Bitcoin charges

[glennbuck]

Hi i am new to bitcoin and i find it very good mostly,but i had a question that comes up a lot on youtube and in blogs where they say you can send bitcoin anywhere in the world for practically free.Buying Bitcoins from Localbitcoins.com or Bittylicious.com costs me about 5% above bitcoins market price.then i send the bitcoins to a relative in another country for about 0.12c from my wallet to theres,then they cash out there bitcoins for another 5% above bitcoins market price,on one of the mentioned sites,so that comes to 10%.So are people not being honest about these fees,to people new to bitcoin or any of the other alt coins out there?PS,i am not hating on bitcoin just curious what is the cheapest way to do these transactions,or am i going to the wrong websites and why does everyone say it is nearly free to do this?

[franky1]

you answered your own question

Hi i am new to bitcoin and i find it very good mostly,but i had a question that comes up a lot on youtube and in blogs where they say you can send bitcoin anywhere in the world for practically free.then i send the bitcoins to a relative in another country for about 0.12c from my wallet to theres,

the rest of your post is about buying and selling bitcoin. this is nothing to do with sending bitcoin..

[glennbuck]

There are some problems here though then,how can bitcoin become excepted over fiat if you can not buy bitcoins at the market price,overclockers saves 2-3% in credit card fees and i pay 5% above market price to buy bitcoin to spend at overclockers or amazon etc.Plus my point is the videos compare bank charges to send $1000 dollars to another country,compared to bitcoins 0.12c fee not showing that to buy and sell bitcoin for dollars will cost the same as sending through a bank account really.

[Barek]

Where are you pulling that 5% from?

Look at bitpay (https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-exchange-rates). Look at Bitstamp (https://www.bitstamp.net). Compare.

[glennbuck]

From here https://localbitcoins.com/sell_bitcoins and here https://bittylicious.com/        But the two websites you show are a lot better than the websites i have used,will try them instead thanks.

[Barek]

At localbitcoins you pay a premium for the convenience. I would not be surprised if the sellers there just resell the BTC from Bitstamp/BTC-e.

It really depends where you live and what methods of money transfer you have available.

BTC-e is another exchange with high volume and exchange rates similar to Bitstamp. BTC-e has more deposit/withdrawal options, but also higher fees and account locks on some forms of deposit.

[franky1]

buying any currency is never at the forex rate.

look at forex prices and then try buying euro or yen at that exact rate at your local bureau de change.

look at gold prices and then try buying gold at that exact rate at your local pawn shop

the whole idea of bitcoin is for people to get paid bitcoin as their wage and never have to touch fiat. then they wont see the so called 5% charges

[glennbuck]

That is true yes,if i sent money from the uk to usa through my bank,they would rip me of in the exchange rate.Until bitcoin loses some of its volatility it is risky excepting as payment for work,if i got payed friday and it crashed saturday would not be good,I am not sure if exchanges are a good idea for bitcoin,with all these new alt coins it has become a stock exchange which does not help keep bitcoins price stable either.Wasnt the original idea of bitcoin to send each other money privately for goods and services?When did stock exchanges come along to bet on 75 cryptocurrencys?

[zagerfish]

the above poster is correct, and the reason why Bitcoin isn't a good alternative to western union yet.

Say, a Mexican migrant get's paid his 1000 wage in the United States and wants to send a remittance home to his family in Mexico. He would lose at least 2.5% converting to bitcoin, and then his family would lose another 2.5% converting it back into peso.

The only way it would cost zero is if he got paid in bitcoin and his family were able to spend the bitcoin in mexico instead of reverting back into Peso. That ain't gonna happen never, cause the US and Mexico would never tolerate their currencies being replaced as the default currency for the country. 

[Stevenrm87]

Buy BTC 5% above spot via local. Sell BTC 5% above spot (via local) when it hits its destination. Boom

[R2D221]

The only way it would cost zero is if he got paid in bitcoin and his family were able to spend the bitcoin in mexico instead of reverting back into Peso. That ain't gonna happen never, cause the US and Mexico would never tolerate their currencies being replaced as the default currency for the country. 

Maybe not the government, but look at this article:
Want your paycheck in Bitcoin? Get paid with the BitPay Payroll API

I know this will most likely not happen with Mexican immigrants for many reasons, but this is just an example that you don't have to depend on the government accepting it to use it. You just need that more services emerge that make it easier to use Bitcoin on a daily basis.