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I don't get why people are so concerned with making certain cities bitcoin 'hubs' or 'capitals'. Isn't the biggest thing about bitcoin it being decentralized and essentially boderless? We don't need any central places so lets concentrate on spreading adoption far and wide rather than trying to get clusters in cities.
Very true! And the recent news about regulations aren't good at all. London's definitely one of the most expensive cities in the world (check property prices), it's one of the first place in the world to regulate BTC, and the government has already said it wants to regulate more. Sorry, but I can't see London as a good place for a start-up. Barcelona has more potential, but I'd bet on a tax heaven or... The cloud. Actually, the blockchain: that's where the global BTC hub stands. |
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Doing business with the poor has always been big business. The founder of Wal-Mart once was the richest man in America, and that was years ago, when Wal-Mart was known for bargain prices.
I'm surprised by the prices. $500 a month to rent a trailer pad spot! I suppose it's a good location.
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I think I'll carry on living in a more miserable place. The Swiss I've interacted with all seemed to be closet fascists and more than slightly uptight but maybe I met the wrong ones.
Never met a single fascist anywhere in all my time in Switzerland. They are among the friendliest people on Earth. Some of them are against immigration, but that fight is lost since all borders are fully opened. Last time I've flown from Nice to Geneva, the only person who asked for my ID was an Easyjet attendant. |
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Nice business idea: convince 1,000 people to give you cash and you give them back BTC IOUs. After a while, you just disappear with the cash.
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No way. Torrents files, movies or MP3s are too big. And you cannot insert a file in the blockchain.
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Yes, Switzerland is one of the best place in the world. I'm staying there several weeks each year, but I'm afraid it's getting worse and worse because of immigration. There are the ugly Russians who think they own the world because they're so bloody rich, the loud Arabs with their wives fully veiled, and the Romanians/Kosovars/Albanians, those people where the men are thieves (at best) and the women, prostitutes (at best).
None of these folks respect traditional, conservative, Swiss values.
There are growing immigration problems, and I guess it can only be solved by a more careful selection of who is allowed to get in, but Switzerland has lost all its rights there. Yes, the country isn't part of the EU, but it's part of the Schengen area, so all the boat people from Libya who have arrived in Italy can freely travel to Switzerland. They won't have the right to settle down, but I'm sure plenty will.
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100 m² and 128 people have already been granted citizenship. Not for me! I like open spaces. |
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