Using Revolut in Switzerland

Why would I need to go through Crypto? I get most bills in francs and pay most bills in francs, some in dollars, same, some in pounds etc.

Unless you bring back fixed exchange rates, it would only exacerbate the situation.

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Unparalleled security, convenience and efficiency

I don’t agree.

Paying a bill in USD means buying dollars at the buying rate and transferring the money,

Using crypto I have to buy it at the buying rate and transfer it. The recipient then has sell it at the selling rate. How is this better?

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From the technical perspective, apparently yes. From the people perspective (organisation, audits, checks and balances), not there yet.

That’s the reason I linked to the FT article about Revolut, still in their rebellious teenager phase.

Crypto is more or less the same phase. Wanna be mainstream? Grow up. Want to stay free and no one tells me what to do…stay in the sidelines.

People don’t matter unless they have your keys. And they shuld not

Let the market decide. The funniest part is that not even crypto enthusiasts use it as currency. So far, it’s investment and hold, hold, hold.

The current system works. How the payments are made is of little concern. Payments are only a tool to get things done, not an objective by itself. So, let people do the research and trial&error. If something useful comes up in the end, learn it then.

When I’m on the screen to initiate transfer, below the amount there’s a small print (i)excl. xxxx fee clicking on the (i) brings the fee breakdown which explicitly lists international payment fee, where its explanation is
International payment fee applies when you send transfers abroad or when you send currencies other than your home currency
So thanks for the ripoff. The biggest grief about it I have is that it’s a % fee, not a small fixed fee like in Wise. I wouldn’t even cry about fees from intermediaries as these are on the level of ~10 chf total, but somehow Wise manages to avoid them.

Most people are long crypto and hold because the tokenomics is clear and advantageous. less people are conscious of the safety advantages of crypto and don’t self custody their keys.
As for payments, the obstacle here is the established financial and payment system and their lobbying to preserve their (obsolete) role. Its gatekeeping innovation and it wont last

There’s many flaws in fiat currency, but hardly ever people resort to real-value items such as precious metals. Why would a crypto-scam (another numbers which doesn’t have any physical value) be able to replace fiat currency? IMO, crypto is nothing but a short-burst speculative bubble. Many people will loose a lot again and again. Maybe some day crypto will get regulated on par to casino etc to bring the awareness and protect native people who got scammed that “it’s the new better form of money”

What’s obsolete are the archaic banking exchange protocols which can and should be swapped with plain blockchain

I see tremendous value in an asset class that cannot be seized by the establishment, misappropriated or stolen by intermediaries.

This I’m not so sure. Let’s say a gov declare person x as a criminal with assets confiscated. You can skip the fact and buy the seized crypto, much like you can buy anything from an illegal market, but you’ll be traced in the ledger (unlike buying physical goods from black market). I know that at the beginning of crypto transactions were anonymous, but AFAIK that’s long gone

I suggest you get familiar with the “prelievo forzoso” mandated by Italian goverment on the night of 10/7/1992. The government basically grabbed money overnight from bank accounts.
I am shocked how people still trust banks and fiat (and Italy actually).

The upside is that crypto is extremely attractive precisely because it cannot be seized by the “establishment”. The downside is that it is extremely attractive to anyone around the world, including the wrong people. As soon as the amounts get interesting, good old kidnapping and torture successfully bypass any encryption.

I don’t see how holding something attractive to the wrong people is safe.

When the government knows how much you have, holding on something they tell you to part with doesn’t lead you anywhere, perhaps only fleeing the country or going to jail eventually? You’d have to build somehow the crypto wealth below the radar, perhaps from dodgy activities to build significantly enough, but then you’d have the problem that it’s worthless if you can’t use it because as soon as you’d covert it to fiat the police would knock on your door. Would you “burn” your good money to hide it from gov and “protect” it against the gov with the only option to exercise the shady money in some 3rd country state? Sounds riddiculous to me

There’s a huge difference between a government sending you a bill and instructing banks to grab your money overnight.

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0.6% where people pay 1% every year in Switzerland :rofl: besides that was a really smart move compared to other countries which did nothing in such crisis letting hyperinflation ton unwind and destroy the economy for years

I see you didn’t have wealth tax in Italy, so I understand that it was unfair targeting only currency deposits, not wealth, where rich people never let money sit idle on an account…

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only if you self-host crypto and don’t declare it.

I have £0.01 in my Revolut account and so cannot close it. It’s been like that for years now…

Keeping mouth shut is a safety strategy a lot of people have failed to implement. The “government” is not the scariest monster out there:

Stealing cryptocurrency is almost as old as cryptocurrency itself, but it’s usually done by hacking. North Korean state hackers alone are believed to have stolen billions of dollars’ worth of crypto in recent years.

In response to the threat of hacking, holders of a large amount of crypto often try and keep their private keys off the internet and stored in what are called “cold wallets.” Used properly, such wallets can defeat even the most sophisticated and determined hackers.

But they can’t defeat thieves who force a victim to give up their password to access their wallets and move money.

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Yeah, now when you’ve highlighted that I must admit I don’t know of any easier target. If the kidnapped has only fiat currency spread around regulated institutions it’s hard to harvest it as a sudden unusual move will trigger alarm at the custody. Crypto, just get the digital access and nobody can stop the theft

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