Topic: Best way to send someone you know $400 bucks inside USA let's see if BTC works? (Read 550 times)

Why don't have them sign up on coinbase and they can transfer directly to their bank account? or better ask them to use btc instead of fiat. Lot of vendors accept btc.

http://www.bitcoinvalues.net/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-bitcoins.html

In order to do so I would already have to have 10 bucks in the first place. In order to make a fair comparison (same as the other way round) you'd have to take into account that I have to convert some BTC to USD first, which will take me a couple of days at least (before it arrives at my bank account).

Of course. Just like both also have to have dollar-wallets and dollar-bank accounts and dollar-credit cards or paypal accounts if you want to send dollars between each other.

I dunno how messed up things are in the US, but here in Europe I can buy bitcoins almost instantly, online. I make a bank payment and I literally have the bitcoins in 5 minutes (the seller receives my euros a few days later).

Secondly, it's a weird comparison if you are going to take fiat to bitcoin into account at all. Why not the other way round? If I want to send a person dollars, I have to sell some BTC first to convert that into USD, it's gonna cost me x bucks and y days.

You are still way too "dollar minded". The whole idea of Bitcoin is we don't NEED dollars anymore. We now have a new kind of money that we can all instantly send to eachother, spend in IRL stores or online on whom and whatever the hell we want, without ANY dependencies or 3rd parties or middlde men or costs or delay or arbitrary rules or authorities or bullshit with accounts being frozen or transactions being blocked or anything. Why the hell would that not be viable within the USA.

why not just have the receiver of btc open up a circle account? once btc are received it can be transferred into bank account with no fees.

I'm not sure. What I can say is that bank transfers seem to be a viable way to pay for BTC in the UK. I use LocalBitcoins (in the UK) for purchasing BTC, and the quickest way to pay seems to be "National Bank Transfer" - usually a two-hour (max) wait for the funds to transfer, then LocalBitcoin release the BTC from escrow.

I gather it is not this straightforward in the US? (And, to be fair, this is all a rather recent innovation in the UK - two hours seems mind-blowingly fast after the three-five business days we've had to tolerate for most of UK banking history!)

Having said all that - for a UK-UK transfer of your hypothetical $400 - if both parties have UK bank accounts, the cheapest and probably quickest way would be a bank transfer - no fees, and the recipient should have their money in a couple of hours. (Assuming your $400 had been converted into GBP - if not, then add on FX charges etc). Anything more complicated than a UK-UK transfer, however, and I'd look to use BTC.

In Europe there are services which allow you to withdraw cash from ATMs. Essentially, if Person 1 who has bitcoins requests a ATM withdrawal he gets a PIN code he can then give that code to Person 2 who can withdraw the cash. Bitcoin and cash are two different things and the dilemma you are having stems from trying to marry these two seamlessly. They are separate and you're therefore going to have to pay fees for this. If it's really just sending value then you seek Bitcoin is better, cheaper, faster, safer...

dude if u sent $400BTC to any of my friends they would turn into financial Titans overnight litetally ive seen it with my own eyes

I'm actually more shocked about the charges that WU takes.. In The Netherlands it is completely free to do a transfer and if you use the same bank, it is on the other persons account isntantly.. Other banks may take up to a day.

I would only use bitocoin for this type of transfers if you intend to hold the bitcoin.

Ok, and what if instead of $400 you have to send $4000, the fee will increase with the amount and it might increase more in future, which will remain minimum with Bitcoins and you're forgetting the most important part, you don't have to rely on a third party to send your money, with bitcoins you can send it straight to who ever you want to.


BTC is still an early stage and at this point of time the only expensive part of using bitcoin is converting it to fiat and vice versa but when it gets accepted everywhere, you won't be required to convert it back and forward and then the fee to buy bitcoins will also be reduced and instead of buying small amounts everytime you need to use, people will keep their funds secured in a cold storage rather then relying on Banks.

First, why does the person need to cash in their paypal balance? A ton of stores/businesses accept paypal for transactions!

Second, why the assumption that these people must convert the bitcoin to fiat? Shouldn't they embrace the ability to buy things with bitcoin rather than give in and exchange in for fiat (the easy way out!)

Third, you forgot Venmo, which is one of the latest mobile payment companies in the US. It allows people to exchange money instantly (exactly like PayPal) with no fees and adds a social media element with a feed of transactions so you can see transactions your friends made and leave funny comments and emoticons.

If Venmo accepted bitcoin, we'd be all set!

www.venmo.com

Ok, so you know a person, a son or daughter a relative and they need cash

$400 via WU is what?

I think it's 10 bucks or more to be 'instant' which is 15 mins or so

Paypal

If sender sends form their bank it is zero, person then can get instantly at ATM usually 4 bucks fee 3 to atm and 1 to pp

Bitcoin

Well both have to have wallets

Sender has to have at least 400 worth of btc to send, if not it takes 3 days or so to 'fund' the wallet via bitpay and that costs 12 bucks or so

Once wallet has btc, it's nominal to 'send'

When receiver gets it

They got btc not cash, now let's see how to get it out

Find a local and hope you don't get killed over $400 bucks and pay what 5% or 10% or 20%

Receiver has bitpay too, so then what transfer to a bank to withdraw and that's 3 days or more and then what are fees

At this stage to send money INSIDE USA I don't see btc as a viable way to actually do a minor task

But if sending outside USA, then it may have some advantages

Just saying in this thread, compare apples to apples and try to see how viable it is to USE BTC to send someone money they can turn into fiat

It's not developed YET to do that instantly and cheaply, so that may be a real area for people to figure out how to do this, and yes the so-called ATM BTC machines may help but right now they don't really exist in any number inside USA, but maybe in some other areas they do

I think in UK it may be more viable since btc has caught on in UK and EURO more, or am I wrong with?

Just saying, let's see how to IMPROVE btc to give people a reason to use it to do a simple job that WU and PP do pretty well right now and quickly