[dmitriid]

> but often anti-blockchain

This is precisely because of: "The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussion are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech."

If the best, the brightest, the most educated are anti-blockchain, there are definitely reasons for them to be.

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BTW. Is this true what the article is saying: it takes 10 minutes for a transaction to clear in bitcoin?

[modeless]

Yes, it takes 10 minutes on average for a transaction to be included in a block. Potentially much longer if you are unlucky or didn't pay a high enough fee. On top of that most places won't accept just one block. The standard is 6 blocks, so 1 hour on average. That's the price you pay for a truly trustless distributed system. Still (much) faster than ACH or wire transfers or securities trade settlement.

[bkor]

SEPA instant will settle transactions 10 seconds. Drawbacks: banks can opt to participate, initially limited to 15k EUR, plus not obvious what the cost is. Banks are charged 1 EUR per transaction, so it'll be at least 1 EUR charged to customers.

The price of a transaction is as important as the speed, IMO.

[dmitriid]

Swish in Sweden [1]

Private transfers: instant transactions between individuals, no transaction fees. (Though I suspect internally they do the usual reconciliation between banks at the end of the day).

Business: instant transactions to your account from your customers. Yearly fee: 500 SEK ($61), price per transaction: 2 SEK ($0.24), price per reimbursed transaction: 2 SEK ($0.24)

There are also limits on how much money you can send in one go, but it's usually more than enough for individual transactions and for small businesses.

[1] https://www.getswish.se, https://medium.com/@etiennebr/swish-the-secret-swedish-finte...

[pjc50]

.. but slower than contactless or other card transactions, and (usually) slower than Faster Payments.

(Comparing to securities settlement is interesting, because cryptocurrency exchanges use off-blockchain "settlement" within themselves. Trades execute near-instantly because they're just updating a database. However, settling your money out of an exchange can take a lot longer)

[modeless]

> settling your money out of an exchange can take a lot longer

Usually only if there's something wrong, like a technical or KYC issue. In many cases it is possible to execute a trade and withdraw as fast as the blockchain (or your bank) will allow.

[ttsda]

10 minutes in near optimal conditions. Realistically it takes a lot longer and you pay a ton of fees.