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Comment by whatwherewhy | Hacker News Reader

I'm a user of Bitcoin and I never used any exchange.

Okay, pray tell, how do you buy bitcoin?

From people around me, in person.

That's irrelevant to the comment you're responding to. The point is that there may be people who use it rationally, but how it works in the real world now that it's leaking out beyond its initial user base is getting really problematic.

It works in real world without any exchanges. All of them could crash and burn and Bitcoin would continue on.

Sure, for the 2,000 people who use it without exchanges. (made up number)

Genuine question: How do you use it? Do you mean you use it to make purchases, or do you mean you hold it as a store of value, and that's the use? Something else?

I don't hold Bitcoin. I use it for cross-continent transactions. I buy it from people in my city using a local FB group or (way in the past) Localbitcoins.com and then send it to the recipient. They usually use Localbitcoins to convert it to their own currency AFAIK. The fees (transfer and exchange) are much lower this way - usually less than 0.5% all things considered. Compared to $100+ fee to just transfer the money + 5-10% currency exchange fee (both my and the recipient's currency aren't the most well known).

How long does it take for a typical transaction to finalize?

2 days - I get the BTC around noon, transfer it immediately, in the evening I get a confirmation from the recipient that they got it, and then I see them transfer it to someone the second day. Sometimes it's just 1 day.

To get that rate, how much do you have to send in one batch?

Just obtaining Bitcoin is expensive unless you have a high trust off-chain method to prevent double-spending.

I'm usually sending around $500-$1000 once every 2-3 months (per contractor - I work with multiple).

Ah, that settles it then.

So when are you going to sell your Bitcoin when it goes to $5K or more realistically less than $5K?

I don't hold Bitcoin. I use it for cross-continent transactions.

Why do you need to send money across continents?

I pay for software engineering work done in Africa and sometimes South-East Asia.

You do realise this is nothing new and you can use TransferWise, MPesa or PayTM for this right?

Bitcoin is slower than all this and violently fluctuates which loses people's money quickly. People also need to pay their bills in fiat anyway so whoever is receiving the Bitcoin needs to cash out to fiat anyway.

At that point you might as well just use fiat instead.

All of these options you listed are significantly more expensive, and some of the contractors I work with don't even have that option due to KYC requirements - these people don't have access to functioning governments, they don't have passports. Also, most of my contractors don't use/have bank accounts (because where they live it costs money to have one) - so no way to take out the money if they used these services.

I did this dance at least 100 times and never ever had a problem with price fluctuation. Bitcoin is pretty stable on a 3-day timeframe.

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