Turns out most people wanting to do international transfers without a middleman are criminals. Regular people are for the most part fine with international transfers going through banks, likely via SWIFT.

I don't know if you've actually tried to send an international wire transfer, but it requires more paperwork/effort, is more expensive, and is less reliable than signing a crypto transaction.

Many smaller banks require you to physically drive to the branch and wait in line to send one. They usually cost upwards of $40 and that's before currency conversion, which is done at a rate that may or may not be favorable.

Making a blockchain payment has pros and cons, but it has enough pros that the "only useful for criminals" argument is tired.

> I don't know if you've actually tried to send an international wire transfer, but it requires more paperwork/effort, is more expensive, and is less reliable than signing a crypto transaction.

Don't platforms such as https://wise.com/ solve international wire transfer problems? I have experience with only a few currencies, but as long as you can do transfers in your home currency online you should be able to do the rest via Wise online as well.

In terms of costs, you'd have to go into details to really compare (e.g. some platforms claiming "no fees" are just subsidizing them unsustainably), but if you're converting from and to fiat currencies via something other than a stablecoin you might already lose more because of volatility.

I haven't experienced or heard of reliability problems with bank transfers, is that a thing?

The problem here is that I'm tied to "Wise", and they can single handedly change how the service works. They decide to which accounts I can send money, not me. They decide what data I must share, not me. They decide the fees, not me. It's just another middle man, like Payoneer, Paysera, Paypal, Revoult, Bankera, Western Union, etc. (yes, I tried them all).

Depending on the country, it can truly be. Some of my relatives have money stuck in Lebanon and there is currently not really any way of getting the money out of the country.

Your parent never mentioned wires. I send 43 euros from the US to Germany every month with Wise and it costs about a dollar.

Turns out that's no longer the case since banks started to adopt cancel culture too, as seen in Canada. Overbearing governments have created legitimate use cases for crypto money transfers.

I dare you to send me a SWIFT transfer. Not only is very expensive, but most likely I will get my account frozen because international transfers are pretty much not allowed.

It's always the same: entitled people from first world countries where the banking system actually works.

Except if you live in Russia, of course. Or are you saying every Russian is a criminal?

If your jurisdiction has imposed sanctions on Russia but you then help a Russian national bypass sanctions then you are the criminal.

If you are a Russian, and you want to bypass sanctions imposed on you by others, are you then a criminal, too?

If it's illegal for me to send $200 back home to help my family pay for food to be able to eat, call me a criminal I guess.

I don't understand this hatred for middlemen amongst the crypto crowd. Middlemen provide trust. You want to replace middlemen as trust providers with code? The trustless solutions like Proof of work are slow and inefficient and cost much more than middlemen do.

And despite all of that the cryptoverse still has middlemen and centralised platforms. Because not everyone has to run their own node. Be your own banks is not feasible for majority of human population.

Have you used several middlemen? I have, because I have no other option if I want to actually get paid. I've used Wise, Payoneer, Paypal, Paysera, Western Union, Revoult, Bankera, among others that I'm probably forgetting.

They all suck. They decide what I can or can't do with my money. They can freeze my accounts, stop transfers, force me to share details and I can't do anything about it. I rather use crypto than any of those awful services.

Actually I have. I have also rambled against PayPal right here on HN. I would still deal with a middleman like that than trust a Ponzi scam to handle my money.

crypto VCs just want to shuffle the chairs and create chaos which encourages the rise of new middlemen who they want to finance. its really simple

You would need to deal with 2 middlemen: exchange A and exchange B. And exchanges are worse than banks in every way

Not at all. I buy crypto through P2P, and I decide with whom.

This is not the experience of the vast majority of crypto owners right? How can it be a defense of anything if only very few people even use it like that.

Also, you haven't solved the question of middlemen. Now instead of mostly trustworthy Binance you would have to deal with the guy in the dark alley who pinky promises not to run away with your cash.

Not in Argentina. The P2P market is big enough that you don't need to worry about finding buyers/sellers. Also, "dark alley", here? Not even close. We've been doing this for several years now (used to be only USD), it's a well oiled machine.