I get paid in the EU, move it to the UK, and then send it to my US account. All in all this takes around 2 days and costs around $60. Wish I was paid in crypto and had quick $10 transactions instead (albeit offboarding it into fiat would cost a bit too, because of exchange fees).
It's 10 cents or less on layer 2 solutions like Polygon or zkSync.
Ethereum mainnet has incredibly high demand for block space right now because there's hundreds of billions of dollars worth of value trading on top of it. And at that scale $10 is peanuts.
So, you’re telling me there’s a massive inequality in the system controlled by those with wealth and everyday people basically can’t participate because there’s no room for their petty needs.
I don't understand what you get downvoted for. People in your replies are proving your point. Crypto is for rich people and the .01% who send money over borders regularly. Crypto IS a joke.
This is focusing on the current worst case for sending money in all of crypto though. At the moment sending btc is about 50 cents and solana remains less than 1 cent.
This is $10 for sending a transaction in the base Ethereum blockchain. Imagine you're sending millions, can do so quickly, only for $10, and without needing permission or paperwork from any bank? Also, most normal transactions should happen at Layer 2, which would cost orders of magnitude less. zkSync, which is a layer 2 solution for Ethereum, is incredibly cheap and inherits the same security as the base chain. The costs would be fractions of a penny.
This is such a ridiculous take. Blockchain is completely fixing the remittence industry. It is one of the most empowering technologies for the developing world.
And your statement isn't even true. On layer 2s like Polygon you can send $0.50 anywhere in the world for less than a penny in fees. Think of Ethereum like the New York Times. You want to place an ad--so do many other people, and page space is limited. It's a pretty ridiculous critique of the entire advertising industry to say it's only for the rich because placing an ad in the New York Times is expensive. You can post your ad on craigslist for free.
to be very honest, this experience isn't much different from early days of bitcoin. It's only recently that fees have gotten exorbitant and we've had to invent layers to fix that.
Bitcoin in 2008 was as good for remittances as it is today - it's just easier to acquire and costlier to move (lightning being the exception). However, it manages by ignoring all regulations (Indian examples: [0], [1]). Whether these laws are just or proportional in a world where information moves at the speed of light is a question for democratic processes, not multinational corporations to answer.
Payments via SWIFT are slow not because the bits transferring money over SWIFT are much slower, but because international remittance regulations are genuinely complicated.
Ethereum is for those who can afford the astronomical gas fees even on a slow transaction speed which is quite worse than card payment at this point.
Basically it is useless for anyone that pays for their groceries given that the gas fee itself will be more expensive than the food you are paying for.
Other blockchains already exist to avoid these issues from the start without relying on, fixing / patching, building on top of Ethereum.