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Comment by tiborsaas | Hacker News Reader

> There is not a single alternative service in the world that would have made this possible.

I work at TransferWise so I know that 34% of our transactions are now instant (less than 20 sec).

It's impossible for 2 new unverified users to sign up to your service and send money instantly within 1 hour, cash in hand. Lengthy verification steps, etc. So TW wouldn't have worked in our urgent situation.

Whoever downvoted me has obviously never tried to use TW.

Would this work with Bitcoin though? I mean cash-to-cash, not just the digital transfer.

Cash-to-cash in under an hour would definitely be possible but only if I had immediate access to a Bitcoin ATM (I would "withdraw" directly to the recipient, by giving my ATM the recipient's ATM's deposit address)

You're getting downvoted because it is getting easier by the day to not be unbanked, and "verification" will always exist due to nation state AML/KYC requirements.

Not exactly. Verification is needed because money transfers can be reversed (fraudulently, or legitimately in response to fraud), so remittance companies need to be reasonably sure to reduce fraud risk to an acceptable level.

However with Bitcoin there is no need for verification because a transfer is irreversible.

AML [1]/KYC [2] are legal requirements. Breaking the law around transmitting money has consequences, regardless if you have a desire to possibly reverse a transaction.

[1] https://insights.namescan.io/a-complete-guide-to-aml-regulat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer#Laws_by_cou...

It's impossible for two new unverified users to obtain "cash in hand" with bitcoin since you need a bank account and KYC to turn bitcoin into usable money in an urgent situation.

The OP mentioned they used a Bitcoin ATM. No bank account needed.

I’ve been surprised at the places I’ve found Bitcoin ATM’s. I recall walking into a little gas station on the outskirts of a relatively small/unknown city in a somewhat run down area. To my surprise they had a Bitcoin ATM in the corner.

Maybe things have changed, but a $1000 same-day exchange on LocalBitcoins should be pretty straightforward, and I believe KYC requirements don't necessitate any sort of time delay in that exchange.

Not true. Bitcoin ATMs allow this.

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