Re:Tesla buys $1.5B in Bitcoin, may accept it as payment in ...
by notahacker on Monday February 08, 2021 @01:45PM
(#26068384)
No, my argument is that Bitcoin is not a viable option for the average unbanked person to receive funds they can actually spend in the 99.999999% of the world that does not have Bitcoin ATMs or local vendors that accept Bitcoin. For almost all real world use cases involving unbanked people, crypto is either strictly inferior to existing solutions or impossible.
Even if I could have found someone in a small Moroccan town that knew what a Bitcoin was and how to use it, the daft exchange rate they'd have offered me to convert it into cash would have easily exceeded the cost of Western Union for the same transaction. The villages people send money to support families are not full of hackers playing around with blockchains, and the few people in their country with the knowhow and resources to exchange Bitcoins for cash are not going to be cheaper or easier to deal with than WU.
Sure, I can cash out crypto via my bank account and bankcard pretty easily, but I can cash out cash even more easily...
Even if I could have found someone in a small Moroccan town that knew what a Bitcoin was and how to use it, the daft exchange rate they'd have offered me to convert it into cash would have easily exceeded the cost of Western Union for the same transaction. The villages people send money to support families are not full of hackers playing around with blockchains, and the few people in their country with the knowhow and resources to exchange Bitcoins for cash are not going to be cheaper or easier to deal with than WU.
Sure, I can cash out crypto via my bank account and bankcard pretty easily, but I can cash out cash even more easily...