Topic: No choice but to use the unavoidable middle man, the exchange companies. - page 6. (Read 853 times)

Exactly  mate I agree absolutely  with you and no matter how we paint it, the middle men which are the exchanges are in one way or the other inevitable and I've always seen several threads preaching against exchanges and after closer observations, I noticed that what they reay preach against is storing on those exchanges and not trading on them.
Over the years, exchanges have made transacting with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general much more easier and even more secure through their escrow services and at the end, crypto is traded for fiat in cases where bitcoin  isn't accepted and one of the safest way to do this is through P2P on exchanges.

Well whatever the case be, I think the exchanges are inevitable except in cases where the transaction  is to be made directly in cryptocurrency or bitcoin  as the preference maybe.

That is true, but we actually have the option not to go through them, unlike the fiat currency that It really should go through them when you transfer a money from a far away place or overseas (plus a conversion fee which most likely gonna cost you per hundred dollar?).
What we are paying with an exchange like Binance is the convenience and safety, while we pay the middle man when we transact fiat currency to deliver them to the other person. That's really a huge difference, especially when you're transacting with a family member using bitcoin, it absolutely does not need to go through an exchange, you can directly send it p2p using your non custodial wallet or hard wallets. Unlike fiat, there's no other way to transfer them without going through a remittance center or a bank.
Therefor, in crypto you have the choice to avoid the middle man, while in fiat, there's no way you can avoid them.

You can use smart contract escrow as middle man so that you will not rely on a centralized service to intermediate on your transactions. As you mention, trust is the issue why a real P2P will not gonna work especially on a person that you didn’t know. P2P is only possible if you will send Bitcoin to a person that you knew personally.

In terms of fee, Exchange is not bad at all. Assuming without the risk of them running away, I think their fee decent for a platform that let you transact with other user funds without the risk of being scam. Crypto exchange is much more better than the traditional broker that has a cut-off time and huge fees.

Well, trust is difficult to earn. And it's often advised not to give it to anybody. We don't easily trust. But does an exchange offer a solution to this? From a certain viewpoint, it actually is making it more problematic. It adds another layer of trust. Not only are we required to trust the person we're trading with, we're now also required to trust the exchange itself. So far, it is proven with sufficient evidence that exchanges cannot be trusted however huge they are.

I don't know where you get the idea of middle men or in this case, exchanges not being eliminated but all that is possible. There are just few reasons that might have made this difficult at the time and two of those are;

1. The time frame it takes for transactions to be sent and confirmed on the blockchain,
2. The issuebof trust between merchant and customers.

These are some basic factors that contributes to the delay in the system being any perfect or close to perfection.

Still, most of these works with bitcoin as altcoins haven't got much adoption as bitcoin and it's chain isn't as congested hence, the confirmation on them is easy buy still not a best choice. Your always better with bitcoin and should you he able to find a merchant to do a direct p2p way, your good otherwise,  the services of escrow is what you've got to ensure some trust and credibility.

I feel like this isn't as bad as people make it out to be. First of all I could definitely do p2p if I want to, secondly the most important part is that you do not need exchanges when you are transacting with each other as well. Lets say that you are selling some apples, I pay you bitcoin and you give me apples and we go our separate ways, there was nobody in the middle. But if we are using fiat, in that case if we are doing credit card then there is tax and also banks that get a share, if we are using cash, we can still pay taxes, so in the end there is always a risk of someone else being in the middle, any credit card payment (which is almost all payments) go through banks, we rarely do not use banks, but with crypto we can at least not use middleman during transactions between each other.

The difference is that now you have a choice, with the fiat system this is not the case with the exception of cash, which also allows peer to peer payments, but with the huge problem that now you can only buy the products you want from a place close to you, bitcoin allows you to have the same advantages of cash but all over the world, now if you do not feel safe using bitcoin in this manner you can use exchanges or other third parties if you want, but make no mistake, this was your choice and no one else.

Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies help us to engage in direct transactions without the need for an intermediary, but large exchanges exist and profit by acting as this unavoidable middleman. Why then is it thus?

Using exchanges adds a layer of convenience, and there are hazards with P2P, but wasn't Bitcoin designed to eliminate the middleman? You assert that you cannot eliminate the middleman, but isn't that the purpose of cryptography? However, major players such as Binance are already profiting. I prefer straightforward transactions, but the exchanges are aggressive, as if they own the place.

However, why not be straightforward? Why not use money in the typical way? However, there are costs involved. Isn't everything circular and pointless?

No, I really don't think they have come to stay because this is still early days for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technology. By the time Bitcoin has really dominated across a whole lot of countries in the world, and if by then a great deal of people in the world are using Bitcoin, then you can even easily sell or buy Bitcoin on the street. You know that fiat currencies have really been in existence for quite a long time now compared to Bitcoin that is just 14 years, so by the time Bitcoin has been around for a very long time too and has been adopted by many people, it will be easy, and most of the exchanges you are talking about will even go out of business because people will not really be dependent on them unless for just future trading and other sorts of trading features. Even by then, there might also have been a real P2P DEX where there would be great liquidity and every transaction would go smoothly.


Now, you can easily meet someone and ask the person, "Please, do you have some cash at hand? Let me just do a bank transfer to you and get the cash." So, if by the time Bitcoin dominance also becomes fully known and utilized, it will really be like you can just ask your friend to give you some fiat while you just send them Bitcoin as payment. It's just an opinion.

Its a matter of choice on which one you would really be making use of on which its true that due to some features on which these platforms been offering then we cant really be able to resist on using them and example of this one is on having that kind of function that you could be able to file up some dispute if ever the other party didnt able to process out the money which you had already done your part but the other side
didnt take such act or simply scam you.

Also, these third party isnt really that charging any fees or reduction when it comes to p2p transactions unless if you do make out some trades inside the platform then expect that there would be fees but
basing up on real experience which p2p would remain p2p and having no deductions. Whether we do like it or not to say on which using up these platforms do really give out that kind of convenience and
assurance on who would really be gonna dealing up. You could always check about other persons reputation if you are tending on selling or buying your coin on which you could be able to see
if its reputable or something new which you should be careful. You could really be able to distinguish in between.

In cryptocurrency, we have many ways to safely resist ay third party influence in what we do as long as we have the knowledge on how to go about it, bitcoin is not what we can just assume to be thesame as the way we treat other cryptocurrencies which are centralized, using bitcoin privately begin with the kind of wallet we use, many people will create a crypto account and take that as wallet from the exchanges they use, while some will rely on other people in helping them through what they would have learnt to know by themselves.

I believe that most business owners will prefer to transact money transfers with their customers directly without using an exchange, that will be a third party, and you'll have to pay this third party or middle man money for his services, whether you like it or not. I also believe that nothing beats transacting money directly with your clients or customers, no third party whatsoever. One of the reasons why I like bitcoin is that it's decentralized, and you can do a P2P transaction with another bitcoin holder without any exchange being involved. But for convenience, transparency and scams that are associated with P2P, you don't have much choice but to patronize the services of these exchanges.

You can not eliminate the middle man in businesses, especially in this digital age, be it fiat or cryptocurrencies, because they have come to stay. Big exchanges like Binance, are cashing in on being the middle man in businesses, an unavoidable indirect business associates, in your face, waiting for you to go through them.