[willtemperley]

The democratisation of access to financial markets has had some beneficial knock-on effects like much cheaper cross-border payments.

Prior to 2010, banks were charging around 5% for a GBP-EUR transaction.

This is a benefit we all see - banks now can't get away with ripping people off like they used to, when I could make a cross border payment for less than 0.5% using a crypto exchange.

Also having the ability to hedge against quantitative easing has been a life-saver for many people.

[victorbjorklund]

or it could be fintech startups like Revolut and Wise. You know stuff people actually use that is actual competition for banks. A normal person does not use crypto just to exchange money from GDP-EUR for a vacation trip.

[rcxdude]

Indeed. Crypto is actually very fee-heavy in my experience, from exchange fees to transaction fees and so on. It's got quite a high-friction interface to the existing financial system. As a means of doing forex for the average person I doubt it'd be competitive with even old high-fee banks.

[willtemperley]

Yes but they came shortly after Bitcoin with comparable fees. This is not a coincidence.

[jncfhnb]

It’s a coincidence

[kikimora]

As a person making a lot of cross-border payments I disagree. In my reality paying people in other countries with crypto is much easier if they can accept it. Accepting is challenging but mostly because of regulations, not crypto itself.

[jncfhnb]

That’s not relevant

[victorbjorklund]

Wise was launched in 2011. No one had heard about Bitcoin back then.

[ttepasse]

> Prior to 2010, banks were charging around 5% for a GBP-EUR transaction.

Also in the 2010s: The EU introduced the Single Euro Payments Area; Wikipedia tells me that the UK participates for transfers denominated in EUR.