You might want to switch banks, I wire money a couple times a month, it takes about 5 minutes via their website, it goes out very soon after initiation (if it’s within business hours).

That’s a failing of the US banking system, but not of banking systems everywhere. In the UK you can send up to £250,000 within 15 minutes, and you can generally do this online.

People are probably tired of hearing this, but this is not a problem with wiring, it's a problem with US banks.

When i bought my home in the UK six years ago, i phoned my bank, told them how much i wanted to send and to who, and they did it, with the money arriving straight away. If the amount had been less than 20k, i could have done it online rather than over the phone; the back-end payment machinery is the same, but i suppose the bank think there's less chance of a normal customer making a mistake with a large transfer if someone walks them through it. My bank is rather old-fashioned; more modern banks let you make large transfers online or through their app:

https://www.starlingbank.com/blog/high-value-payments/

That page mentions that "one of our team members may need to double check a few details before the payment can be made" - again, that's nothing to do with the machinery, that's in case you match some pattern looking for fraud or money laundering etc.

> I'm not OP but I had to wire money earlier this year when I bought a house. To accomplish this, I had to drive to my nearest bank branch (1 hour drive), talk to a bank teller for 15 minutes while she filled out forms and printed out papers I had to sign, and then they told me the wire would probably arrive in time for the house signing (3 hours later). This was to send ~$15k. Compare this to sending USDC on [smart contract enabled blockchain] which takes a few clicks and minutes at most.

You really need to switch to a modern bank that doesn't force you to go in person to do a wire. That's insanity.

Fidelity has free wire transfers, no need to go into a bank: https://www.fidelity.com/customer-service/choose-eft-or-bank...

You are just using a bad bank. The bank I use lets you initiate a wire via their iPhone app, and then they simply call to confirm security details etc.

Far easier and safer than anything crypto has to offer.

Not to mention that it’s a complete fantasy to expect all but the tiniest number of sellers to accept crypto today, so the comparison is between something that exists today and works very well, and something that is only imaginary.

> For arguments sake I will point out the downsides to using crypto in this case:

Which are all reasons why someone makes you drive to the nearest bank.

As others have pointed out, these issues are highly US centric, as sending money in the UK/EU can be done almost instantaneously. And so, if they can be done almost instantaneously in other countries it means the technology is not the barrier, but the politics. Thus crypto's only advantage is not a technology one, but a political/market/bureaucratic one.

One good thing about crypto is that if it does take off and becomes a legitimate threat to wire transfers, then banks will change their tune VERY quick, and then once that system is in place then we can have all of the nice things that help protect your money in a US bank accountant (FDIC insurance, access to financing, fraud protection, etc.) with the advantages of crypto.

There is a reason the Winkelvoss twins store their crypto wallet pass-phrases in bank vaults.

For the record - I have my own thoughts about how bad the US finance system is, but I think crypto advocates love to ignore why these systems exist in the first place.

Wires are often free. My bank (HSBC) charges me nothing for domestic wires, my brokerage (IBKR) charges me nothing for domestic wires, Schwab charges nothing for domestic wires, neither does Fidelity, USAA or Ally - even FTX charges nothing for domestic wires - even though moving USDC-ETH out of FTX and into your wallet costs $25.