> no banks or payment processors.

Until you want to get local currency, at which point you have to get involved with a processor. And taxes. And everything else associated with currency movement.

> It's amazing that you can send $100m to anyone in the world with a phone, anytime day or night and it costs $2.

That's really a problem I'm facing about once or twice a week, and BTC has solved that for me, you're right.

> I don't get all of the negativity HN has towards Bitcoin. This simple ability is so amazing and scifi to me.

Well, maybe there's the HUGE impact of BTC on global energy usage, mostly generated from fossil fuels (of one kind or another) and that there's actually little benefit for anyone not doing shady business or scamming people.

The energy usage is FUD. Bitcoin uses less energy than Christmas Lights, clothes dryers, or the gold industry. And it uses ~1/10th what video gaming does. And it's energy mix is cleaner than those uses because a lot of it comes from flared gas and stranded hydro.

BS.

If all that mining capacity is sitting in Kazakhstan they will most probably not import energy from renewables in Norway or sth. like that. Their energy mix is/was 99% fossils in 2019 [0], they can't change it that quick.

[0] https://www.iea.org/countries/Kazakhstan

Its an energy mix. One country isn’t the whole network.

Any country that subsidized electricity distorts the whole market there.

The best approach to this consternation about mining energy use is vigilance in ensuring miners use captured and renewable energy.

If there are subsidies or if governments get directly involved in trying to control the network that’s when it distorts the market forces. It’s sad that this discussion is currently limited to simply not being willing to accept that captured energy has always existed and is being utilized by miners as a significant energy source on the network. Energy that would only have been used to pollute the atmosphere but now is not.

This is correct, people don't want to hear it because the energy use argument was just a convenient trend for them to latch on their already existing “useless crypto” arguments that just lacked a hook. People want to say that there must be some Other use of the energy and aren't aware of how much energy has just been wasted and strewn directly into the atmosphere for decades, with crypto mining onsite being the only economic use so far.

The miners also did themselves a disservice by trying to keep their energy sources secret for several years, I know some of them in North America intentionally helped spread the energy misinformation just to slow others down from getting capital to build out their own sites.

But honestly all of this doesn't really matter as the oil and gas producers with the sites are the slowest ones to adopt. The ones already polluting for a century who are desperate for a solution are just slow to collaborate with the solution providers, the miners. They aren't stuck on carbon emissions as they have already made that their identity, they get that mining onsite reduces their carbon emissions even though other people ironically arent willing to understand that, the people running sites are just technophobes and computing luddites who dont get crypto, with a slight general concern about safety with adding more stuff to a dangerous site.

Most people don't see the benefit of being able to send $100,000,000 for $2 because most people will never need, or be able, to send $100,000,000 to anyone. Or $1,000,000, or even $10,000.

There are plenty other example https://streamable.com/i5r0yp

Technology isn't just about whether most people currently see the benefit of something.

15 years ago people were saying why would anyone need the ability to turn their stereo down by sending a signal over the internet, you should get one of those universal remotes from radioshack. Today we have smarthome turning on your lights and AC 10 minutes before you get back home.

What specifically is sci-fi about it? If there were no regulations, I would be able to do the same with my bank account or credit card in a much more efficient way.

Not really, because there would still be intermediaries that could halt your transfer or steal your money..especially if they weren't regulated!

Not to mention, $2 wouldn't be nearly enough to cover credit card fees. Not sure how a 1-3% fee could possibly be efficient.

How would you do it?

The only way I know of to send >$1m+ is wire transfers and they don’t work on weekends or to send to many countries, and they can take a day or more to clear.

Also, you the recipient needs to have a bank account and it needs to be in a jurisdiction that’s friendly with the US.

And also SEPA isnt the panacea people make it out to be, there is frequently some europeans that chime in acting like it is

I found it to be very similar to ACH within the US

Investigating further, turns out many Europeans dont use SEPA between borders. They just send to their friends within the same country using the same major banks, which increases the probability that “Instant SEPA” is used under the hood, which is a good user experience

Ive found crypto to have greater guarantees of unimpeded arrival in that monetary union as well.

If you're stating the $ amount and not BTC though, it might be worth $70m by the time you purchase the BTC and your receiver sells them...

or $200m, who knows

1 BTC = 1 BTC still true though

if I ever purchased bitcoin specifically to send it to someone else, it would happen so fast that extreme market volatility is so improbable that the user experience isn't different than any other form of payment

These are 24/7 markets, so even extreme market volatility happens over 3 trading sessions compared to something like equities, making any single 1-20 minute time period not volatile at all

Many people also already own bitcoin, which is a major contributing reason as to why the price is what it is, they dont have to go buy bitcoin when they get ready to send it. They dont have to wait for exchanges to accept their dollars, they dont have to wait for exchanges to process a withdrawal, and they can also move unlimited amounts.

Even as a facetious joke, there are better ones

Until you need to convert this theoretical $100m into real money, at which point intermediaries and payment processors will absolutely be involved.

1) There are enough goods, services, and investments in the crypto ecosystem that this distinction doesnt matter. Even an increasing number of non-crypto related hedge funds accept crypto as the capital investment for a new limited partner, as long as their fund admin accepts it. Any individual or business can skip local capital controls, or financial institution imposed scrutiny, or merely skip worse service hours.

2) there is enough liquidity to convert $100mm in bitcoin to $100mm in dollars. I would expect intermediaries to take about 50 basis points or less in a combination of fees and slippage. percentage based compensation adds up, but its not different enough. But yes, there are intermediaries if that truly was your only point.

And now the receiving computer has an unintentional $100M bug bounty on all its software and hardware. For digital money to be actually usable, you need some kind of authority that can revert transactions in case of mistakes or fraud.

people can build that, and some services offer that

its pretty clear there is a market and user story for a segment of the population that doesn't value reversibility

You are sending $100m in monopoly money thou.

Some would argue (not me) that the value basis of fiat money is the same basis as the value of bitcoin. People believe that others will believe it has value, so it has value to them. Then there are arguments that bitcoin being non-inflationary should even give people more faith in the value of bitcoin than they should have in fiat.

Personally I could see bitcoin maybe getting there in a loooong time. But whilst the actual value of bitcoin is fluctuating this hard, the argument doesn't hold up. I also kinda like the argument: "Because taxes need to be payed, and are payed in fiat money, there will always be some basic demand and price for fiat money".

$100mm that can be exchanged for $100mm worth of goods, services, and investments.