How long before banks become obsolete?

[jblittle00]

I'm really looking forward to not needing my bank at all. Just the other day, I tried to send that they call a "Quick Pay" to someone. It's a feature they offer that allows you to send money to someone instantly. Except it's not so instantly. As soon as I pressed "submit," I received a message saying it required additional review. On the 4th of July. In person. When banks were closed. So dumb. Today, I had to go into the bank and show two forms of ID and they had to call someone by phone from within the bank who then asked to speak to me. They asked me if I knew the person I was sending the money to. (He is a friend, so yes.) I was like, "no, I don't know the person I'm sending money to, I'm just feeling generous." Then they asked me if I planned on sending money to this person again. At this point, I was like, "listen, I've been banking with you for 30 years, I'm sitting in your branch, the teller has known me for 10 years...do I really need to ask your permission to send someone MY money and do I need to tell if I'm going to send them money again???!! No."

How do you think cryptocurrency will change banks in the short-term and how long before some of them go out of business?

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[hugeblack]

So far, the banks are still an excellent way to make daily payments and send money within the state; either crypto is appropriate in the case of transactions between countries because of the complexity and fees imposed on it.
The situation that you mentioned can’t be generalized to all banking systems or at least in my country.
The positions of most governments are still vague against cryptocurrencies, which is one of the most critical factors for widespread use, so I expect the banks to hold for a period is not short.

[satana_igor666]

At the moment, banks perform operations much faster than the crypt.  Therefore, many still choose translations in the old way.

[Nikola95]

Banks are not going to become obsolete any time soon. That what happened to you is not nice at all, and it can be frustrating. But whole economy of majority of countries is based on banking system. It is hard to change that. And crypto does indeed have potential to become something great, but it is not now. List of banking services is long, while with crypto it is not.

[squatz1]

Banks will NEVER become obsolete, they hold a stronghold on governments -- by lobbying politicians to be able to do their bidding for them. There isn't a force (within the finance industry) which is big enough to be able to stand up to them. We can use Bitcoin as a way to change the inner workings of the banks, and maybe even have them change their ways a little -- as bitcoin could be thought of as competition to the big banks. But the banks will NEVER go away, they have too much power to ever allow themselves to go away.

They will fight to the end, and if it means killing a couple new currencies (such as Bitcoin) they will do it with ease.

[Popov_popov]

Banks have a great financial stability, and bitcoin does not.

[cellard]

Not anytime soon. In fact people like Hal Finney saw a future in which banks would be part of the Bitcoin ecosystem because he predicted Bitcoin couldn't scale everything on-chain, so he added some sort of banks in the equation:

Actually there is a very good reason for Bitcoin-backed banks to exist, issuing their own digital cash currency, redeemable for bitcoins. Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world be broadcast to everyone and included in the block chain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient. Likewise, the time needed for Bitcoin transactions to finalize will be impractical for medium to large value purchases.

Bitcoin backed banks will solve these problems. They can work like banks did before nationalization of currency. Different banks can have different policies, some more aggressive, some more conservative. Some would be fractional reserve while others may be 100% Bitcoin backed. Interest rates may vary. Cash from some banks may trade at a discount to that from others.

George Selgin has worked out the theory of competitive free banking in detail, and he argues that such a system would be stable, inflation resistant and self-regulating.

I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash. Most Bitcoin transactions will occur between banks, to settle net transfers. Bitcoin transactions by private individuals will be as rare as... well, as Bitcoin based purchases are today.

Apparently LN is way better than what Hal Finney was talking about there, even if it still has problems.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

People need to do a LOT more than send money instantly.  They need loans and other financing, they need investment products, and they need checking accounts for those bills that need to be paid to people who don't accept bitcoin.

So no, banking isn't going away anytime soon.  If someone comes up with a crypto solution for all of these things, then banks might be in trouble--but probably not, since most people are comfortable dealing with banks.

[jackky]

Banks have a great financial stability, and bitcoin does not.

I do not agree with your opinion. Now Bitcoin is not stable. But I'm sure Bitcoin will be better than the bank in the future

[crzy]

At the moment, banks perform operations much faster than the crypt.  Therefore, many still choose translations in the old way.

And many people are still want to use banks because of its security and its legal on all places. Banks will enever become obsolete because those are owned by the tycoon and they will not let their business to die. People will use banks and crypos in the future but I think its more or crypto now.

[alejandrosn1998]

Being honest, this can take up to 50-100 years... Look at the typical retail investor. Most can't even setup a wallet.dat or save their private keys. Not that there is anything bad about this. But people need to teach themselves before there is actual real world use and adoption and any chance for banks to become obsolete. I'd say probably more than 50% of people who hold or have ever held btc have never spent it on any rather just trade or hold it, nevertheless any other altcoin.

[soname12]

I'm really looking forward to not needing my bank at all. Just the other day, I tried to send that they call a "Quick Pay" to someone. It's a feature they offer that allows you to send money to someone instantly. Except it's not so instantly. As soon as I pressed "submit," I received a message saying it required additional review. On the 4th of July. In person. When banks were closed. So dumb. Today, I had to go into the bank and show two forms of ID and they had to call someone by phone from within the bank who then asked to speak to me. They asked me if I knew the person I was sending the money to. (He is a friend, so yes.) I was like, "no, I don't know the person I'm sending money to, I'm just feeling generous." Then they asked me if I planned on sending money to this person again. At this point, I was like, "listen, I've been banking with you for 30 years, I'm sitting in your branch, the teller has known me for 10 years...do I really need to ask your permission to send someone MY money and do I need to tell if I'm going to send them money again???!! No."

How do you think cryptocurrency will change banks in the short-term and how long before some of them go out of business?

Banks are indispensable to countries. Even if the cryptocurrency is accepted by the government in the future, the bank will survive, and it will probably become a cryptocurrency bank.

[CodyAlfaridzi]

I agree with most of the comments above. Your inconvenience with the banks doesn't really highlight the urgency of crypto IMO. The most important bank activity is financing, I don't see how crypto will solve that. How'd you give funds anonymously and trustless? That will require another genius idea. So no, at least not anytime soon.

At the moment, banks perform operations much faster than the crypt.  Therefore, many still choose translations in the old way.

Not really. Don't forget that there is an outrageous fee, especially if you're sending hefty amounts or sending it overseas. Banks is far inferior to crypto in that sector (transaction). Right now I prefer to make any transaction via crypto at all times for a lot of reasons. That's not why people still use banks.

[nickwen]

I do not expect the bank to be outdated if the whole world accepts cryptocurrency. Because the bank is a very prestigious investment or loan destination.

[goaldigger]

So far, i didnt see any entity whom i can trust my money with rather than banks. They are more like a physical security where you get there, see your identification cards, signature, then give you your money. Even you cannot withraw it unless given the proper documents. Electronic storing of moneyis vice versa. Even we can have this e-wallet, it cannot outrun the function of banks.

[richardsNY]

I don't understand why banks are being underestimated this much. Nothing prevents them from using Bitcoin in their advantage just as much as we do, and likely even more because of their advantageous position in the world economy. The world for a large part depends on debt, and if you take that aspect away, the whole economy will just implode. It's quite funny how we're at a point already where less debt will cause more problems overall. Everything thrives on debt so much, that the world economy is exactly like a heroin abuser -- the only way to tackle the short term crave for debt is to inject debt, and that over and over again.

[Quickseller]

The average person will actually uses banks more for borrowing money than other major uses such as receiving (making deposits), and spending money (sending "quick pay" payments and writing checks).

Citizens can and do often use things like cash, money orders and similar to pay bills and send money to friends, while on the other hand, they have a hard time coming up with enough money to pay for things like houses, and cars with existing assets, and have few non-bank options to borrow money to pay for said things (both of which are essential for almost everyone to have in order to live and earn a living).

This is also how banks make the majority of their money. As a general rule, a checking account will make banks very little, if any money, while how much money banks earn in interest income verses the cost of money banks pay for what they lend out is a very closely watched indicator in banks' earnings reports.

[jayyen]

Yes this is true ,we are still giving the banks sometime to readjust to the new ways of going about financial transactions. The cryptocurrency ideology is gradually getting down well with people all over the world and small time,the banks indeed will be obsolete.

[onrise]

Banks have a great financial stability, and bitcoin does not.

Banks have a governing body and provided a financial services and other stuff to their citizens of their country. Bitcoin on other hand is not governed or have the stability due to which it can overrule the banking functions. It can help people in various ways like transfer of btc quickly anywhere in world with less fees, investing opportunity etc.

[t2yax]

We know how banks geting their profits and incomes. Banks can become obsolete if something or someone will compete on their interests. Giving low interests rates will make some bank to close. Bankrupt is the main problem of banks. We know how cryptocurrency can defeat banks by using cryptocurrency wallets.