[rfd4sgmk8u]

Settlement within an hour? For cents (vs $10 for wires)? Without permission of 3rd parties? To regions that are not connected to the international banking system? No.

Bitcoin is better for international money transfers than WU or your local bank. I can't believe this is even a talking point in 2021.

[snotrockets]

If I send bitcoins to friends and family abroad, they are worthless until they are converted again to a real currency. I remember when someone buying Pizza with bitcoins made the news. Now the only thing you can buy with bitcoins is decryption keys from ransomware-installing hackers.

[toomuchtodo]

It’s more expensive to use Bitcoin than TransferWise to send international payments or money transfers. TransferWise often settles very fast if the destination country has good fintech plumbing (Australia, Canada, SEPA, etc).

[rfd4sgmk8u]

I knew someone would say this!

They are not factually correct, and I have done several wise.com transactions to people in other countries last year. The transfer fee was in the order of whole dollars per transaction. It is also a percent of the send, which, you may not be aware is not how Bitcoin works, rather, Bitcoin is based on the transaction size in (v)bytes.

A bitcoin transaction currently cost 1sat/byte, or $0.04USD for a standard transaction.

You don't get what Bitcoin is about. Wise does not need to exist in a bitcoin standard world!

[kemonocode]

(Transfer)Wise arbitrarily stopped working for Venezuela over sanctions that don't even apply to the entirety of the country, right before I was going to accept a pretty well paid gig that would have covered my living expenses for months. To say I was fuming would be an understatement. Life or death in an impoverished country.

Found a different gig, less well paid but they accepted paying me in crypto. It was a grand total of 0.10 USD in BTC to receive that money and it took 5 minutes before first confirmation.

Yes, transaction fees can be expensive sometimes, but in practically every case I've experienced they're nothing compared to the highway robbery most of the mainstream payment infrastructure imposes upon everybody.

[neb_b]

Those people are lucky to live in country with good fintech plumbing. Many poorer countries do not have that, and the citizens don't even have bank accounts.