[zepto]

This is a completely absurd claim.

I make international payments regularly using things like Wise (formerly transferwise), and it’s far simpler than any crypto solution, and accepted by everyone.

And yes, I own some crypto and could use it if anyone was willing to take it.

The only case where it is simpler is there there are capital control, and in that case it is being used illegally.

[jcburnham]

I'm glad you brought up Wise! I love Wise and use it frequently. However, there are some jurisdictions it simply doesn't work for. For example, there is currently no way for a US company to use Wise Business to pay a Brazilian contractor.

This is not because such payments are illegal, but rather because the Brazilian financial system has poor norms and poor rule-of-law: https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/wise-accuses-former-brazil....

[andreskytt]

This absolutely does not stop you from doing what Wise does under the hood: have bank accounts in two countries and settle using comms rather than the banking system. A message comes in “Alice should now be given x amount from the local account” and a local bank transfer is executed.

[jcburnham]

Yes, you could do that if the payment volume was high and bidirectional. It doesn't work at all for a company that occasionally has to pay someone in Brazil, but has no revenue or presence in Brazil.

[csdvrx]

> And yes, I own some crypto and could use it if anyone was willing to take it.

And if you're sending money to Argentinians, they would beg you for it, as otherwise your recipient would just receive a fraction of the USD you send because of the difference between the official rate the government enforce, and the real rate.

Read about Blue Dollar in Argentina and you'll realize you're very mistaken in your idea that Wise is the solution there.

[andreskytt]

Observe, this is a policy limitation rather than a technological one. These policies can and will change and there can and will be limits to crypto in the country. Unless you can get everyone in the country to accept crypto, you’d still need a way to convert it to local fiat. And everyone in the country will absolutely not accept crypto as the transaction costs are prohibitive.

[pwinnski]

Wise doesn't send physical dollar bills to Argentina, so your reference doesn't apply. Send money via Wise or any other app, and either spend it from there, or withdraw it in pesos. Nothing is lost, and it's as easy, fast, and cheap to use as any crypto-currency solution.

[csdvrx]

Oh yes it does apply: send in crypto, and the locals will get more (blue rate) that many (most!) people will gladly accept instead of pesos!

Nothing is lost to you in either case, but if you send it USD in the official ways, something is lost to those who'll receive less money.

[twelve40]

Once it becomes a serious enough problem for the government, they will just strangle the off-ramps, like it's been done before. So this makes such method of transfer... a temporary hack?

[csdvrx]

> Once it becomes a serious enough problem for the government, they will just strangle the off-ramps, like it's been done before. So this makes such method of transfer... a temporary hack?

Temporary, if you believe it can be strangled.

Given the lack of success of the Argentinian government with the Blue Dollar, my Bayesian prior is that it won't be temporary!

[twelve40]

Also, this makes me wonder. If there is such a massive influx of inbound cryptocurrency transfers, where does the cash for them come from? Surely whoever cashes those transfers out has to sell the cryptocurrency to _someone_? It doesn't sound like it's balanced out by the outbound transfers? Or someone is sitting on a massive pile of fiat and handing it out to hold a massive pile of coins?

[csdvrx]

Take this thought experiment: imagine you're given the opportunity to purchase a crypto like BTC for say 20 grands per BTC. Even if you don't believe in the business model of crypto, you would jump on the purchase (irreversible being a nice feature) then you'll immediately flip it (liquidate it) on the open market, for a nice profit, right?

Now think about the general case: you pay a bit less than the going price in the rest of the world, to take into account the problem of "where the cash come from" (certainly not a difficulty for a country with as large as Argentina, with multiple land borders and sea ports) and price in the cost of solving this problem. Given the right price, you'll find clients, as every trade needs a counterparty, for a mutually beneficial exchange.

And you then have the answer to your question.

[andreskytt]

Basically crypto is a way to scale up illegal financial activity? One trader has a way to get money in nobody asks questions about and is able to capitalize that ability.