Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by neb_b | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

neb_b

Also, thank you for providing fast and cheap remittance payments to poorer countries.

View on HN

>poorer countries

That's a funny way of spelling "ransomware criminals."

> fast and cheap

???

Bitcoin onchain payments are still faster and cheaper than using something like Western Union.

The lightning network is even faster and cheaper than that.

https://twitter.com/jackmallers/status/1428429890957848591

(tweet text, also includes a video and some more info) "With @Bitnob_official's Lightning Network integration, we now have free, instant, non-reversible remittances of any size to and from the United States, Nigeria, and Ghana.

$10 in my US bank account became spendable NGN for @bernard_parah in seconds.

Monetary history."

I don't know a single person who uses bitcoins or a single store that accepts them... and it's very risky for companies due to it's extreme volatility (the price may increase/decrease by hundreds percent within days or weeks)

How many people do you know that send or receive remittances?

That's anecdotal. I know many people that use bitcoin every day.

Bitcoin is much more useful (currently) to people that don't have access to traditional banking systems that many people take for granted.

> That's anecdotal. I know many people that use bitcoin every day.

Which country?

The real value is only in the USD and NGN. Using Bitcoin to move the value is only propped by hype-fueled insanity that doesn't need to exist. International banks could easily create an international money-transfer system that would be far more reliable and secure than any decentralized Ponzi scheme. An in fact, such systems do exist - for example I used to earn in USD and spend instantly in other countries using international Visa/Mastercards like Revolut or Wise.

You are lucky that you had access to those services. In many poor countries the majority of citizens do not have a bank account.

Even if international banks created these services (why haven't they done more of this already if it's easy?) these people would not be able to access it.

Not op, but faster and cheaper than services like Western Union.

sarcasm? Nobody uses crypto for remittance payments to poorer countries. It is mostly used by rich folks in countries like China to get around exchange restrictions.

That's not true

Correct, it's mostly used for money laundering and illegal transactions.

Source?

Most people who use Bitcoin here in Argentina seem to be sending remittances to their families in Venezuela.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com