Bitcoin vs Fiat (Real life test )

[hakeris123]

Bitcoin- crypto currency allows you to receive or send money instantly and securely around the world without middle man.Sounds great but too good to be true from our experience.We decided to do honest big sum transaction between two countries using fiat and bitcoin.Member of family  from country A sent 25000$ to country B using wire transfer.It cost almost nothing 15$ and transfer cleared in less than 4 hours.It was done a 8 month ago.Bank did not  even ask anything about it.Any questions where the money came from.(Cool yea) Now lets talk about bitcoin transfer.
Member of family from country A sends (25000$) 4 BTC (6130$ ea) to country B.Transaction time less than 1 hour and cost about 40$.Country B decided to cashed out because he cant pay with bitcoin for services.He sends bitcoins on exchange- transaction cost about 40$ once again.Exchange charges about 2% for instant sell.On the next step he uses wire transfer to  deposit money to bank.Cost 1$ and almost 1 day to clear transaction.At this point I would prefer Fiat over  bitcoin  because all process is too complicated but story is not finished yet. The Exchange reported my transaction history to authorities quite while ago.Today I am  sitting by the table with a few letters in hands from tax revenue asking me to confirm transaction between exchange and my bank.On other letter they stating that i have to pay taxes on 4 btc (6130$ ea) because bitcoin is an investment asset.Right now I am force to pay taxes and loose quite a lot money but its OK.Conclusion is.....?/   Fiat->bitcoin->fiat is wrong.

[pakhitheboss]

I am pretty much confused with your story. This is not a game, money involved and there are people in this forum who have been doing cryptocurrency business for a long time. How and from where did you transfer those 4 Bitcoin.

It would be nice and more clear to everyone if you can tell us your source of transfer and the exchange used to complete the deal. $40.00 from where? and Who? . This is a complete scam nobody can charge you so much except the grey market and a bunch of fraudster.

Check this link and you will understand the charge/fee - https://bitcoinfees.info/

[Micerker]

This is not wrong when you are trying to convert Bitcoin -> FIAT through exchanges. To limit the control coming from the government, make Bitcoin conversions -> FIAT through the trader. This helps you avoid many of the problems that come from the government and don't worry about tax payments for that transaction.

[amrulshare]

overall the main problem you face is the amount of service costs that you spend when cashing in Bitcoin. But, what if you can spend Bitcoin without having to use FIAT, it will be simpler.

[BrewMaster]

first of all where do you get $40 transaction fees from?! unless you have a ton of inputs, your transaction size is not going to be that big to cost that much. today i sent a transaction with 2 satoshi/byte which was confirmed in about 15 minutes and it cost me 4 cents ($0.04).

as for exchange fees, last time i checked they were charging somewhere around 0.2% fee no 2% if some exchange is charging YOU 2% then maybe you should start looking elsewhere.

lets not forget that if you wanted to send USD  to another country and then in that country convert that USD to local currency like JPY for instance, then you would still pay the same hefty fees for transferring money and the exchange fee.

[XinXan]

first of all where do you get $40 transaction fees from?! unless you have a ton of inputs, your transaction size is not going to be that big to cost that much. today i sent a transaction with 2 satoshi/byte which was confirmed in about 15 minutes and it cost me 4 cents ($0.04).

as for exchange fees, last time i checked they were charging somewhere around 0.2% fee no 2% if some exchange is charging YOU 2% then maybe you should start looking elsewhere.

lets not forget that if you wanted to send USD  to another country and then in that country convert that USD to local currency like JPY for instance, then you would still pay the same hefty fees for transferring money and the exchange fee.

True, the transaction per-se will not be that expensive, however the whole process can be extremely expensive, first of all, the fees from the exchange (if using) can be quite big, then websites like localbitcoins actually charge you a fee when depositing, then you have to find the best price to sell which wont be the real actually price bitcoin is trading and you are going to lose quite a bit there too, overall the process is long, boring, expensive and simply unreliable since you can get blocked for numerous reasons.

[Adriano2010]

The fees are higher if send large amount and also there is some fee when cashout fiat money to bank, but i really don't agree to pay a lot on tax, i wish the tax to be only if make some profit from bitcoin and not tax money already taxed. I mean if get money from my job they are already taxed and if convert some to bitcoin and send to some family members and they convert to fiat and cashout to not pay again a tax because is wrong.

[dothebeats]

$40 for a transaction is just ridiculous unless u have lots of inputs on that. Better yet, give us tx record or it didn't happen. Straight transfers from btc to btc address wouldn't be flagged by anyone, and AFAIK exchanges only flag trades that are made by accounts with no KYC, or have limited KYC verification on them. You could have used P2P exchanges (LBC) to facilitate the trades to avoid ridiculous fees if that's what you're avoiding. Honestly, there are ways to prevent what you have just experienced, but yeah, for the most part and for the uninformed, using bitcoin to transfer huge sums of money is rather a pain rather than just using fiat and banks directly.

[dr.cheema]

Many people prefer fiat who don't know the uses of Bitcoin or other crypto, only those guys prefer who knows that bitcoin is the future currency.
But Fiat is on top because if we want to buy things then we have to pay in fiat, not in BTC but if btc accepted in stores then we can say that in near future btc will beat fiat and huge amounts will send in BTC. Fiat sending fees is very high even that btc will charge few dollars for huge amount.

[kamilah147]

Many people prefer fiat who don't know the uses of Bitcoin or other crypto, only those guys prefer who knows that bitcoin is the future currency.
But Fiat is on top because if we want to buy things then we have to pay in fiat, not in BTC but if btc accepted in stores then we can say that in near future btc will beat fiat and huge amounts will send in BTC. Fiat sending fees is very high even that btc will charge few dollars for huge amount.

more fiat users because every transaction that uses a lot of fiat, I agree if all stores accept payment with btc of course btc will compete with fiat

[Payme21]

I think the story is a possibility and this tells us that both fiat and crypto are important because they both have their advantages and disadvantages

[Ailmand]

This is not wrong when you are trying to convert Bitcoin -> FIAT through exchanges. To limit the control coming from the government, make Bitcoin conversions -> FIAT through the trader. This helps you avoid many of the problems that come from the government and don't worry about tax payments for that transaction.

It actually depends from country to country. Each transaction and steps when doing transactions depends on how countries does it. Here in our country sending thru bitcoin is way more convenient than using wire transfers since most wire transfer requires days for confirmation and some are passed from one bank (foreign) to our local bank. Fiat and crypto has their own convenience depending on situation.

[yusupjatigumilar]

I think this is true, the story is indeed fully needed when we do fiat or bitcoin transactions, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages for the cost of peer-to-peer bitcoin transactions, which we can adjust for ourselves, how much we will use will affect the speed of transaction confirmation for each block, in contrast to fiat currencies whose transaction costs have been determined by the bank. Then the role of the government on the tax on digital investment commodities has also begun to be applied in several countries.

[pixie85]

Not enough test case and the scenario selection is highly biased. The facts are :
1. Bitcoin transaction fees normally is far below $40, unless it has lots of inputs or you intentional set it high
2. International wire transfer usually is more expensive, especially when currency exchange is involved. It's not weird to see up to 10% was used for fees.
3. Expensive, slow and taxes on bitcoin-to-fiat exchange isn't caused by Bitcoin, but regulation.

There's more!
Wire transfers don't clear on weekends. If you send something on Saturday night it will be sent on Monday morning.
If the recipient doesn't have a foreign currency account the money may not go through at all.
If your bank exchanges the currency in the transfer it will do it at its own rates that can be much worse than what you would get if you did it manually.

I have never paid $40 for a transaction and if you pay this it won't clear in 1 hour but less than 10 minutes!

OP is trying to prove a point by bending the facts to his favor.

[Bobby park]

As I experienced I had to converted fiat to Bitcoin and Bitcoin to fiat on some crypto exchanges but it is not a big amount like what you've experienced. So for me it is quite good to transfer money when I bought Bitcoin for holding and to wait until the the profit will come. And some I've noticed that it is on exchanges whether they are to much to get fee's or less.

[MakeMoneyBtc]

I don't know what service you used to transfer money international with 15$ and receive it in less than 4 hours. Even if you find a bank that charges that low it will probably take at least 1-2 days to complete the transaction and that's not including the weekends. The next problem is your $40 bitcoin fee because paying that much is unnecessary even if you want your transaction to be confirmed faster. I can confidently say that $5 would be more than enough to get your transaction confirmed in almost the fastest time possible

[pooya87]

as others have already mentioned your numbers are way off the mark specially when it comes to fees, but the topic about "efficiency of transferring 'money' oversees using bitcoin" is a valid discussion. i have actually raised this question a couple of years ago.
the thing is, in the end it depends on the methods you are comparing with for transferring "money" oversees using different methods. there will always be fees when multiple conversions and transfers are involved no matter what method you use. so  the sum of these fees depends on individual cases which comes down to the methods that both parties have access to.
for example i may be earning bitcoin and want to send it abroad so i skip one conversion. or i may be receiving bitcoin and having access to a cheap way of converting it to local currency. and on the other hand the other methods of fiat transfer that i have access to may cost a lot more fees because they calculate everything percentage-wise.

[RapTarX]

Fees depend on you as like other mentioned.
The other factors are true but you can't deny-
1. Bitcoin is aimed to be a global currency, a borderless currency which is still far away to be true but imagine, it's a global currency and everyone accepts it. All of the above hassle you mentioned will have zero weight.
Think like as people who want bitcoin to be accepted globally. It's their fault that they don't accept bitcoin. You know the advantagess, if everyone knew, it would be easily accepted everywhere.
2. In wire transfer, whom you are depending to? A third party, isn't it? In bitcoin transaction, you aren't depending in anyone other than yourself. You are the controller of your fund.

It's true, I also had a real life experience which was really bad to be honest but we will have better environment once it will be accepted widely.

[davis196]

Bitcoin- crypto currency allows you to receive or send money instantly and securely around the world without middle man.Sounds great but too good to be true from our experience.We decided to do honest big sum transaction between two countries using fiat and bitcoin.Member of family  from country A sent 25000$ to country B using wire transfer.It cost almost nothing 15$ and transfer cleared in less than 4 hours.It was done a 8 month ago.Bank did not  even ask anything about it.Any questions where the money came from.(Cool yea) Now lets talk about bitcoin transfer.
Member of family from country A sends (25000$) 4 BTC (6130$ ea) to country B.Transaction time less than 1 hour and cost about 40$.Country B decided to cashed out because he cant pay with bitcoin for services.He sends bitcoins on exchange- transaction cost about 40$ once again.Exchange charges about 2% for instant sell.On the next step he uses wire transfer to  deposit money to bank.Cost 1$ and almost 1 day to clear transaction.At this point I would prefer Fiat over  bitcoin  because all process is too complicated but story is not finished yet. The Exchange reported my transaction history to authorities quite while ago.Today I am  sitting by the table with a few letters in hands from tax revenue asking me to confirm transaction between exchange and my bank.On other letter they stating that i have to pay taxes on 4 btc (6130$ ea) because bitcoin is an investment asset.Right now I am force to pay taxes and loose quite a lot money but its OK.Conclusion is.....?/   Fiat->bitcoin->fiat is wrong.

I guess you have used the wrong exchange.Another mistake is using big amounts of btc.
I don't think that the wire transfer won't be investigated and the money will have to be reported sooner or later.

[Dapper]

You will much more often have issues doing SWIFT transfers in large(ish) amounts when compared to BTC transactions.   You can't even legally cross most borders without reporting that you are carrying more than US$10,000 in currency.   You don't need to declare that you are carrying $10,000,000 in crypto because technically, you're not carrying anything as the funds are on the blockchain.    No search of your luggage or carry ons will ever reveal large amounts of crypto.   Try it with currency or gold and you'll wish all you had to carry was 12 random words written in a few different places.