Cash is King? I don't think so.

[zolace]

Yeah and you dont have to waste time and gas to get to the bank and spend more on gas just to do so,  Banks are a joke when it comes to exchaning peper currency

[bryant.coleman]

Sir, that's Philippine Peso. Not RUR.

Oops... made a mistake. The symbols are so similar. 

[BitOnyx]

Well whole point of bitcoin is that transactions and daily payments are much easier.

[counter]

great experiment Dabs.  This is the thing with bitcoins that I love so much...
I can send coins all over the world and in a few minutes it's been verified and both parties can see this in real time.  I don't have to worry about a money order being stolen or crazy fees and wait times...

[ChuckBuck]

You can wire transfer people money much easier then that.

You can even do it for free if you have certain business bank accounts (100K+ min balance ofc)

Did a wire transfer from one bank to another bank a few months back, the charge was like $80 or something and took 3-5 days.

Nope, don't share your sentiment.  

I did a wire transfer once. Wired like 25K, the charge was $25 and took < 1 hour.

Bitcoin isn't fee free.

You have to convert $$ into bitcoin, send bitcoin, then the receiver has to convert bitcoin into $$.

That process can take weeks.

Coinbase has instant buys.  As soon as I click buy, I get Bitcoin.

Transferring to another wallet address takes a few minutes, maybe an hour or so.

Depending on how the other person wants to convert BTC to fiat and their institution, it could take minutes, hours, or days tops.

It doesn't take weeks, not sure if you've ever done a Bitcoin transaction before.

Ok, coinbase charges a huge 1% fee (that's big in the currency transaction world. Trading between USD/EUR for instance, costs you a few pips at most). That's on top of the bid-ask spread . So if you're sending 10K, that's $100 for their fee alone. And I don't think you can instant buy that much.

$1 for $100 is huge now?  That's nothing compared to a Wire Transfer fee.  I paid $80 just to wire $800.  By my math that's 10%.

Not a Mickey mouse bank either, Wells Fargo, the biggest bank in the US.

By the way my daily buy limit on Coinbase is $50,000.

Yeah, well, I would only wire transfer money if it's a large amount. Like > 10K.

And you got scammed if you paid $80 to wire transfer money. Typical outgoing wire tx fee in the US is around $25 for domestic, $40 for international. $25 out of 10K is .25%.

There's other ways to move money around that has less fees. Like you could use chase quickpay, which is free. People use wire transfers because they are very hard to reverse. If the recipient trusts the sender there's plenty of low cost ways to move money around.

The OP was talking about moving around a fairly large amount of money.

As much as I don't love banking, I don't think Wells Fargo is a scam bank.  $80 is standard there.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

[Keyser Soze]

As much as I don't love banking, I don't think Wells Fargo is a scam bank.  $80 is standard there.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

$80 sounds high unless maybe you were wiring a small amount in a foreign currency. The normal fee for domestic wires at wells is $30*. $25-$35 is pretty common for domestic and maybe $35-$50 for international. International wires in a foreign currency may be more expensive depending on the exchange fees being charged.


*See https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/online_disclosures/FEE/EN/FII.pdf page 49.

[ChuckBuck]

As much as I don't love banking, I don't think Wells Fargo is a scam bank.  $80 is standard there.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

$80 sounds high unless maybe you were wiring a small amount in a foreign currency. The normal fee for domestic wires at wells is $30*. $25-$35 is pretty common for domestic and maybe $35-$50 for international. International wires in a foreign currency may be more expensive depending on the exchange fees being charged.


*See https://www08.wellsfargomedia.com/downloads/pdf/online_disclosures/FEE/EN/FII.pdf page 49.

Sorry $76 wire charged from Wells Fargo to Bank of America in St Louis.  Just checked my checking acct:

12/30/13   
ONLINE TRANSFER FROM  WAY2SAVE SAVINGS 2 BLACK ARROW PROSPERO X1 BITCOIN MINERS
$780.33   

The wire was for 2 Black Arrow X-1 miners at $704, so the rest is the wire charge.

[Keyser Soze]

Sorry $76 wire charged from Wells Fargo to Bank of America in St Louis.  Just checked my checking acct:

12/30/13   
ONLINE TRANSFER FROM  WAY2SAVE SAVINGS 2 BLACK ARROW PROSPERO X1 BITCOIN MINERS
$780.33   

The wire was for 2 Black Arrow X-1 miners at $704, so the rest is the wire charge.

To be honest, $76 for a domestic wire is a total rip off. I can't imagine it being 2.5x higher then what the brochure I linked states. If the $45 or so is important to you, I would inquire as to why the fee was so high.

[ChuckBuck]

Sorry $76 wire charged from Wells Fargo to Bank of America in St Louis.  Just checked my checking acct:

12/30/13   
ONLINE TRANSFER FROM  WAY2SAVE SAVINGS 2 BLACK ARROW PROSPERO X1 BITCOIN MINERS
$780.33   

The wire was for 2 Black Arrow X-1 miners at $704, so the rest is the wire charge.

To be honest, $76 for a domestic wire is a total rip off. I can't imagine it being 2.5x higher then what the brochure I linked states. If the $45 or so is important to you, I would inquire as to why the fee was so high.

Not sure, they said it was standard fees for bank to bank(non Wells Fargo).

It is what it is, maybe they don't play nice with Bank of America.

[Bit_Happy]

Well whole point of bitcoin is that transactions and daily payments are much easier.

What about a limited money supply,
Not controlled by the Feds?

[beatljuice]

I don't think the point of the demonstration was understood.

If we have a Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency) based world economy we don't need to deal with all these expensive and time consuming transfer issues, we can spend that time and money making more money, or having sex.

[skooter]

BTC has extremely low fees (for any large transaction) and is pretty fast.
For smaller amounts, you can get virtually no fees and super-fast times, with alt coins.

BTC > Wiring money.

And again, you're ignoring the costs and time to transfer money into BTC, and transfer BTC back into money.

[pening]

As much as i admire the effort of the OP research, and for his case it is no doubt correct, it misses a crucial point:  not all banks work like that.

If i want to transfer fund in the UK from my bank to another UK account, there's no fee and its near instant (never actually time tested, but when i've transferred funds recipient has report it there at their next login).  If i want to transfer anywhere in EU its near instant and theres a flat fee £15 though some banks vary.  That's 0.075% fee on £20k.   Its the same or similar across Europe.

The only limitation is the bank's infrastructure or business model that relies on fees.  A multi-lateral agreement to ditch fees between banks (as has occurred within the UK) and we'd have completely free intercontinental transfers.  

The point is, if you are expecting Bitcoin to become common usage to solve the matter of money transfers, i'm afraid there is limited scope.  One tweak to existing business model and agreements and the advantage disappears for Bitcoin.

[Dabs]

The point is, if you are expecting Bitcoin to become common usage to solve the matter of money transfers, i'm afraid there is limited scope.  One tweak to existing business model and agreements and the advantage disappears for Bitcoin.

If bitcoin forces banks to become "better", that's a good thing isn't it? It's essentially competition.

However, banks are still centralized and controlled by governments. That's not likely to change.

[bryant.coleman]

Well whole point of bitcoin is that transactions and daily payments are much easier.

The time required for confirming a transaction is worrying me.

[DarwinNexus]

Well whole point of bitcoin is that transactions and daily payments are much easier.

The time required for confirming a transaction is worrying me.

Blockchain can detect double-spends almost instantaneously.

[Dabs]

Well whole point of bitcoin is that transactions and daily payments are much easier.

The time required for confirming a transaction is worrying me.

Blockchain can detect double-spends almost instantaneously.

Wait 2 seconds = 50% of network has the transaction.
Wait 10 seconds = 99% of the network has the transaction.

Check transaction if it has a fee, and it will likely be included in a block soon.
Check if a double-spend is detected, if none, it will likely be included in a block, but maybe later if no fee or low fee.

No need to wait for a confirmation.

Only worry if any of the following conditions are met:
1. double-spend detected.
2. no fee or low fee, and blockchain says it might take awhile to confirm.

Personally, I've had a transaction take a day to confirm, but I was not worried because there were no double spends. It took that long because the blocks ran out of space for free transactions.

Now I include a minimum fee in all my spends even if it is not required.

For most use cases where you have the option to pay by bank wire or check, that means the merchant or other party can wait 10 minutes. It may not work as well for instant purchases or very small transactions without some sort of third-party processor that "guarantees" the transaction. Or some dice site that accepts the risk of zero confirmations.

I just pretend that I paid using a check that clears in an hour.

As a merchant, I would accept as payment any bitcoin transaction that:
1. Does not seem to have any problems after 30 seconds.
2. Includes at least 0.0001 as a transaction fee.

[Dabs]

http://bitcoinstats.com/network/propagation/

Block 50th, Block 90th, Transaction 50th, Transaction 90th
2014/04/03    3.7 seconds    12.8 seconds    1.3 seconds    3.0 seconds

http://bitcoinstats.com/network/propagation/2014/04/03

Block Percentiles
50th   3.7 seconds
75th   6.6 seconds
90th   12.8 seconds
95th   22.0 seconds
99th   80.538 seconds

Transaction Percentiles
50th   1.3 seconds
75th   1.9 seconds
90th   3.0 seconds
95th   4.1 seconds
99th   33.6 seconds

So, basically, wait 1 second to 5 seconds, after you've seen the transaction. In a little bit more than half a minute, all nodes would have seen your transaction. No funny stuff? Treat as good, it probably is.

Notice that BitPay processes almost instantly without waiting for a block.

You'll find out in the next few blocks.

[HCLivess]

Excahnge rates = death of fiat

[zolace]

I remember Checks was king, before Cash was king.  Then 90s was having the platinum American express CC was king also.