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Comment by knorker | Hacker News Reader

Some of the delays are effectively by law, so what you're really saying is "without any laws I may be breaking inserting their opinion, and any pesky police causing surprising delays".

Reminds me of how GWB said that it would be much easier to be president if he were a dictator.

Yeah, I bet! But despite that it's a terrible idea.

Banks don't cause delays because they want to. And it's not a technical problem. Worth repeating: Delays in bank transfers is NOT a technical problem.

All these cryptocurrency "solutions" are trying to tear down a fence they have no idea why it's there. Turns out it was put up over centuries to solve actual societal problems.

People should work on improving the fence instead of thinking it should be torn down to be replaced by nothing.

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You are right, that's not a technical problem and Bitcoin is not a technical solution either — that's a social game of "let's make ourselves some new money without built-in constraints".

Then you would need to add some constraints over it for security, but the key difference would be that it's an open market: you can invent one solution, I can invent another and people will be free to choose between them or nothing at all.

When your money comes with some regulatory framework built-in, there is no much room for any choices in that respect and more temptation for all kinds of bureaucrats to abuse their power.

> but the key difference would be that it's an open market

It's not really, though.

Banking is also an open market. You could already start a bank, and some people do. But it comes with a bunch of red tape.

But you can't just say "this is blockchain, so red tape is not required". That's up to the government of the countries you operate in.

And if it looks like a bank (or financial institution), quacks like a monetary transfer or financial product, then why would it not get customers like one, and not be regulated as one?

> people will be free to choose between them or nothing at all.

This was already the case. Wall street invents financial products all the time. Credit default swaps, anyone?

> Delays in bank transfers is NOT a technical problem

Often they are, but they also already have practical and common solutions

Yeah we could give deeper into this question. Yes, the US has not adopted the technical solutions for quick (usually essentially instant) and free payments that Europe has.

And Europe isn't perfect either. E.g. in Sweden bank transfers are only quick and easy on weekdays. But then again nobody uses bank transfers because Swish is instant and 24/7, and all banks support it.

So yes, it's a technical problem that a transfer is not instant, but the "surprising delays" mentioned by previous commenters are not due to any of that.

Or do you have in mind technical solutions for improving AML/KYC handling that would reduce legit transfers getting delayed?

Sure, systems (legal and technical) can always be improved, but "surprising delay" is a problem from law, not technology. So bypassing it with technology just means (de facto) breaking the law.

What I meant is that many banks do not offer fast payments/transfers as a service, but they could do it if they wanted.

The most common complaint I hear is that bank transfers take a long time to settle as a default at a protocol level, not that law enforcement manually interferes with them.

The second most common complaint I hear is that sometimes the transfer is impossible.

For the first there are solutions, newer SEPA transfer can complete in seconds because fraud checking is done faster; this requires some kind of widespread cooperation between banks and governments. For the second complaint there are often no (legal) solutions.

Yeah this is what I meant about the US being a bit technically behind, but this is not the same as the "surprise" delays referred to.

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