Hey Ninja, just on this bit;
"The network that is bitcoin, and the wide ranging implications on finance, are the really important thing here. For example I attended a meetup in the weekend of very intelligent bitcoin thinkers, at the forefront of this in NZ, and the price action and investment side of it was not mentioned once in 4-5 hours."
It has no implications on "finance". You may be meeting with "very intelligent bitcoin thinkers", but these people are not at the forefront of the financial industry in New Zealand. Bitcoin is not even a passing thought amongst the key decision makers in the financial industry in New Zealand, and globally. And if it is, it's in a negative light."
I don't agree with this. Bitcoin is certainly having implications and is being taken very seriously. The scrambling from the European Central Bank and the Bank for International Settlements shows that there is panic behind the scenes, they know how disruptive this is.
An obvious implication is the remittance industry. When you have something like Strike, where someone can remit money to their relatives in another country with fees close to zero, and near-instantly, then you have real alarm bells for Western Union and the likes, who charge between 30% and 50% for that same service, which takes days.
That is an amazing use case which would directly benefit millions, if not billions, of people, and they are mostly the poorer people of our world who need something like this the most.
This is happening right now. Strike are rolling out to countries who need this, one by one. This kind of service, enabled by bitcoin, brings instant benefit to some of the poorer people of the world.
The way it works means it is immune to the price volatility that bitcoin is experiencing in its early adoption phase. Strike is set up so that you can interface in your own currency, not bitcoin, if you like. So someone sending money back to their relatives in another country can select to send back $100, and the receiver gets $100 in their app at the other end, less the fee, which is very minimal. What they didn't see happening behind the scenes was that the $100 was converted to bitcoin, sent to the other country as bitcoin, then converted into the local currency and loaded to the receiver's account, all in a matter of a second or so.
This is not possible with any fiat currency. Through Western Union etc it takes days, the fees are astronomical, and at both ends the people have to physically go to offices and line up to send/receive.
This use case is playing out right now in the countries it has been rolled out to. It would be of huge benefit in this area of the world, for sending money back to the Pacific Islands. Tonga has the largest total percentage of income from overseas remittances of any country in the world, hence why Lord Fusitua is attempting to get bitcoin made legal tender in Tongan parliament later this year.
This is a major use case happening before our very eyes, keep an eye on that one...
"The network that is bitcoin, and the wide ranging implications on finance, are the really important thing here. For example I attended a meetup in the weekend of very intelligent bitcoin thinkers, at the forefront of this in NZ, and the price action and investment side of it was not mentioned once in 4-5 hours."
It has no implications on "finance". You may be meeting with "very intelligent bitcoin thinkers", but these people are not at the forefront of the financial industry in New Zealand. Bitcoin is not even a passing thought amongst the key decision makers in the financial industry in New Zealand, and globally. And if it is, it's in a negative light."
I don't agree with this. Bitcoin is certainly having implications and is being taken very seriously. The scrambling from the European Central Bank and the Bank for International Settlements shows that there is panic behind the scenes, they know how disruptive this is.
An obvious implication is the remittance industry. When you have something like Strike, where someone can remit money to their relatives in another country with fees close to zero, and near-instantly, then you have real alarm bells for Western Union and the likes, who charge between 30% and 50% for that same service, which takes days.
That is an amazing use case which would directly benefit millions, if not billions, of people, and they are mostly the poorer people of our world who need something like this the most.
This is happening right now. Strike are rolling out to countries who need this, one by one. This kind of service, enabled by bitcoin, brings instant benefit to some of the poorer people of the world.
The way it works means it is immune to the price volatility that bitcoin is experiencing in its early adoption phase. Strike is set up so that you can interface in your own currency, not bitcoin, if you like. So someone sending money back to their relatives in another country can select to send back $100, and the receiver gets $100 in their app at the other end, less the fee, which is very minimal. What they didn't see happening behind the scenes was that the $100 was converted to bitcoin, sent to the other country as bitcoin, then converted into the local currency and loaded to the receiver's account, all in a matter of a second or so.
This is not possible with any fiat currency. Through Western Union etc it takes days, the fees are astronomical, and at both ends the people have to physically go to offices and line up to send/receive.
This use case is playing out right now in the countries it has been rolled out to. It would be of huge benefit in this area of the world, for sending money back to the Pacific Islands. Tonga has the largest total percentage of income from overseas remittances of any country in the world, hence why Lord Fusitua is attempting to get bitcoin made legal tender in Tongan parliament later this year.
This is a major use case happening before our very eyes, keep an eye on that one...