Santander trying to steal £14,200 from me

The_pc_tech

I think the OP would probably get a better rate of return on the stock market than with bitcoins.

innovate

I would agree, and I can think of a number of other jobs / occupations that make a lot more than £14,200 a year (which seems to be roughly what the OP made since he stopped getting benefits about a year ago. If he stopped getting benefits).

Azelphur wrote: »

As a result of this, Santander has said that they are taking every penny I own, to the sum of £14,200 .

opinions4u

Azelphur wrote: »

in other words business bankers are a sensible bunch.

As somebody who spent many years working for HBOS, I think you've made something of a sweeping statement there.

The_pc_tech

Only caveat I would add about the stock market is it needs to be viewed as a long term investment and don't put in more than you can afford to lose.

Interestingly I was looking at that bitcoin 'mining' hardware mentioned earlier.

Interestingly the company won't divulge the power consumption for it so I'd be wary of connecting one to a domestic supply in much the same way as I'd be concerned about connecting a high end server, switch or router as these tend to have ratings of a 1000w plus when running at full load and you might well have the cops knocking on your door to find out what you are doing.

UsernameAlreadyExists

@JuicyJesus, you are being far too dismissive, far too early.

I work for a Payment Service Provider and we are now looking at opportunities to enter this arena. It's not going to go away, whether you like it or not. I personally think BTC will come into it's own as a transfer currency and as such it's intrinsic value doesn't actually matter. You can convert £1000GBP into either 0.0001 or 1000.0 BTC, it really doesn't matter, because when you convert it back to, for example USD, it's value will be the same. However you won't get charged by the banks for currency conversion, you'll be charged (and probably a whole lot less) by the payment providers.

The_pc_tech

Trouble is the OP's bank doesn't think the same for the moment at least.

Gromitt

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

I work for a Payment Service Provider and we are now looking at opportunities to enter this arena.

So you mean someone gives you £5000 to transfer to client X who is in country Y.

You convert 5K into BC, transfer to the clients payment provider, who converts it to currency Z and transfers to client X.

It seems daft to use BC unless you are going to go cross-currency.

So the winners will be the payment providers? Ie, changing the BC into a usable currency?

UsernameAlreadyExists

Gromitt wrote: »

So the winners will be the payment providers? Ie, changing the BC into a usable currency?

... and the losers will be the banks, unless they reduce their conversion rates. Competition in business is always good for the end user as it brings the prices down.

If you hold BTC already, then as has been pointed out, you can pay on some sites already that will immediately cash out to native currency for the merchant. What's missing is the immediate "cash in" option for the buyer. It may prove cheaper for them to do this than suffer the bank exchange rates. How is this a bad thing?

jonesMUFCforever

.......because to me it looks like a Ponzi scheme backed by nothing by someone or somebody who is accountable to no-one.

Gromitt

UsernameAlreadyExists wrote: »

What's missing is the immediate "cash in" option for the buyer. It may prove cheaper for them to do this than suffer the bank exchange rates. How is this a bad thing?

I think that for most people the difference between paying a little extra and setting up the system, creating a wallet, securing and backing up the data, etc, a lot of people will just pay the extra rather than have the hassle. However, a payment provider doing all the BC stuff for you and charging a small amount for the effort may make it more practical for the end user.