Is Bitcoin even still usable for low-income and unbanked people?

[Squidoogeek]

My concern right now is that Bitcoin transaction fees might be getting so high that it can't stay competitive with Western Union as far as usability to people who might want to send payments across international borders is concerned. With international remittances being a multi-billion dollar industry and migrant workers wanting to send money back to their families, I was kinda hoping that Bitcoin could be the "killer app" that makes remittances more affordable for migrants, but they'll either jump to another cryptocurrency or get scared off if the fees are too high. Just wanted to see what everybody's thoughts on this are...

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[uszaty43]

Far as i know western union only charges you $2,5 per transaction, plus a 1% of everything you sent or received.
And actually all the blockchain fees for bitcoin transactions are about 3/4 dollars each one, it is not expensive if you take in consideration that you are paying 1% of your funds via western union.
But i prefer western since you will have the money on fiat, but bitcoin is obviously better, but we dont know its real value until the fork is done.
But fees of btc are pretty cheap right now.

[TaintedOwl]

Western union has different rates for different areas I believe.

The idea that poor people are going to be saved in anyway is very fleeting. I just need to walk outside to see things are getting worse for people and its a common thread around the world. Bitcoin is not going to change the world like we once dreamed, banks are to heavily involved now to sway the discussion away from freedom to profit and gain.

For a well I though people would uprise but now I can see that people will be blind till its their turn to cry out for help. The elite are strangling every last breathe and we are ever so willing to submit. My dream of bitcoin liberating us from banks is pretty much dead.

[hatshepsut93]

My concern right now is that Bitcoin transaction fees might be getting so high that it can't stay competitive with Western Union as far as usability to people who might want to send payments across international borders is concerned. With international remittances being a multi-billion dollar industry and migrant workers wanting to send money back to their families, I was kinda hoping that Bitcoin could be the "killer app" that makes remittances more affordable for migrants, but they'll either jump to another cryptocurrency or get scared off if the fees are too high. Just wanted to see what everybody's thoughts on this are...

If you mean only the network fees, than it will depend on whether we will have some very efficient scalability solution like Lightning Network so we could have near-zero fee transactions - without it on-chain transactions will eventually get very expensive since the blockchain space will always be limited. But there's also a problem with conversion fees - when you want to send Bitcoin to someone, you first have to pay fees for buying it, than your receiver will have to pay fees for selling it, and sometimes the USD price of BTC in some countries is lower than on western exchanges. So, for Bitcoin to be cheaper than fiat systems, it should get widely adopted so there won't be any need to convert it to spend it.

[MiningSensei]

9 of 10 people are bancarized people, there is nobody unbanked because it is impossible, the financial system does not allow it in almost all the countries all over the world, if you dont have a bank account or you dont have a job, you are going to be someone who is like a bitcoin exchanger when you have no verifications (you can not do anything in it)
So there is no unbanked people anymore, and bitcoin still applies for those people at 100%
Probably yes, and those people who have low incomes are now earning a lot of money from bitcoin, like a friend of mine who is now earning more than two thousand dollars a month (and previously he used to earn $100 a month)

[Swoshinima]

Compared to other cryptocurrencies the transaction price is really quite high, but compared to transactions in fiat it's not so expensive.

To save transaction fees you can easily buy a coin like DeepOnion (or any other altcoin with a small transaction fee) with your btc,
then send the Onions (or other alts) to the desired exchange and after that you switch back to btc.

[jseverson]

My concern right now is that Bitcoin transaction fees might be getting so high that it can't stay competitive with Western Union as far as usability to people who might want to send payments across international borders is concerned. With international remittances being a multi-billion dollar industry and migrant workers wanting to send money back to their families, I was kinda hoping that Bitcoin could be the "killer app" that makes remittances more affordable for migrants, but they'll either jump to another cryptocurrency or get scared off if the fees are too high. Just wanted to see what everybody's thoughts on this are...

The difference in fees isn't significant in my opinion. The difference lies in convenience, of which Bitcoin has a fairly big advantage. If people decide on using other cryptos, I would guess that they would still need to convert it to Bitcoin in the end, offsetting the potential savings from transaction fees all the while taking more steps. It still has more than enougha advantages to be a prominent competitor in this area in my opinion.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Bitcoin might well be becoming out of reach for those who don't or can't pay the network fees,
but any number of other coins can serve the same purpose.  If you want to send money to your
people across the world, you could easily do it with dogecoin.  Sounds silly, but it's faster and
cheaper than bitcoin.  ETH probably would work just as well, as would many other coins.

Low income gamblers probably prefer bitcoin, as it's given the best return out of all the major
coins lately, so that's one reason for them to hold it.  Sending or spending is another story.

[lazaruseffect11]

My concern right now is that Bitcoin transaction fees might be getting so high that it can't stay competitive with Western Union as far as usability to people who might want to send payments across international borders is concerned. With international remittances being a multi-billion dollar industry and migrant workers wanting to send money back to their families, I was kinda hoping that Bitcoin could be the "killer app" that makes remittances more affordable for migrants, but they'll either jump to another cryptocurrency or get scared off if the fees are too high. Just wanted to see what everybody's thoughts on this are...

I think it is possible for them as long as they have prior knowledge about bitcoin. In the first place, if they have knowledge about bitcoin, they can start earning a small amount of it until they grew and earn a huge amount of bitcoin and start investing some of it. You can use as well as earn bitcoin if you have knowledge about it. But make sure you are doing it right.

[desi92]

In my country, there is local exchange that have samll amount of fee. I think fee is depend what wallet you use and i think its still affordable for low income people.

[ihsanskanzaone]

I think it can be difficult and sometimes it does not work. if it's only a low income it does not matter but if it does not have an attitude that's the biggest problem because I started collecting coins through a small payment faucet but it's my perseverance and stance that makes it bigger and better for it in need of reading and understanding bitcoin and experience in collecting bitcoins through faucet, investment, cloud mining and hard mining.

[hitlab]

There has always been a idealistic thought that bitcoin will be useful to unbanked people. I don't think that is possible yet due to fees and usability. In the future with lightning network and better wallets, maybe. But we still have a long way to go.