You are not even getting rid of that, you are just replacing them with a different set of middlemen in the crypto ecosystem who are demanding substantially higher fees than, say, a Wise does.
Notice that the parent comment didn't use the word replacing.
Wise is even worse than "zero-fee" stock trading platforms like Robin hood who do payment for order flow. At least PFOF is more competitive and regulated and you're only getting a few basis points stolen from you instead of like 80 basis points.
A question though: How do they exchange their crypto into local fiat?
Energy consumption isn't the problem. It's how the energy is generated that is relevant to planetary health, and even then, whose to say the tradeoff isn't worth it. Crypto mining is estimated to take up 3% at most which means 97% is spent on other things. What makes this other 97% more worthy of this energy than crypto mining? The fact you don't see it as valuable?
Also many mining operations take advantage of stranded energy, so energy that would go to waste if not used for on-site mining.
Tether is investing in US Bonds but 10% seem to be Bitcoin.
30% lost in fees??
Can they not manage to open a dollar-backed account somewhere?
Also:
> being stored in a currency that might lose a majority of its value overnight
I for sure put crypto in this same category. “Stablecoin” or not.
Outside the West, the answer is quite often "no". And trying to open an account in the US from outside will run into ID+residency requirements.
If you want to do financial crimes and fraud, you can't (or at least, shouldn't) really do this.
Unspoken by the parent poster is that in practice these people are usually using crypto to break the law in some way, which is why it's valuable to them.
Another way to mitigate this scam is wise revolut etc. But they are also mostly western
Which country will take 30% cut from incoming foreign transaction? The highest combined fees I could find are for Sub-Saharan Africa and those are below 10%, supporting tax/social evasion claim.
Could be completely legal but when folks don't provide details its often safe to assume the worse scenario when it comes to money, taxation and screwing the government.
I basically have one such job, living in a stable but bottom of the table EU economy, and 40% is exactly the ballpark.
People love to rationalize tax evasion like that.
It's harder, if not impossible, if you've been got the wrong set of papers, or are missing them.
> this same category. “Stablecoin” or not.
Like it or not, USDC and USDT do seem to actually be stable. They've been pegged to the dollar for a while now, with increased scrutiny.
There are transaction fees so you're still paying someone. And the it's not government taking what you own, it's scammers!