[arcticbull]

(1) IMO your point about scale is asinine. If it doesn't scale, it can only help a small number of people so the net welfare increase is negligible. Might as well not exist if it can't scale. I'm not saying to everyone, I'm saying to more than a single Costco. As I said, Layer 2 doesn't count because you can just as easily set up a fiat bank as an exchange, and with far less regulation in exchanges you take on way more risk. Fine, whatever, we won't see eye to eye on that.

(2) Debit interchange in Europe is capped at 0.2% and has been since 2015 [1]

(3) Let's walk through my proposal. Step 1: Sign up for TransferWise Borderless Account. Step 2: Receive EUR. There is no fee, and there is no step 3. If you don't trust your local currency why wouldn't you just hold EUR or USD or CAD or NZD? They're actually stable and don't drop 40% in a month.

Let's walk through your proposal. Step 1: Convince someone in Europe to sign up for an exchange, verify their identities and whatnot. Make a SEPA transfer into the exchange, pay 1-2%. Wait 1-2 days. Buy a crypto. Transfer the crypto to you. Pay a fee. $15 for BTC right now. Step 4: Convert at whatever rate to your local currency, pay 1-2%. Deposit it into a bank anyways since nobody uses crypto. All the while taking on huge counterparty risk, a large bid-ask spread and exchange rate shift risk. Step 5: Commit tax fraud by not reporting your transaction. That sounds like (2+6=8% to 4+6=10%) to me for the Brazilian in your situation.

If that's flying free, I'm ok on the ground.

How could you possibly believe the latter is better than the former?

[1] https://www.adyen.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu...

[rglullis]

(1) substitute "people" for a "clusters of people with insular trust". Most of these people can not setup an account, but some of them can. They collectively managed their internal accounting and only need to go to the blockchain when a settlement with someone from the outgroup needs to be done. What is so hard to understand about this?

(2) Yes. IN EUROPE. I talked about Brazil. How many times is it going to take for you to understand that having good market competition in one place means absolute jack shit in another?

(3) You can not hold CAD or NZD or USD or EUR on a bank from Brazil. You have to convert it and there is a 6% fee for it. This is on top of the exchange rate fee from transfer wise.

The alternative I am proposing, however, is to receive crypto, sell it to BRL at the exchange (often at a better price than the USD equivalent, because there are people willing to pay the premium) and withdraw it free of charge.

In this case, crypto is giving me the choice of intermediary: a crypto exchange that I know will give better rates and faster transaction times. I could go further and convert the crypto to a stablecoin like USDC, EURS or DAI at the exchange and hold it there. I can use the exchange (if I trust it) as my informal bank which can hold crypto currency that is paired to something stronger than BRL or ARS. Worst case, I don't trust it so I withdraw local curency, but rest assured that it will be a good deal because crypto exchanges will work with rates closet to the market and not what the Central Bank is willing to pay me.

You keep arguing with unrealistic hypotheticals when you could actually ask people outside of your bubble and they will tell you the thousand different ways where the status quo is worse. Do you really think everyone is these places are so stupid?

[arcticbull]

> (2) Yes. IN EUROPE. I talked about Brazil. How many times is it going to take for you to understand that having good market competition in one place means absolute jack shit in another?

Obviously? Usually however, there's a reason why the fee is what it is. Have you dug into it? For instance in the US interchange is high because the vast majority of it goes towards rewards programs and loan origination costs. I'll be the first to admit don't know how that maps in Brazil.

However, read back to your earlier post: "(Something that I forgot to mention when you were talking about how Visanet has low rates in Europe: Direct debit cards - zero risk! - charge ~1.9% of the transaction value. Some of them charge a little bit less, but put a sizeable monthly rate on top of it.)"

Did you say anything about the rate being 1.9% in Brazil? No, the only geography you referenced was Europe, which is why I followed up with the, you know, European rate. It sounds like you should just be advocating for a fee cap in BR right?

You really haven't explained why TransferWise is worse than your recommendation, and you keep avoiding the whole "breaking the law and exposing yourself to prison time" bit.

I keep saying, you can keep the foreign currency in your TWB account, and send it to other people later, just like you hold crypto in a wallet. Why bother with DAI and USDC when you can just you know hold USD in your TWB account? A borderless account is a bank account, that you, in Brazil, can open, and hold all all those currencies with banking details in most of those places. For free, I believe!

Frankly, why don't I think people use TransferWise? Obviously I don't think they're dumb. It's new, I don't think they know about it. Borderless launched in 2018 and I suspect Brazil wasn't it's first supported destination. Getting the word out takes time. Read about it and let me know what you think!

[rglullis]

> You really haven't explained why TransferWise is worse than your recommendation.

Transferwise uses rates close to what the central bank/governments is paying, which is far from the actual market rate. Plus the whole 6% fee.

> "breaking the law and exposing yourself to prison time"

I was going to call out this as FUD, but actually it's just you showing how you haven't been exposed to different systems.

First, whatever you do at an exchange needs to be reported and legally you will declare the income whether coming from the sale of crypto or an international payment order.

Second, you are thinking as someone who deals with a functional and not-so-corrupt tax authority. Your logic does not apply in a Banana Republic. All of these complex tax systems are full of loopholes precisely to give a way to do business that resembles normalcy to a privileged few. The ones that represent the institutions are in the game. The "strict rules" and threat of jail time only applies for those that oppose the corruption or that break their own internal code.

There is a reason there is a quote that says "For my friends everything, for my enemies the law." which is attributed to a Peruvian politician.

[arcticbull]

> Transferwise uses rates close to what the central bank/governments is paying, which is far from the actual market rate. Plus the whole 6% fee.

No, you're not listening. TransferWise Borderless is a bank account into which you can deposit and retain US dollars or Euros or CAD or NZD, and any other currency you want, even in Brazil. There's no 6% fee because there's no conversion. There's no exchange rate because there's no conversion. Unless you elect to. Read about it and then reply. It stays in the currency which you receive. It's a multi-currency online bank account.

They give you an account number and a routing number in the US, and in SEPA, and in the UK, and in Australia, and so on. You receive a domestic transfer. It shows up in your account in the foreign currency. And it stays in the foreign currency. Then you can send it elsewhere if you want. Or hold onto it.

Doesn't expanding TWB sound way better than crypto? It's nice and regulated, and insured too!

[1] https://transferwise.com/us/multi-currency-account/

[rglullis]

Alright, it does help with the holding. Still, it misses the point that unless you get the people in your local economy to adopt it, you still need to withdraw it to use it.

> Doesn't expanding TWB sound way better than crypto?

whynotboth.jpg? Why do you want to deprive yourself and others of the option?

> It's nice and regulated.

And under the control and monitoring of a government that people do not trust. And that can be killed by the government if people start using extensively for their own benefit and starts hurting the government's bottom line.

[fock]

> (1) substitute "people" for a "clusters of people with insular trust". Most of these people can not setup an account, but some of them can. They collectively managed their internal accounting and only need to go to the blockchain when a settlement with someone from the outgroup needs to be done. What is so hard to understand about this?

Great, now we are at the 10k libertarian tribes, which conveniently want to impose a great cost (energy-wise - and no, you didn't mention how this is set to improve) on society for their personal freedom. I understand that. Most often these libertarian interests align with criminal interests, I also understand that this is what happens with a bunch of sociopaths...

> (3) You can not hold CAD or NZD or USD or EUR on a bank from Brazil. You have to convert it and there is a 6% fee for it. This is on top of the exchange rate fee from transfer wise.

Can you just communicate with your libertarian tribes there, if you are not one of the persons actually allowed to communicate internationally ;).

[rglullis]

> energy-wise (...) you didn't mention how this is set to improve

Not on this thread, but yes, I did talk about work on Proof-of-Stake on Ethereum and the work on layer-2 projects.

If you are interested, take a look at Loopring or Raiden, both projects allow value transfers between people at near-zero costs. Loopring is a bit more centralized than Raiden but its UX is easier, Raiden still is complicated to setup but can scale linearly with the number of nodes in the network.

> Most often these libertarian interests align with criminal interests.

Get rid of the weasel-words and try again. What is your actual condemnation here?

For whatever it is you think it is a crime, ask yourself (a) if crypto is enabling criminal actions that would be otherwise prevented and (b) how much these activities would not exist if the institutions were actually working at the best interest of the people.

Money laundering, drug/gun/people trafficking already exist without crypto. It's not like criminals will become good citizens if we get rid of crypto. Black markets come to exist because of oppressive regimes, not despite them.