alt Hacker NewsWhat utterly horrendous payment solutions are you using that have more friction than crypto?
The ones I use are several orders of magnitude less friction and most are 100% free. The ones that do have a cost (for recipients outside Scandinavia basically) are still way, waay cheaper than crypto transactions.
Replies
abigail95 • today at 8:19 AM
How do you have a payment system that is free? Who pays for the infrastructure?
➕ show 1 reply
Many banks from where I come from (France), will require, for larger payments:
- Print a paper form, fill it by hand, scan it and send it. A human will review it next week and agree (or not).
- If you receive money, you have to prove the origin. If you can't, or if the bank finds it unsatisfactory, they'll freeze it. Often, they'll freeze your account right away. You have little legal recourse.
For the record, I once wanted to buy a car in a foreign EU country. I had the contract, it was from a recognized dealership, etc etc. The bank refused to send it. I had to open a Wise account, wire the money there, and then sent it to the dealership.
Overall banks are nice, most of the time, but can create a lot of problems when you need them, especially now that the EU is having an AML inflation under the US and FATF pressure and everything is managed by AI with no human in the loop.
I understand that you couldn't care less about people who aren't having the exact same life as you, but maybe consider that one day it will change and you'll need a freer transaction infrastructure.
And crypto transactions are almost free nowadays, if you avoid Ethereum and Bitcoin. A transfer on Arbitrum L2 costs 0.002$[0]
[0]: https://arbiscan.io/tx/0x92122f1df5e8811f4d0cbf44f210074f5bb...