[kown223]

In my country the spreed to exchange eur or usd to local current is huge, you lose at least 10%

[throwaway13337]

I use transferwise all the time for usd to eur.

The loss is closer to 1%. E.g. 1k usd costs $10 to transfer at the googled exchange rate.

Better solutions are out there. Bitcoin is, as always, a solution looking for a problem.

[anonoholic]

I have used TransferWise, and yes, <1%; however https://revolut.com/ have recently added virtual bank accounts, and currently add no fee for market rate transfers.

[jgh]

i recently used transferwise to convert a bunch of money and it seemed like all in the fees were closer to 0.1% than 1%. I think if you do larger sums of money the fees get cheaper though because the cost to transfer into transferwise is around $20 or something for ACH pull, but the fees for the currency exchange is a slightly worse exchange rate (though still much better than you would get at a bank)

[yani]

Transferwise is good but its network goal is to make money out of the transfers. Cryptos network doesnt share this goal

[anonymouz]

Great that all those exchanges aren't charging any fees and there's no transaction cost for Bitcoin...

I recently did a lot of EUR-USD transfers and have evaluated several options. I came to the same conclusion as other posters here: Services like Transferwise and Currencyfair are all very cheap, and do the job well and without risk.

Going through Bitcoin was not even close to competitive.

[joering2]

Did you at least google Transferwise to see all horror stories of people getting their wires frozen? Really curious of your definition of “without risk”

[anonymouz]

By that I mean that they are registered and regulated within the EU and other countries they operate in. The people operating the service are known and comply with applicable regulation, so that I can be reasonably confident nothing shady is going on and that I can get legal recourse in case something is wrong.

And no, despite doing some research on Transferwise before using them I didn't run into horror stories of them freezing wires. Transferwise has always been very professional and helpful in interactions with me (more so than my own bank).

[joering2]

Have you ever transferred 120,000 EUR with them, or - you know - any serious amount?

[madeofpalk]

> Cryptos network doesnt share this goal

Of course they do. There is an inherent transaction fee built into networks like Bitcoin, plus the fees exchanges charge.

[DasIch]

Miners don't get paid anymore?

[psergeant]

Thanks for the data point! What’s the spread between BTC and your local currency vs BTC/USD? Is Bitcoin legal in your country? Are there reliable exchanges? What’s the cash-out wait? Thanks in advance!