[imagist]

The new title is worse than the first.

Sure, it's easier and cheaper to wire USD to another country than it is to exchange USD for BTC, send BTC, and then exchange BTC to USD. Just like it's cheaper to wire USD to another country than it is to exchange USD for literally anything, send that literally anything, and then exchange that literally anything to USD.

If you insist on using BTC as a transfer mechanism for USD, you're going to incur most of the fees and risk you would if you used GBP, CAD, AUD, Yen, or any other currency as a transfer mechanism for USD. I'm not sure why anyone would expect anything different.

However, if you compare apples to apples, transferring BTC which is denominated in BTC throughout the transaction is much easier and cheaper than transferring USD which started is denominated in USD throughout the transaction.

[3pt14159]

My question is why aren't there transfer companies that just use Bitcoin as an alternative to Swift? Like, you want to send $50 USD to me. You give person A $50, he sends person B $50 worth of Bitcoin, and person B gives me $50 worth of USD.

Why do you even need to know about Bitcoin at all? Why isn't it just a cheap(ish) financial resolution layer?

[mrb]

You described exactly what SCI does: they use Bitcoin internally (customers don't typically even know it) and they managed to have captured ~20% of the remittance corridor between South Korea-Philippines. Here is SCI's cofounder talking about their company: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/53lxkt/is_it_really_so...

[eridius]

This is basically how Stellar works (https://www.stellar.org). It has its own coin, but that coin is meant to be used basically as the grease on the wheels of transferring money rather than as the money itself.

[quirkafleeg]

AIUI, it's because the expensive part is not basically updating an internal database when money changes hands (no sending of BTC required), the expensive part is, to take WU as an example, operating half a million brick and mortar locations in 200+ countries.

[3pt14159]

Well what I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be the internal database. It can be a completely decentralised system. I send you $50 and you open an app and just walk up to the first money guy that you see on the street. Why do we need physical banks?

[quirkafleeg]

What do you mean by a "money guy" on the street?

[aianus]

Regulatory capture. Your money guys would each need a money transmitter license which costs millions to obtain.