Using BTC instead of Swift to move money these days. Suggestions please

[SteelCutOats]

Hello guys,

I need to get some money wired to the USA from another country, but with the COVID issues going to the bank is not possible at the moment and for some reason a swift can't be made unless you go personally to the bank.

So, I was thinking about buying BTC and then sending that to my wallet in Gdax and then cashing it out in USD (which is what I need to do, this is not an investment, just using crypto as money)

Would you suggest I buy BTC for this or LTC or any other crypto?

What are the waiting times for sending BTC and is this going to be less costly than a SWIFT transfer to me>? Assuming my bank doesn't charge me for a swift fortunately.

Any advise appreciated. Thanks

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[malevolent]

BTC is the most liquid and the slippage will be the smallest but it would only matter if you wanted to send a huge amount, even LTC is very liquid on GDAX (now known as Coinbase Pro).

3 confirmations, so about half an hour on average to have the bitcoins on the exchange.

SWIFT transfer costs depend on who pays the fees (OUR - you pay, SHA - both sides pay, BEN - the beneficiary pays) and on the intermediary banks. A lot of the time if you ask your bank how much you'll pay exactly they won't even be able to tell you.

Your biggest potential cost is if BTC loses too much value too quickly. Make sure your Coinbase account is verified, and there's always a possibility they'll start asking questions about the provenance of your bitcoins. In that case expect some delays.

[adaseb]

The only issue I see you running into right now is that you are probably outside of your home country and creating an account on Coinbase might be difficult if they detect you are trying to create an account in one country while residing in another. I heard this was an issue with some people.

If you already have an account then it shouldn't be an issue. However on their end its a red flag when someone tries to open an account and the origin of the country is from somewhere else.

So you might actually just use Swift instead, will take longer but you won't run into this issue.

[Yaunfitda]

Definitely, bitcoin should be your main crypto currency to use here, it is safe that the rest of the altcoins out there. Confirmation time are based on how clogged the mempool is, others used the trick of paying to get their transaction on the next 10 blocks. It is still cheap though as compare to Swift and it might take just hours to be clear on the blockchain. Best of luck on your transaction.

[Sadlife]

Hello guys,

I need to get some money wired to the USA from another country, but with the COVID issues going to the bank is not possible at the moment and for some reason a swift can't be made unless you go personally to the bank.

So, I was thinking about buying BTC and then sending that to my wallet in Gdax and then cashing it out in USD (which is what I need to do, this is not an investment, just using crypto as money)

Would you suggest I buy BTC for this or LTC or any other crypto?

What are the waiting times for sending BTC and is this going to be less costly than a SWIFT transfer to me>? Assuming my bank doesn't charge me for a swift fortunately.

Any advise appreciated. Thanks

In terms of price between BTC and LTC, i would suggest litecoin because it has much more cheaper price and much more faster than Bitcoin. But on the other hand Bitcoin has the largest Blockchain network which provides more secured transaction and much cheaper fees compared to other alts. Because in Bitcoin you can send millions of dollars for only a fee of cents.

[sheenshane]

No doubt that using cryptocurrency is a convenient way of cashing out your money, but you still need to go outside when cashing out your money through the ATM bank machine or any remittance center. You may also need to have a custodial wallet on this and probably KYC is a must, like Coinbase or LocalBitcoin wallet.

Would you suggest I buy BTC for this or LTC or any other crypto?

To be honest, it's up to you which you are comfortable using between them they are both good for the payment method but there are few differences. Bitcoin has faster transactions than Litecoin but when it comes to fees Bitcoin is a bit higher than Litecoin.

[semobo]

Since you have issues with swift transfer then it is better to go with bitcoins then convert it into fiat but as others said when you tried to withdraw for the first time, or the withdrawal amount is huge then the service provider may block your transaction until they get clarity on your identity.

[hugeblack]

What are the waiting times for sending BTC and is this going to be less costly than a SWIFT transfer to me>? Assuming my bank doesn't charge me for a swift fortunately.

If you use any of the digital banks, it may be easier for you to buy Bitcoin, and if you do not find a way, use P2P platforms such as Paxful & LBC.
For SWIFT transfer try ^{[1] [2] [3]}
The waiting times for obtaining confirmations depend on several factors, the most important of which are fees, so if you pay a dollar or two as fees, the transaction will be confirmed in less than 5 minutes "most likely."
Buy Bitcoin and if you fear volatility, exchange it into any stable crypto.

[1] https://paxful.com/buy-bitcoin/international-wire-transfer-swift
[2] https://bit2me.com/sell-bitcoins-swift
[3] https://www.coinmama.com/buy-bitcoin-with-swift

[maydna]

I suggest you use LTC than BTC because LTC fee will be cheap than BTC so you can save your money. And I think the confirming time will be too much different between LTC and BTC because I see that LTC confirmation doesn't take too long, and sometimes the confirmation will be fast than BTC. But if you are okay with BTC, then that will be no problem for you.

I would remind you to have a verified account so you can prevent from something that might happen if you withdraw in a big amount of money. But I hope you don't use one-time withdrawing for the big money because sometimes that can alarm the exchange or your bank, and they need to ask you about where the fund comes. I prefer to withdraw more than 3 or 6 times, so I don't make the alarm sounding.

[malevolent]

Fees are very low nowadays, no need to encourage OP to deal with shitcoins just to save $0.01.

What are the waiting times for sending BTC and is this going to be less costly than a SWIFT transfer to me>? Assuming my bank doesn't charge me for a swift fortunately.

If you use any of the digital banks, it may be easier for you to buy Bitcoin, and if you do not find a way, use P2P platforms such as Paxful & LBC.
For SWIFT transfer try ^{[1] [2] [3]}
The waiting times for obtaining confirmations depend on several factors, the most important of which are fees, so if you pay a dollar or two as fees, the transaction will be confirmed in less than 5 minutes "most likely."
Buy Bitcoin and if you fear volatility, exchange it into any stable crypto.

[1] https://paxful.com/buy-bitcoin/international-wire-transfer-swift
[2] https://bit2me.com/sell-bitcoins-swift
[3] https://www.coinmama.com/buy-bitcoin-with-swift

Some of these are so expensive that could be cheaper to use Western Union or other expensive legacy financial intermediary.

[bitgolden]

Well, it is certainly a better option if you do it long enough time, but when we are talking about only once, it really doesn't have too much of a change, how much higher or lower could it be when doing it once, maybe couple bucks cheaper or not, and not really changes a lot. Plus it is usually easier when we are talking about bulk numbers, like sending a million dollars in any other way costs a lot whereas sending it with bitcoin costs only few bucks total.

Either small amounts constantly or big amount once, there needs to be a good amount of dollars in the end to make a difference, when you send 100 bucks that could cost only a bit of difference, can't make a HUGE difference no matter how you do it at all, there is nothing that could be talked about.