[xiphias2]

No it isn't. When I'm sending money to Colombia and WorldRemit app takes 10% of my money, it means 10% less food to cook for my girlfriend and her family. She can't get a job since the pandemic, and I have other friends in Colombia with the same problem, they are desperate... some times I just send $40, and they say that it saves their life, it's so bad there right now.

[haskellandchill]

Money is a just a row in an SQL table. We can update it for less than a cent. Everything else is a social problem, Bitcoin does nothing to help here. Exchanges over Bitcoin are no better or worse in principle than existing financial infrastructure.

The reason for high fees are the risk in sending the money across borders. Due to fraud there are risks. Bitcoin does nothing to fix this and seems to even enable more scams.

[lowkey]

> The reason for high fees are the risk in sending the money across borders. Due to fraud there are risks. Bitcoin does nothing to fix this and seems to even enable more scams.

Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk. Lightning eliminates cost, latency and transaction volume limits. In every way that matters, Bitcoin via Lightning eliminates high fees and addresses all your concerns.

As for the idea that Bitcoin enables more scams, please provide citations. I am not aware of any scams introduced by Bitcoin or Lightning.

[haskellandchill]

> Bitcoin eliminates counter party risk and international transfer risk

citations are a two way street buddy

[lowkey]

Fair enough ..

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network that does not rely on any third party to function - hence no counter-party risk. Bitcoin operates based on rules, but has no rulers, only participants of various flavors.

Bitcoin doesn’t understand or recognize borders. There is no country-code input field in a bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin doesn’t care if you are sending Bitcoin to your friend across the street or North Korea, Iran, <insert scary nation here> - international transfer risk is non-existent for Bitcoin as Bitcoin does not recognize political borders.

Any human anywhere with a computing device and internet connectivity can create an address and transact with anyone else in the network.

Bitcoin is a censorship resistant monetary network open to all 7.5 Billion humans. No bank can compete with Bitcoin on this dimension.

[haskellandchill]

Do you know what a citation is?

[lowkey]

Yes but I provided an logically consistent explanation instead. Perhaps you would prefer I cite the Bitcoin Whitepaper which explains the peer-to-peer censorship resistent electronic cash as explained by the inventor Satoshi Nakamoto [1].

[1] https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper

[lowkey]

> Exchanges over Bitcoin are no better or worse in principle than existing financial infrastructure.

In principal maybe not but in reality, Bitcoin for international exchanges is a game-changer especially if you can keep the money in Bitcoin and spend it as the recipient.

Fees on remittances to El Salvador were up to 50% in some cases. With Bitcoin they are effectively zero.

Bitcoin fixes this.

[x4e]

If you are sending 40$ over Bitcoin the fees will Be far more than 10% (4$). Checkout Nano or Stellar Lumens if you want to send small amounts of money without fees.