Earlier today, I moved $25,000.00 from my bank's savings account, into a new bank to open a high yielding CD. Transaction was confirmed in 10 minutes. The CD will start accruing interest in ~2 days.
With cryptocurrency that transaction would have arrived in the destination account in a couple hours, max. Often much faster.
You didn't get charged a fee because you agreed to lock your money up in that CD, which likely pays you incredibly low interest. This allows the bank to loan your money out to someone else and earn a great amount of interest. Meanwhile, your fiat money loses spending power as the value of your currency deflates due to the inflation of the money supply.
1) Neither bank charged me any fees. If I did the same thing with BTC (move Bitcoin), will I be charged a fee?
Yes, there is a fee that goes to the miners for confirming your transaction, it's on the order of less than a % point for the balance of your transaction, however for Bitcoin this fee value in fiat is rising as the value of Bitcoin rises related to fiat.
Also, if you're making your transaction to or from an online exchange you may have an additional fee for using their service.
2) I didn't have to worry about "protecting" my money in an online or hardware wallet. I have had money in this savings account for 12+ years. I don't worry about moving from exchanges, fees, keeping hardware wallet keys written down and safe, etc. Again, it seems that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is again at a disadvantage.
You're right, you don't have to operate as your own bank. But over those 12+ years you've had money in this savings account, the spending power of that money has gone down. You can't buy the same car today, with the same amount of money you could have bought 12 years ago. That's shocking, given that it's cheaper to produce a car today than it is 12 years ago. Operations gets more efficient as technology and global distribution gets more sophisticated.
Additionally, there's rarely a time when you can access your money without paying a fee.
Please educate me and tell me how Bitcoin is safer, easier, less stressful, and cheaper to own? I am all ears.
Bitcoin is safer because it's not subject to the irrational or "comprisable" decision making of man. It's easier because you can move money faster, regardless of transaction size. It's cheaper to own because the its finite value nearly ensures it's value will increase over time, rather than decrease.
I'll give you the stress. If you don't want to take more control and responsibility over storage, you will have more stress. But it's not difficult to protect yourself properly.
Good questions. Would love to chat with you more about it.
PM me (or how should we chat?)
Sorry I don't know how to do the individual quote thingies. But here are a few thoughts:
1) You are sorta proving my point for me. Bitcoin will never pay a dividend or interest. I invest in income-producing real estate, as 90% of my portfolio. Even paper assets such as stocks or mutual funds I am skeptical of.
2) I agree it sounds like a dumb idea to keep cash in a savings account, earning 0.2% APY. But I am financially independent in my early 30s. I have 7 figures $ in real estate equity, and have ~$5K of passive net income per month through my real estate investments. So the REASON I hold $100-200K in a savings account at all times, is to jump on the 1-2 real estate deals I buy per year. I need LIQUIDITY.
3) I noticed, folks that are professional like myself and have a skill that pays well, have no need for crypto. Every other person on this forum is from the Philippines (a poor country). And I am not hating on the Philippines, I LOVE THAT COUNTRY. I have visited there 3 times and even did a medical mission there. But its a bunch of hopeful, robotic, poor folks in 3rd world countries, dreaming that their 0.1 BTC will turn into a million $.
"Do you want to be a millionaire? If you own 0.01 BTC, you already are." This recent thread ring a bell? Its kind of sad really, but also scary to thing about.
4) I did an experiment. I put $50-100 dollars each into 9 altcoins. My criteria was, and I am not joking, "If the name sounded cool". I think my actual returns are over 300% in a few weeks. Does this even sound reasonable to you?
