Re:Coinbase and the Widespread Adoption of Cryptocurrency
by pavlov on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @04:51PM
(#17666870)
> ... niche where it’s actually good at: large money transfers across international boundaries
Is Bitcoin even good at that?
If you're going to transfer a million dollars from Nigeria to the USA, presumably you're going to want to cash it out at the other end. If the exchange providing your USD follows the law, they'll be asking the same questions concerning the provenance of the $1M that would get asked for a regular wire transfer. So you're not really getting access to the money any quicker in the end.
Of course if the intent is to diffuse the $1M into smaller crypto transactions and cash out those under the radar... Well, that's a different niche entirely than just plain old "large international wires".
Is Bitcoin even good at that?
If you're going to transfer a million dollars from Nigeria to the USA, presumably you're going to want to cash it out at the other end. If the exchange providing your USD follows the law, they'll be asking the same questions concerning the provenance of the $1M that would get asked for a regular wire transfer. So you're not really getting access to the money any quicker in the end.
Of course if the intent is to diffuse the $1M into smaller crypto transactions and cash out those under the radar... Well, that's a different niche entirely than just plain old "large international wires".