Topic: [Debate] Remittance through Bitcoin! (Read 2489 times)

A lot of the remittances are used here. Try spending Bitcoins to buy groceries.

All those sending money may not even believe in Bitcoin. Having Bitcoin as a method increases adoption and liquidity.

Dont be Hanuman. What is the relevance of link here? It would have been much helpful if you'd have quoted www.rbi.org as reference.

And in fact, $70 billion was remitted back in year 2013.

Link to Worldbank Report: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934-1288990760745/MigrationandDevelopmentBrief21.pdf

Page number 5 which clearly mentions India is top recipient of remittance which can also be rephrased as money send to India or money India remitted as most of sender are NRI's and people working abroad. And I gave example of WesternUnion and Money gram because Bitcoin remittance is generally compared to those and 1-5% estimation was very rough approximation for transaction fees.

Am I clear?
Get your fact-secure before striving to coin-secure!

Nice Debate but there's a small issue in your facts. India didn't remitted $70 billion dollar in 2013, India received those funds from other countries.
Indian's are not allowed to remit any money via western union or moneygram or any other financial service provider except banks.
http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_ViewMasCirculardetails.aspx?id=8093

Let me add my few cents   :

In its current economic state bitcoin is obviously not suited for medium or large amount transactions across border. And on top of it its impossible to use bitcoin for remittance ( money transfer ) inside borders in countries where bitcoin liquidity is an issue  for general people and all practical purposes. There are several hurdles exist in its economic viability for bitcoin to be first choice for remittances.

BUT
if you choose a particular use case and remittance story where small amounts are involved, bitcoin IS game changer and I am confident this is going to happen sooner than later.

Regards

+1

Remittance is really something that cannot be associated with Bitcoin in all its grandness.
However, there will be providers in the short term who will be much needed to bridge this gap between today and tomorrow. Say, the next 5-10 years?
Providers like exchanges, remittance converters/ delivery systems, banks/ local storage centers, processors for goods, currency changers etc.

Local grievance/ clarification centers & meetup groups, user friendly and super cheap hardware, need to grow vastly, before this can spread into a 10 Rs chai walla phenomen across India.

Today's effort to generate a remittance through Bitcoin would be (Lets take US and India for Example)

• Get verified, etc to Purchase Bitcoin on an Exchange in USD or buy from localbitcoins/ f2f or Spend a bunch of money on miners to mine Bitcoin.
• Send the funds to someone in India, who needs to find an exchange to get verified, etc or sell on localbitcoins/ f2f or find a processor to get the goods that they need.
• Pay fees/ margin everywhere, handle volatility risks, Buy Chai!

Compared to find an international remittance service that should charge about the same fees to get the same task done, minus the volatility risk.

Now, if the Chai walla accepted Bitcoin, that would be a different tale for remittances. Send 10 Rs from someone in the US, after the person requesting funds, sends a text with the vendors public key or QR. Go to the medical store and at the billing counter, get your bill paid directly by your son working in Dubai. And these services CAN be automated.

Cross border micro payment magic is what Bitcoin really enables. If we can get more local providers to bridge the gap between what we have and what we need, it would definitely force the remittance market to evolve.

Great observation! One has to pass 12th exam before passing graduation. Likewise, if Bitcoin wishes to be global currency then, first it needs to be acceptable standard form payment system worldwide which is boosted by "low remittance cost" and "virtual gold" punch. Once status achieved, it would help "countries with vested interested/parasite countries" inject Bitcoin into host country easily.

Everytime when people talk about remittance through bitcoin I feel funny,
The reason is: why even bother to remit in bitcoin and convert back and forth with some other currency.

If BTC becomes well accepted currency, we will have only one global currency!
Everything from cup of coffee, salries to private jets could be denominated in BTC, so no funny business of back and forth conversions.

it just doesn't make sense to keep converting back and forth given the ease of handling BTC vs other currencies, except for few situations like people stuck on forest/hill with no electricity and internet they are going to prefer paper currencies (even they can have printed BTC bills)!

$---->BTC----INR and all those associated cost are just negligible.

Forget all those and concentrate on what effects large scale remittance through Bitcoin will have on countries international purchasing power. How much would Bitcoin actually cost us and what will be aftermath of large demand etc etc.

I am still unclear
Even in this process, there will be two steps
1. $ -> BTC
2. BTC -> INR

Both of these would have an spread involved. Wouldn't we end up losing more?

you still have doubt ? 

Remittance through Bitcoin- a Silly one liner? Hallelujah!

Well, I'll wait for promised argument on "silly one liner" from you. As far as other's are concern they're dead meat on subject. I've read their discussion thread carefully, they know nothing more than "how to get advantage of current situation" by business activity.


I'm quite aware of your activity. Don't forget past.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to know more than member here. But, I claim to have different point of view which community has been stubbornly reluctant to explore because of obvious reason--conflict of interest.

Those who have confidence over their learning will obviously reply. You had, you replied. I mean, will reply with argument.

Peace!

I have always been over involved with the community in different ways.  I do not plan to list them out over here either. I am not the only person here, there are several others and I do not need to be the first person to answer when you call for a debate. In fact, there is really no reason for me to be involved in discussions that I cannot or may not want to contribute to. I would rather not post silly one liners and drag people to waste time, when there are several other good people around with sound and valid opinions, far better than mine.

This forum account was registered around that time, but I have been around Bitcoin for a lot longer and have done a lot more than you may need to be aware of.

I am currently working on one of the coolest builds that I have had the privilege to work on and that takes out roughly 18 - 20 hours of my day. I see it as a large entry point into Bitcoin for a wider audience than any others.

So, do try to engage with everyone in these threads rather than just me.

"Odd reason" will be discovered after sometime. Hopefully, if someday we bump into each other. And next, non-personal reason is, you 'seem' to have understanding of Bitcoin. Not just protocol, but its application with evolution and future which includes every other field it touches--philosophy, economics, international economy, politics, international affairs, strategy, common psychology and most important vision. Can't you see where have you indulged yourself(financial renaissance)? Dude, how can you underestimate this ongoing movement?

You're early adaptor.Understand your responsibility and embrace/indulge yourself for debates to reach collective decision for societies good rather than maintain you brand, be actual leader. Don't be afraid to unleash your potential!

And, I was wrong(like always as you claim me)about your command over other field except technology which makes you just another developer. Nothing else! Therefore, I tried dragging into some serious discussion which you're/others were always reluctant to indulge. There are few other early adaptor, but I don't think anyone has come-up with more than a business plan to bake their bread. How long you've been into Bitcoin? September, 2012. What interesting article/thought/musing/rambling you've published so far? Seems like you've stopped learning beyond protocol.
 
I'm not villian  as everyone thinks and believe here because of my asshole attitude. Wish someone could see beyond shallow words. I'm active to monitor here and catalyse everything. I've much more important things to do rather than Bitcoinforum.org. Trust me!

Hope, you received your answer. Any more queries?

The idea only works if you can SPEND Bitcoins in daily life without converting to fiat first.

Lets say I want to transmit $100k from abroad to someone in India.
What I will have to do first if to convert my $100k fiat into Bitcoin through some exchange - conversion fees here.
Then I send my BTC to receiver who again has to convert them to fiat to use it. He again uses an exchange - conversion fees here.

So even if we're not losing any fees for BTC transaction, we're losing fees to exchanges.
This scenario can change in future if we can spend Bitcoins in daily life, omitting the cost of conversions.

Ah! Lol! Just seemed strange that he pulled you into this one, and was surprised to see your response too here

Am not sure of this as well, but he drags me all over his threads for some odd reason.
Hence, I tend to stay away from things like this.

Is there some kind of cold war going on here? Seems that way

I do not follow the india board too much, so not really sure if this is some offshoot of some previous cold war! 

Take all time you need to find facts and back-up your argument with appropriate warrants, facts and figures rather than rhetoric.

Yes, Sure.

Micky,

Thank you for pain of writing! I enjoyed listening your opinion. I'd prefer to wait for some time before commenting in order to have better idea about opinion of community on this. I'm exicted to see, how do they defend their argument? After all they've taken responsibility of "Bringing Bitcoin to India" and I'm sure they'd have done deeper research and analysis before coming up with huge self-proclaimed responsibility.

Let's wait for their argument and understand it before proposing counterview that, Bitcoin is much worse remittance solution then existing one.

Let me add my point to start off.

What you say is absolutely true, it can be used as a remittance medium because of cost and fairly quick transfer. Again, this was what BTC was intended for.
 
My only issue with this is that, will this drive BTC adoption? Here we send BTC to someone in Delhi from Bangalore, what happens? The money transfer is immediate and the user can see the blockchain and confirm receipt. What does the person is Delhi do then? HE CONVERTS THE BTC TO RUPEES!

That defeats the whole purpose of the transfer. For conversion he visits LB for example, and ends up selling the BTC for a lower price  than market price because the buyer is charged a TX fee! So there goes your argument of zero remittance

Next, in case he decides to keep the BTC for a few days and fails to convert to rupees immediately, BTC is very volatile as we all know.

He decides to pay his school fee with the BTC sent, yesterday it was worth 10K and that is the school fee. Today is worth 8K due to the volatility! He fails to pay his school fee!

I hope you understand what i am getting at! A long post, but worth it in my opinion!

I'll come up with first argument on your behalf guys.

Good Morning teacher and everyone! I'm student of 7th D and today I'll be speaking in favour of "Remittance through Bitcoin". India is world's largest remitter who remitted approximately $70 billion dollar in 2013. Usually, these transfer are done by Western Union, Moneygram and other financial service provider which charges customer with 1-5% transaction fees. I think, this is not fair as we're living in technology era where money transmission is much easier then every before. Therefore, I wish that Bitcoin should be used as remittance medium because of its almost zero remittance cost.

Thank you!

*Public Claps*