This is a clear indicator that you aren't at all familiar with the payments industry, and probably not familiar with Bitcoin either. There is no extant fiat payment system that settles in 1 second. You are the "Casual user" I was talking about who doesn't know how e.g. credit cards work behind the scenes.
If you want any semblance of payment finality in a fiat system, it's going to take days to months. Bitcoin is ~10 minutes on chain, <1s on Lightning.
> Security - Money guaranteed by banks and governments vs do your own security or trust a dodgy exchange
"Guaranteed" is pulling a lot of weight here. What, exactly, do you think "guaranteed" means?
> Private transactions vs public ledger
"Private" transaction visible to any government agency, the bank's data/ad partners, in any of the abundantly available financial data leaks, vs a public ledger with strong pseudonymity or a totally opaque mesh network on Lightning.
> Trust - counter-parties from merchants to banks are known and have a stake in the system
I trust asymmetric key crypto more than I trust HSBC.
> Fees - free instant transfers vs $1-2 per tx
Fiat transfers are neither 'free' nor 'instant', in any meaningful capacity. Do some research on e.g. credit card settlement cycles. "Months" is more accurate. Credit card (along with most other widely used fiat payment gateways) charge usually something like 25 cents + 2.5%. Bitcoin is (on-chain) a few cents + 0%. Lightning is something like 0.01 cents + 0%.
It only looks cheaper because the details of what's actually going on have been (intentionally, for marketing purposes) hidden from casual users.
> The speed you decry as fictitious is there because of trusted counterparties and is very real.
Again, look up how payment settlement cycles work. You are the type of person I was describing who believes in the fiction. I don't blame you; unless you are a "power user" of the fiat system or have done a lot of research, it's not clear why you would notice.
I transferred money for free in less than 1 second today using ‘legacy’ payments.
The currency I used to do so also didn’t decline or rise in value by 5% in a day, which would have been awkward.
It doesn’t matter to me if banks exchange csv files at midnight to settle that, or what other archaic processes they use, because the verified identities and trust allow that to seamlessly happen behind the scenes without involving customers. The end user experience is all that matters here.
Seems strange to trust your assets with a centralized entity, one of which that can turn you away for any reason when accessing your funds, that charges you for withdrawing at a different bank’s ATM. Further, an asset that has been insanely inflated over the past decade and suddenly raised in value by a central government through mandated interest rate hikes. Yikes!
I use gold, my gold is always worth the same amount of gold. No dumb fluctuation and I have no problem in finding people who will take it. One second to transact? My handing the gold to anyone I choose is instantaneous and can be done in private. Gold solves all these problems, anyone not using it must be naive.
> I transferred money for free in less than 1 second today using ‘legacy’ payments.
As I've already explained multiple times, it's neither meaningfully free nor instant. If you didn't understand that when I explained it in the last post, I'm not sure how I can make it more clear.
As I explained already, it's free and instant to me, that's what people actually care about.
But I think you're also wrong about:
The cost - it really is free, there are no hidden charges on the bank account or for any party involved.
The transaction time - it really is settled that quickly between banks in the UK at least with faster payments. It leave my account and appears in the other one within seconds, sometimes within 1 second.
> There is no extant fiat payment system that settles in 1 second.
In Europe all banks now offer instant wire transfers. (A regulation pushed by the European Commission to counter VISA…)
It’s still often not free (0.75 euros at my bank I think), when 24h/48h wire transfers most often are, but I think I read the goal is for instant wire transfers to eventually be free (by regulation)
It’s really instant! Across any European (IBAN) account.
There’s also a growing use of a standardized QR code for IBAN account numbers, making the scan and instant transfer UX at least possible (but I never saw anyone do that yet)
This is a clear indicator that you aren't at all familiar with the payments industry, and probably not familiar with Bitcoin either. There is no extant fiat payment system that settles in 1 second. You are the "Casual user" I was talking about who doesn't know how e.g. credit cards work behind the scenes.
If you want any semblance of payment finality in a fiat system, it's going to take days to months. Bitcoin is ~10 minutes on chain, <1s on Lightning.
> Security - Money guaranteed by banks and governments vs do your own security or trust a dodgy exchange
"Guaranteed" is pulling a lot of weight here. What, exactly, do you think "guaranteed" means?
> Private transactions vs public ledger
"Private" transaction visible to any government agency, the bank's data/ad partners, in any of the abundantly available financial data leaks, vs a public ledger with strong pseudonymity or a totally opaque mesh network on Lightning.
> Trust - counter-parties from merchants to banks are known and have a stake in the system
I trust asymmetric key crypto more than I trust HSBC.
> Fees - free instant transfers vs $1-2 per tx
Fiat transfers are neither 'free' nor 'instant', in any meaningful capacity. Do some research on e.g. credit card settlement cycles. "Months" is more accurate. Credit card (along with most other widely used fiat payment gateways) charge usually something like 25 cents + 2.5%. Bitcoin is (on-chain) a few cents + 0%. Lightning is something like 0.01 cents + 0%.
It only looks cheaper because the details of what's actually going on have been (intentionally, for marketing purposes) hidden from casual users.
> The speed you decry as fictitious is there because of trusted counterparties and is very real.
Again, look up how payment settlement cycles work. You are the type of person I was describing who believes in the fiction. I don't blame you; unless you are a "power user" of the fiat system or have done a lot of research, it's not clear why you would notice.