Nobody does bitcoin transactions in person, at least not in America and not anyone I know. I have several bitcoins and the only way to use them is through an exchange like coinbase, who require the same identity documents that a bank does.
You could argue “but you just have to find vendors who accept bitcoin!” But with 3 bitcoin I won’t find enough vendors to spend it on.
>You could argue “but you just have to find vendors who accept bitcoin!” But with 3 bitcoin I won’t find enough vendors to spend it on.
There are also bitcoin-for-gift-card stores, which vastly expands your vendor options.
In EU, regulation caps interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for debit cards and at 0.3% for credit cards.
> "Free" bank transfers (eg. vemo, SEPA) are typically restricted to consumers, are often part of a bigger banking package, which have fees or minimum balance requirement
A bank that i use has free SEPA transfers, no montly fees and negligible minimum balance reqirements, both for consumer and business accounts.
Not really. If I want a bank account I need to fill out a page of paperwork requiring my name, address, social security number, citizenship information, income, occupation, date of birth, scans of various pieces of ID and/or other documents. Compare this to bitcoin where you only need to install an app, and new identities can be generated on-demand. It's true that trying to buy/sell bitcoins via an exchange will subject you to AML requirements, but in-person transactions won't.
>transactions take forever, they cost money [...] unlike my free credit card.
The cost and time it takes is mostly a function of how much demand is there for blockchain space. During periods of high transaction volume, you'll either have to pay high fees or wait a long time. You can see in this chart https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,30d that there are periods of very high transaction fees (the yellow peaks correspond to a $3 fee for a typical transaction), but also periods with low transaction fees (the parts with blue troughs correspond to a $0.12 fee for a typical transaction). People in a hurry pay more and people who can wait pay less. It's a classic microeconomics.
Credit cards aren't free either. The cost (around 2-3% in the US) is borne by the merchant. Cash has fees for handling, transportation, and storage. "Free" bank transfers (eg. vemo, SEPA) are typically restricted to consumers, are often part of a bigger banking package, which have fees or minimum balance requirements.