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666 points jcartw | 396 comments | | HN request time: 1.485s | source | bottom
1. SwiftyBug ◴[] No.43620583[source]
I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use.

Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be amazed by how fast money arrives in my Brazilian account when I make a withdrawal directly from my EUR wallet on Wise. I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic.

And it's so widespread that nowadays I don't even question whether someone accepts Pix. When I get in a taxi, no matter how old the driver is, it's certain that they take (and prefer) Pix.

I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

replies(32): >>43620618 #>>43620630 #>>43620653 #>>43620658 #>>43620741 #>>43620818 #>>43620824 #>>43620883 #>>43620954 #>>43621164 #>>43621188 #>>43621341 #>>43621460 #>>43621833 #>>43621851 #>>43622093 #>>43622233 #>>43622479 #>>43622501 #>>43622627 #>>43622888 #>>43623111 #>>43623692 #>>43624345 #>>43624424 #>>43624538 #>>43626843 #>>43627268 #>>43627624 #>>43628278 #>>43629343 #>>43630864 #
2. mhluongo ◴[] No.43620618[source]
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Does it work internationally? Does it send USD as well, or only the real?

If it solves th same problems, why is Brazil considering banning self-custodial USD stablecoins? And why has there been an ongoing discussion about launching mBRL, and stablecoin pegged to the real?

https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2024/brazil-considers-...

replies(4): >>43620684 #>>43620701 #>>43620946 #>>43622540 #
3. oulipo ◴[] No.43620630[source]
Interestig, but this is also worrying to know that the government now knows exactly what you bought, where, when, and for how much. They can also (if there's a rogue government) create fake transactions to implicate you in things you haven't done
replies(11): >>43620691 #>>43620700 #>>43620706 #>>43620723 #>>43620728 #>>43620740 #>>43620749 #>>43620795 #>>43620993 #>>43621190 #>>43622164 #
4. yetihehe ◴[] No.43620653[source]
> I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic.

After I had to add a special animation for one email system so that user was sure that "the core functionality of encrypting" was indeed working (it took milliseconds in reality), your experience doesn't surprise me that much. But, in my "IoT" system we have a mix of devices. Our service can handle most requests in sub millisecond, but some devices (gprs) need at least minimum 1 second (20sec is still within time limit) to respond only because of slow connectivity. And then I have a parking ticket machines where you press button, wait 2 seconds, it beeps, then after 2sec it changes screen to "printing ticket", then after 2s you get the ticket, where everything can be a local action (free ticket without payment). Technology is wild.

replies(3): >>43620821 #>>43621654 #>>43631265 #
5. m00dy ◴[] No.43620658[source]
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Pix can't facilitate cross-border micro payments.

replies(4): >>43620699 #>>43620730 #>>43620733 #>>43620817 #
6. londons_explore ◴[] No.43620684[source]
Nearly every non-western country has it's own e-cash type system.

Everything from m-pesa in Kenya to Gcash in the Philippines to PromptPay in Thailand to Alipay in China to SGQR in Singapore to MPay in Oman....

The pattern is that these systems are nearly all fully centralised, require ID, zero privacy, usually government sanctioned, and not cross border.

replies(2): >>43620767 #>>43624238 #
7. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.43620691[source]
Any half competent government can always create fake transactions to implicate people, whether it’s a paper or electronic (government currency) transaction.
replies(1): >>43620790 #
8. diggan ◴[] No.43620699[source]
> Pix can't facilitate cross-border micro payments.

No reason it couldn't. Bizum (mobile payments in Spain) started with just Spain but can now be used for payments across & to/from Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Andorra.

Bizum is also a member of European Mobile Payment Systems Association which I think will eventually lead to all members being able to make transfers to other members, but that might a somewhat dream rather than actual reality today.

replies(3): >>43620734 #>>43620770 #>>43632787 #
9. julkali ◴[] No.43620700[source]
That's why central bank digital currencies are the way to go - same amount of trust as the (real) base currency and near-cash-level privacy (modulo implementation details)
10. jowea ◴[] No.43620701[source]
Only real afaik, although there have been some thoughts to integrating some neighbours to the system. Right afaik it works in shops popular with Brazilian tourists in the Southern Cone through some workarounds.
11. forty ◴[] No.43620706[source]
Is it much more worrying than having Visa being able to do that? Especially when you see how the US is going downhill, I think it'd rather take the risk of having to deal with hypothetical local fascist state.
replies(4): >>43620772 #>>43621494 #>>43626122 #>>43629885 #
12. Wilder7977 ◴[] No.43620723[source]
There is virtually no difference with a private entity which can be compelled by the government to do the same, plus has its own profit motive which could also create incentive to do it.

There must be a non-repudiation and integrity check to verify transactions (e.g., in Estonia I sign digitally all my transactions), so the latter problem is easier to mitigate.

replies(1): >>43629890 #
13. simgt ◴[] No.43620728[source]
> this is also worrying to know that the government now knows exactly what you bought, where, when, and for how much

As a citizen of a still kind-of-functioning democracy, I'd happily make the trade if that means Apple, Google, Visa or Mastercard don't have the information anymore.

replies(2): >>43620803 #>>43621034 #
14. pjc50 ◴[] No.43620730[source]
Brazil used to have capital controls. It seems like it doesn't any more and is aiming for full convertibility: https://www.ibanet.org/The-new-Brazilian-foreign-exchange-an... , but it's worth thinking about in these systems.
15. Etheryte ◴[] No.43620733[source]
A more apt description would be it doesn't currently do it, there is no technical limitation. You can send cents across borders just fine with Wise and others without any fuss.
replies(1): >>43620762 #
16. m00dy ◴[] No.43620734{3}[source]
there's a lot of reasons that it won't happen anytime soon. Those countries use euro as their main currency, also culturally and historically connected, which you can call them latins. Why don't you add Denmark to that group ? You can't because it will take ages :)
replies(2): >>43622400 #>>43625062 #
17. pearlsontheroad ◴[] No.43620740[source]
Brazil has an insane level of financial fraud and tax evasion. Pix mitigates some of that, but at the cost of privacy - something that Brazilians do not care too much about.
replies(2): >>43620785 #>>43620861 #
18. TaurenHunter ◴[] No.43620741[source]
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

...except for inflation.

replies(1): >>43621049 #
19. deepsun ◴[] No.43620749[source]
Visa/Mastercard report all of that to governments anyway.
20. m00dy ◴[] No.43620762{3}[source]
it's not about technical expertise but more about being a global power.
21. pjc50 ◴[] No.43620767{3}[source]
And quite a lot of Western ones like Vipps. And see this long list: https://truelayer.com/reports/alternative-payments/european-...

> require ID, zero privacy, usually government sanctioned

Unfortunately systems that don't have those requirements are going to be money laundering channels. I wish it wasn't such a big concern but it's unavoidable.

replies(3): >>43620868 #>>43620920 #>>43621640 #
22. graemep ◴[] No.43620770{3}[source]
All Eurozone countries, all bu one an EU member (and that one is very small has a very close trade deal with the EU) so not really cross border except from a certain legalistic angle.

The practicalities are very different from transferring between say Brazil and the US.

replies(2): >>43620889 #>>43622118 #
23. ryandrake ◴[] No.43620772{3}[source]
There’s pretty much no practical difference between Visa knowing all this stuff and the government knowing it. All Visa’s data is at most one subpoena away and that’s the optimistic scenario.
replies(2): >>43620828 #>>43627208 #
24. ryandrake ◴[] No.43620785{3}[source]
That’s a pretty sweeping generalization about 200M+ people!
replies(4): >>43620812 #>>43620918 #>>43624739 #>>43633768 #
25. soco ◴[] No.43620790{3}[source]
And a government who would resort to creating fake transactions, probably wouldn't bother with creating fake transactions at all. So that argument sounds quite out of touch.
26. guax ◴[] No.43620795[source]
A lot of governments have that ability for electronic transactions. In Brazils case specifically it was implemented as a payment broker between institutions that participate in the SPI (instantaneous payment system) and works pretty much like any other inter bank transfer system. It is also possible to use the system semi-anonymously by using a "non bank" participant that will broker the transaction for you using random keys. Which would mean not even your bank account no gets exposed, because its not used.

As far as I can tell the legal landscape of the solution currently only allow the actual government to look at the data with the standard court orders. I believe not even the 10k report limit is applied to pix atm the same way as the other methods.

Regarding fake transactions, that would be a non concern to me, the system is only centralised in parts, the banks still hold most of the data so they would have to collaborate on this potentially leaving lots of evidence behind. Governments do not need to be subtle to screw you over, see current US deportation news.

Its not that much different than how bank transfers in Europe work in practice. The US is particularly archaic in banking technology available to the public.

27. roenxi ◴[] No.43620803{3}[source]
I don't think you've thought that through - fascists and communists both have more control over the institutions of democracy than they do over those companies. The banking companies generally don't want to be involved in anything ideological except moneymaking.
replies(3): >>43621036 #>>43621592 #>>43622635 #
28. rafaquintanilha ◴[] No.43620812{4}[source]
But it's correct though
29. miltava ◴[] No.43620817[source]
That’s true for the moment, specially because you’d need an agreement between both countries.

But payment processors in Brazil are already offering “international pix”, that Brazilians can use to pay foreign companies. It’s the same experience as pix for the customer but behind the scenes the company deals with the cross border payment.

There are even stores accepting pix in Portugal: https://www.publico.pt/2025/01/23/publico-brasil/noticia/pix...

30. earnesti ◴[] No.43620818[source]
Can you elaborate on the technicals? Is it a phone app? Does it work through QR codes or NFC? Is there a Pix "card"?
replies(8): >>43620840 #>>43620900 #>>43620905 #>>43620909 #>>43620971 #>>43621013 #>>43621107 #>>43622383 #
31. seszett ◴[] No.43620821[source]
The parking ticket machine might make things deliberately slow because the printer needs to warm up or something.

Maybe it needs up to 5 seconds to warm up if it's in deep sleep, so splitting this into three 2s periods provides the least frustrating user experience.

As soon as you need to deal with real hardware things always start to get complicated.

replies(1): >>43620992 #
32. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43620824[source]
>Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

They protect against tracking and provide anonimity. That might be valuable.

replies(4): >>43620842 #>>43620875 #>>43620965 #>>43621272 #
33. kevincox ◴[] No.43620828{4}[source]
Of course there is a difference the other way. With a government run payment system only the government knows it. Not the government and some for-profit corporation.
replies(1): >>43620916 #
34. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43620840[source]
>Can you elaborate on the technicals? Is it a phone app?

Isn't paying with some phone apps the default in China? And I think transferring using phone apps has some success in Africa, too.

replies(1): >>43620986 #
35. salomonk_mur ◴[] No.43620842[source]
For 0.001% of the population.
replies(2): >>43620890 #>>43620935 #
36. guax ◴[] No.43620861{3}[source]
Pix does not substantially changes the tax evasion problem as that is mostly a problem with higher earners and small/medium business who evade tax using cash payment, convoluted setups of companies and "laranjas" (our slang for someone borrowing the name to do something for someone else, the scapegoat) as well as "non cash" transactions.

Pix mostly replaces and eats on credit card transactions that were done for the convenience aspect and no the credit aspect. As well as allow a whole new part of the country to accept electronic payments, and although that would increase tax revenue from business it also substantially increase their revenue since there is no x% from card processors and don't require special rented/bought equipment.

37. earnesti ◴[] No.43620868{4}[source]
>> require ID, zero privacy, usually government sanctioned

> Unfortunately systems that don't have those requirements are going to be money laundering channels. I wish it wasn't such a big concern but it's unavoidable.

There same requirements also make the likelihood of these systems scaling beyong one jurisdiction very unlikely. Tourists don't want to set up a payment account for every country they visit. Or other way around, banks don't want to KYC and set up an account for every foreign tourist.

As Visa and MC work globally, I'm betting that the dominance from those will continue. Cryptocurrencies might have some change of becoming the "global" transaction method as well.

replies(4): >>43620911 #>>43620944 #>>43622371 #>>43634777 #
38. ◴[] No.43620875[source]
39. Guestmodinfo ◴[] No.43620883[source]
I wish we could make a comparison with Indian payment system calld UPI. I feel both are similar and I wish if we could know and compre all such govt run initiatives. UPI is Indian govt initiative and very reliable
replies(2): >>43623193 #>>43624944 #
40. Y_Y ◴[] No.43620889{4}[source]
> so not really cross border except from a certain legalistic angle

Is this a joke? Of course it's cross-border, it crosses international borders. It works because the countries involved put in the work to make it easy. The fact that you can't use Pix in the US has no bearing.

replies(1): >>43621170 #
41. Klaster_1 ◴[] No.43620890{3}[source]
To be fair, you don't know when you might need this. Crypto's useful in authoritarian countries as a means of financing activities the dictator doesn't want you to partake in, like independent media funding, or to move savings to another country in case of a "sudden" foreign currency operation restrictions.
replies(1): >>43620966 #
42. rapfaria ◴[] No.43620900[source]
You can have several unique keys, a few are unique to the whole system (like your phone number, Physical Persons Register (CPF)), but you can have several randomly generated per bank. Usually you tell someone your phone number, otherwise the random generated string is a big string, and you actually show them a QR code so they can transfer to your account, and vice-versa.
43. fdgjgbdfhgb ◴[] No.43620905[source]
You use your bank's phone app. You can scan a QR code or you can send money to someone if you know their "id string", like a phone number, an email or a random string of numbers - you choose the "id string" format you want, and you can have different "ids" linked to different bank accounts. There are no physical cards.
replies(2): >>43623093 #>>43631422 #
44. maleldil ◴[] No.43620909[source]
It's a protocol. You make payments through your bank app. You can make payments directly, basically a bank transfer, or through a QR code.
replies(1): >>43625009 #
45. alephnerd ◴[] No.43620911{5}[source]
> As Visa and MC work globally, I'm betting that the dominance from those will continue.

China, India, Brazil, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and others are all trying to expand their own transaction networks.

While it's still piecemeal, a Chinese or Indian tourist in Thailand can use UnionPay or UPI to transact without using Visa/Mastercard, a Russian tourist in Vietnam can use Mir, a Brazilian in Argentina can use Pix instead of Visa/MC as well, and a Japanese visitor in Singapore can use JCB instead.

Even the ECB has recently started considering this option (though it might also be an attempt to force the Trump admin to negotiate).

The biggest thing blocking international payment competitors is FATF, which has some regulations biased in favor of Visa/Mastercard.

> Cryptocurrencies might have some change of becoming the "global" transaction method as well

I'm not sure. Most jurisdictions that aren't the US and EU heavily regulate cryptocurrencies, and at best allow state managed or regulated cryptocurrencies, which basically makes the whole point of crypto moot.

replies(2): >>43621162 #>>43631474 #
46. darkwater ◴[] No.43620916{5}[source]
And maybe even some other government which was an ally until a new old president is elected.
47. skrebbel ◴[] No.43620918{4}[source]
A statistic isn't a generalization.
48. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43620920{4}[source]
This is not a good argument. We can't forbid everything just because it can be used by criminals.

By the same thinking we should forbid cash, too.

We have two ways:

Give up all freedoms, forbid anything and transform the society into a mass surveillance society where everyone spies everyone, where is no anonimity and no privacy.

Or require law enforcement to do a better jobs without people giving up their freedoms.

replies(3): >>43622922 #>>43626110 #>>43628285 #
49. relistan ◴[] No.43620935{3}[source]
Yes, and they are not exclusively, but largely, criminals.
50. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43620944{5}[source]
> As Visa and MC work globally, I'm betting that the dominance from those will continue.

Until there will be a stable coin we can trust and which can be accepted by most businesses.

51. wslh ◴[] No.43620946[source]
> Does it work internationally? Does it send USD as well, or only the real?

There are neighboring wallets (like Belo in Argentina) that support it, and I believe tourism will drive even more integration over time.

52. weinzierl ◴[] No.43620954[source]
Is there any way to use Pix as a tourist without Brazilian tax number or permanent residence.

Technically a pre-paid option should be possible, but I could not find anything about something in that vein.

replies(3): >>43621633 #>>43622361 #>>43627118 #
53. NicuCalcea ◴[] No.43620965[source]
It might be valuable for a minority of people, but it is an active detriment for most. I want to know where my money is going, and I want my bank to be able to get it back in case of theft or fraud.
replies(1): >>43622818 #
54. speed_spread ◴[] No.43620966{4}[source]
It's even more useful to destabilize a country's economy, finance covert operations and straight out launder money!
55. dormento ◴[] No.43620971[source]
Brazilian here.

- no card

- technically not a specific app, its a payment method that any app with a checkout flow (for example) can chose to implement.

- you register some id with your financial institution of choice (any of CPF - equivalent to SSN, CNPJ - for businesses, phone number, email or a randomly generated key).

- keys are fully portable, as in you can revoke em or change the bank institution they're associated with any time.

- you can generate a QR code on the spot so the person paying can just scan it

- transfer is pretty much instant (under 5s seems to be the norm)

- no NFC (so works with any crappy phone)

- since its a bank transfer, and since bank transfers are insured up to 200k (afaik), its pretty safe.

replies(4): >>43622251 #>>43622336 #>>43622381 #>>43627179 #
56. homebrewer ◴[] No.43620986{3}[source]
I used Alipay (which is an Android application where you add a debit or credit card) for absolutely everything when I was there in October of last year. Sure seemed like everyone else was using it too.

Except for Hong Kong, they have their own thing. I just used Google pay there.

replies(1): >>43621014 #
57. pjc50 ◴[] No.43620992{3}[source]
More likely it's warming up the mobile comms state machine, without checking if it's actually needed. Unlike mobile phones which try to keep their data connection somewhat live, IoT things often drop back to the lowest state to save power (and possibly SIM cost)

https://www.sharetechnote.com/html/Handbook_UMTS_RrcStateCha...

replies(3): >>43621064 #>>43621112 #>>43626674 #
58. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43620993[source]
If you pay with Google Wallet or Apple Pay it's a corporation what you bought, when and where. And since Google knows your location and has access to your mail, social media and everything on your phone, they can connect more dots.
replies(1): >>43621547 #
59. badocr ◴[] No.43621013[source]
It's a functionality of banking apps. Yes, transfers are done either via a QR code or via one or more "Pix Keys", that the person/bussiness authorizes in their baking app. These keys can be the brazilian equivalent of your SSN, a cell phone number, an e-mail address or a randomly generated UUID-formated one.
60. pjc50 ◴[] No.43621014{4}[source]
Does HK still have Octopus? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

I remember encountering that before London launched Oyster, probably inspired by it. Worked in station vending machines as well as for tickets.

replies(1): >>43621342 #
61. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43621034{3}[source]
Then I would prefer to do transactions with crypto. I don't want neither a government nor corporation to peek on all my transactions.
replies(1): >>43621098 #
62. rafaquintanilha ◴[] No.43621036{4}[source]
Correct. Moreover, when you are trapped by the government, few things work better than raising international awareness. Even if the companies ultimately comply, that is typically done loud and clear, and eventually snowball until it's unsustainable.
replies(1): >>43621724 #
63. pjc50 ◴[] No.43621049[source]
Bitcoin being down 10% in the last week doesn't promise price stability.
replies(2): >>43622183 #>>43622593 #
64. actionfromafar ◴[] No.43621064{4}[source]
And programmed on BASIC Stamp on some godforsaken discontinued hardware. :)
65. pjc50 ◴[] No.43621098{4}[source]
.. so you put them on a globally visible blockchain?
replies(2): >>43622006 #>>43622189 #
66. rpgbr ◴[] No.43621107[source]
It's a framework laid out by Central Bank and mandatory for medium and large-sized banks and payment companies. (For small ones, it's optional.)

Pix has several rules that makes up for a nice UX, such as being free for personal use and a 10-second limit to get a response after a transaction.

Pix is an open source specification, btw: https://github.com/bacen/pix-api

67. yetihehe ◴[] No.43621112{4}[source]
More likely it was written by some cheap interns and requires getting unique ticket id from server for "controlling" purposes. Then there is one part time employee (met him, small talked a little) who goes from car to car with terminal and checks if those tickets are valid. I have some experience with gprs systems here, so probable flow:

- press button

- gprs roundtrip about button press with "no payment, free ticket" (2s)

- machine shows "printing ticket", asks server what to print (aka the idiotic unnecessary step)

- gprs roundtrip (2s)

- printer warmup? (?s)

- prints ticket

> to save power (and possibly SIM cost)

Nope, costs per sim are monthly per card, until you hit the data limit, then per MB. Those machines typically have enough power to keep connection alive.

replies(1): >>43621515 #
68. notpushkin ◴[] No.43621162{6}[source]
> a Russian tourist in Vietnam can use Mir

If you can find a place that actually accepts it! It’s certainly not as ubiquitous as the local Napas247 QR codes.

replies(1): >>43621315 #
69. accurrent ◴[] No.43621164[source]
While I agree cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance, my experience with qr systems has been a mixed bag. The country I live in has a fairly good qr code payment system. But there was one day when the largest bank went down and that was chaos (cash very much has a role to play). We also supposedly have linkage with India's UPI. Unfortunately, it was impossible for me to actually use that linkage thanks to the way upi works (I think only some subset of banks are supported).
replies(2): >>43621474 #>>43621772 #
70. graemep ◴[] No.43621170{5}[source]
> The fact that you can't use Pix in the US has no bearing.

The comment I replied to was claiming Bizum operating "cross border" showed that Pix could do so, so it is very much relevant in context.

It is a very special case of cross border. It is technically cross border but does not have the difficulties of cross border in all of the rest of the world outside the EU.

In any case it is arguable whether these are separate countries or just states of the EU. It has a common currency, a parliament that can legislate (in certain matters - rather like the US Congress) for the whole EU, courts, a central bank, a public prosecutor and many other "national" institutions etc. it also have the symbols of a state such as a flag and a national anthem (albeit both shared with the Council of Europe), EU passports state they are EU as well as the issuing country's name etc.

Even if you do regard it as a cross border one it is very much atypical and cannot be replicated elsewhere.

replies(1): >>43621559 #
71. rglullis ◴[] No.43621188[source]
> I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

If you have moved about 15 years before that, you'd have experienced the hyperinflation years and you've come to understand why Brazilian (retail) banking systems were always pushing the state of the art.

(You'd also understand that cryptocurrencies are not meant to compete with payment networks that have institutional backing, but that's a lesson for another day)

replies(1): >>43621323 #
72. xinayder ◴[] No.43621190[source]
In a sense it didn't change much. It's not like the government can access your transaction data all the time. They still need to go to court and request a warrant for that, to break your bank secrecy.

It's not different from what we had before.

EDIT: it didn't actually change a thing. Banks are still required to maintain transaction data private, and agencies, including the government, MUST obtain a warrant to break transaction data secrecy.

73. werdnapk ◴[] No.43621272[source]
A major point of crypto is based on tracking as the ledger (blockchain) is completely public.
replies(1): >>43622052 #
74. alephnerd ◴[] No.43621315{7}[source]
Yep! And Napas247 was co-developed by Vietnam and South Korea (edit: Only VN - confused Shinhan's support for development work)!

The point is there is a steady decoupling towards non-Visa/MC payment systems outside the US and EU, and it wouldn't be too surprising if a number of these systems begin supporting inter-operability within the next 10 years.

replies(3): >>43621512 #>>43622323 #>>43627084 #
75. dewey ◴[] No.43621323[source]
I guess you could say the same thing without sounding so condescending.
76. bberrry ◴[] No.43621341[source]
Have you had any significant issues with scams? In my home country we have a huge problem of scammers calling and tricking elderly people to transfer their savings with a similar instant payment app.
replies(3): >>43622288 #>>43622480 #>>43628828 #
77. dewey ◴[] No.43621342{5}[source]
Yep, Octopus is everywhere. Alipay HK is also almost everywhere. Different app than mainland China but basically the same.
78. xenospn ◴[] No.43621460[source]
Brazil is amazing. I bought a coconut from an old man who was walking barefoot on the beach using my phone.
replies(2): >>43621879 #>>43624541 #
79. xenospn ◴[] No.43621474[source]
QR codes are problematic. First of all, you can’t really verify it with your naked eye. It can take you to a fake site that looks just like the original. Using phone numbers is vastly superior.
replies(4): >>43621845 #>>43623133 #>>43626151 #>>43631139 #
80. carlosjobim ◴[] No.43621494{3}[source]
> Is it much more worrying than having Visa being able to do that?

Yes, of course it is. How could anybody think otherwise? What is the worst thing Visa can do and what is the worst thing Visa has done? What is the worst thing the government can do and what is the worst thing the government has done?

replies(3): >>43622359 #>>43622405 #>>43622517 #
81. notpushkin ◴[] No.43621512{8}[source]
Oh yeah, I think lots of QR code based systems in Asia are actually interoperable now (just not if you’re not a resident in any of these countries — e.g. I do have GCash, but my account works in Philippines only).
82. anal_reactor ◴[] No.43621515{5}[source]
More likely a parking machine needs to be accessible to all users, and some people get confused when technology works too fast.
replies(1): >>43621741 #
83. carlosjobim ◴[] No.43621547{3}[source]
Google is not going to put me in a concentration camp, enslave me, or send me to die in a trench on the front lines.

(If you're reading this, please note this comment was written in 2025)

replies(2): >>43622042 #>>43622663 #
84. Y_Y ◴[] No.43621559{6}[source]
The United Nations has a flag and anthem too.

The umbrella interoperability initiative that includes Bizum is Swiss (neither EU nor Eurozone).

Maybe you have a radical viewpoint, or maybe you're just unfamiliar with the subject matter, but individual EU countries are very much separate entities, notwithstanding many helpful treaties.

There are lots of transnational entities like the EU and monetary unions like the Eurozone.

There's nothing so special about this arrangement that means it couldn't happen elsewhere.

https://empsa.org/news/leading-european-mobile-payment-solut...

replies(1): >>43622738 #
85. Propelloni ◴[] No.43621592{4}[source]
What "institutions of democracy" would that be, if the state is fascist or communist? And I think you severly underestimate the reach a totalitarian state has. Hint: it is total.
replies(1): >>43627508 #
86. auadix ◴[] No.43621633[source]
You don't need a permanent residence, but to use PIX you have to get an ID called CPF. This is your IRS number, as you said, tax number. It's easy to get but it takes time, you can have one as national from different country.
replies(1): >>43622441 #
87. WillAdams ◴[] No.43621640{4}[source]
That's okay so long as criminals can still use public lotteries for that so that the government gets its cut.
88. 01HNNWZ0MV43FF ◴[] No.43621654[source]
Even if it's free, doesn't it have to put the ticket cookie in some database?
replies(1): >>43623657 #
89. erikerikson ◴[] No.43621724{5}[source]
So there's this thing called a gag order.
90. desiderantes ◴[] No.43621741{6}[source]
Perhaps if you get confused by fast things you shouldn't be driving?
replies(1): >>43622163 #
91. Perizors ◴[] No.43621772[source]
In the case of Brazil, besides QR codes, you can also make payments using the user unique key, which can be its phone number, social security number, email or a random generated key.
replies(1): >>43621819 #
92. cesarb ◴[] No.43621819{3}[source]
> you can also make payments using the user unique key, which can be its phone number, social security number, email or a random generated key.

And you can also use the bank account number, effectively replacing older bank transfer mechanisms like DOC and TED.

93. theideaofcoffee ◴[] No.43621833[source]
It’s truly remarkable and makes any interaction with a US-based payment system look ancient in comparison. One to two business days to make an ACH? Ugh, please. People still using paper checks? Get with the times.
94. cesarb ◴[] No.43621845{3}[source]
> It can take you to a fake site that looks just like the original.

At least with PIX, you scan the QR code directly on your online banking app, so there's no risk of going to a "fake site" (and the app also displays the information extracted fron the QR code, it's not a blind payment).

replies(1): >>43627096 #
95. IG_Semmelweiss ◴[] No.43621851[source]
The good thing is that Pix shows it will work for many, many years.

The bad thing is that Pix shows it will work for many, many years.

96. noman-land ◴[] No.43621879[source]
Why was he using your phone?
97. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43622006{5}[source]
As long as the blockchain provides anonimity, sure.
98. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43622042{4}[source]
Google will just sell your data to anyone who pays more. Who might not have the best intentions regarding you.

On top of that, it will provide the said information to government agencies if asked.

99. DeathArrow ◴[] No.43622052{3}[source]
The identity of the user is secret. Others will just see a public key.
replies(1): >>43623141 #
100. Vox_Leone ◴[] No.43622093[source]
>>I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

Lucky you. I've been living here since i was born. :(

Pix is surreal. It was launched in the Bolsonaro (mal)administration, designed by the proverbially incompetent public work force, and is as Orwellian as can be. Its code is nowhere to be found.

The funniest thing is that is has been adopted feverishly by the rabid right wing crazies, the same lot who want to destroy everything 'government'.

I take pleasure in listing three of the problems:

1. Lack of Transparency

2. Potential for Abuse

A government-controlled payment system centrally-controlled, with no auditability? Oh please give me more (/s)

3. Censorship and Political Control

replies(2): >>43622404 #>>43623768 #
101. diggan ◴[] No.43622118{4}[source]
> All Eurozone countries, all bu one an EU member (and that one is very small has a very close trade deal with the EU) so not really cross border except from a certain legalistic angle.

So what? Sweden has it's own Swish system, Sweden is well integrated in EU, Europe and Eurozone yet it only works within Sweden AFAIK.

That Bizum works across four countries is not a given just because they're all within the Eurozone. Just like how Brazil and US would need to figure out how to send electronic money between themselves if Pix was available in both countries, so did Italy<>Spain<>Portugal when it came to Bizum, which is a private company btw.

102. inetknght ◴[] No.43622163{7}[source]
Perhaps if you're driving, the things around you need to give you time to react to other things around you. Fewer things are more frustrating than getting honked at because you pressed a button, then got distracted by a car pulling up which you needed to look at to be aware of, then missed the printer asking if you want a receipt, and then having to press another button to talk to someone to ask for a reprint which, of course, holds up the line of cars growing behind you while someone gets paged to come to the kiosk.
replies(1): >>43627045 #
103. marcosdumay ◴[] No.43622164[source]
There's those entire thing called "laws" and "constitution" that forbids this.

And if a government decides to just ignore those, it will also have no need to watch your transactions or create fake ones.

104. lclc ◴[] No.43622183{3}[source]
Bitcoin goes up and down in value, BRL (or any other government currency) only goes down compared to real goods.
105. ty6853 ◴[] No.43622189{5}[source]
Tornado cash has been delisted from OFAC, and there is also something like monero / privacy coin.
106. Xunjin ◴[] No.43622233[source]
The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.
replies(3): >>43622600 #>>43623727 #>>43629925 #
107. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43622251{3}[source]
> you can generate a QR code on the spot so the person paying can just scan it

You can also generate a R$0,00, print it and leave to the other person input how much will be transferred.

PS: Pix is so trivial to us that only in places like HN we can see how amazing it is

replies(1): >>43622418 #
108. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43622288[source]
We have scams just like any other place and technology. I don't think that Pix made it easier.

btw, Pix is not an app, it is a service/infrastructure that can be used by any bank

109. nguyenkien ◴[] No.43622323{8}[source]
Sorry, I can't find anywhere mention it co-develop with South Korea. Can you give source to this?
replies(1): >>43622444 #
110. catsma21 ◴[] No.43622336{3}[source]
> its a bank transfer

why can't we just use qr codes with ibans in that case?

replies(4): >>43622526 #>>43623884 #>>43626978 #>>43631022 #
111. maeln ◴[] No.43622359{4}[source]
Visa has to respect whatever laws apply in the country they operate in. So if the police want Visa info on whoever, provided that a legal framework cover this issue, Visa has to give it. It makes 0 difference if the payment system is government-operated or not. In any democratic country, the police would need the approval of a judge whether the service is public or a private company. And in dictatorship, the government will get the data or ban you from doing business in the country anyway.
replies(1): >>43622696 #
112. owebmaster ◴[] No.43622361[source]
I think remitly works

https://blog.remitly.com/money-transfer/complete-guide-brazi...

replies(1): >>43629853 #
113. freeone3000 ◴[] No.43622371{5}[source]
A state of mutual trust can be established, similar to driver’s licenses and passports: country A trusts you, they did all the legwork, we certify their endorsement, you’re fine. It won’t necessarily be possible between all pairs, but, SEPA and Interac should be theoretically interoperable; dozens of other friendly-country pairs can be thought of.
114. owebmaster ◴[] No.43622381{3}[source]
> - no NFC (so works with any crappy phone)

It is possible to pay using NFC now

115. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43622383[source]
Pix is basically a commercial name for two services:

- SPI: responsible for the payments

- DICT: responsible for mapping keys to accounts

The API documentation of those services are available, but only banks can use them. When a person wants to send money to another, there's an option in the bank app for sending through Pix.

Then you have many options to define to whom you'll send that money:

- typing the bank account information

- using the Pix key (which can be an phone, email, CPF/CNPJ (brazillian documents) or a generated key)

- scanning a QR code

Note that the two latter options don't require the account information. That resolution is done by DICT.

After that, you type how much you'll send (sometimes the QR code already contains this information). Then it'll send through SPI.

And yeah, it's really, really fast.

replies(1): >>43628352 #
116. burmanm ◴[] No.43622400{4}[source]
But for similar application, you could use MobilePay (Vipps?). That works across Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

So although only Finland uses Euro (and rest have their own currency), you can easily transfer money between persons using just their mobile number as an example.

117. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43622404[source]
Bolsonaro didn't even know what Pix was:

https://exame.com/economia/questionado-por-apoiador-bolsonar...

replies(1): >>43622793 #
118. ziddoap ◴[] No.43622405{4}[source]
If Visa has it, the government simply needs to ask for it. There's a difference, but it's not much of one.
119. owebmaster ◴[] No.43622418{4}[source]
Brazilian banking system is quite well developed for a long time. Let's see if Pix being ubiquitous can help the country better develop economically, with better wealth distribution, innovation and high-paying jobs
120. jowea ◴[] No.43622441{3}[source]
This is true but the next step is a Brazilian bank account.
replies(2): >>43622858 #>>43632489 #
121. alephnerd ◴[] No.43622444{9}[source]
Good callout! I'm wrong on that one. I was under the assumption it was co-developed with Shinhan but that was wrong.
122. kylebenzle ◴[] No.43622479[source]
Love that you tell us how amazing the government run digital currency but end it with a throw away statement about how the open source version will never "stand a chance". Just like how no one uses Linux and Firefox died 20 years ago.
replies(2): >>43623990 #>>43630287 #
123. jowea ◴[] No.43622480[source]
Yeah it is a thing, lots of different scams to watch out. And being held at gunpoint and made to send a transfer is also a concern.
124. AlienRobot ◴[] No.43622501[source]
>Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Until this line I forgot crypto was even competing!

replies(1): >>43626907 #
125. piva00 ◴[] No.43622517{4}[source]
Sell your data to interested 3rd parties? Because anything else a government can do through their own systems they can require Visa to do as well, so seems like Visa with a profit motive has the potential to misuse the data even more than a government.
126. jowea ◴[] No.43622526{4}[source]
You can use QR codes with your Pix address. I don't see why it would matter that much? I think the IBAN system is mostly used in Europe.
127. AlienRobot ◴[] No.43622540[source]
>Does it work internationally?

Does crypto? You may have heard of this thing called "tariffs" lately. Even purchases of software licenses are tariffed in Brazil[1]. The average person purchasing goods with crypto is just going to ignore this and several similar laws.

If you say crypto works to transact internationally, keep in mind: so does TF2 hats.

1: https://www.machadoassociados.com.br/en/2021/05/brazilian-fe...

replies(1): >>43624322 #
128. krunck ◴[] No.43622593{3}[source]
That's because Wall Street investors use it as a hedge against their traditional investments which, as you know, are not so stable right now.
129. leereeves ◴[] No.43622600[source]
I'd hate to see a system like that where I live, because the government will abuse it. We've already seen Canada freeze bank accounts of protestors, and US officials put protestors on the no fly list.
replies(5): >>43622926 #>>43623156 #>>43623391 #>>43623679 #>>43626939 #
130. olalonde ◴[] No.43622627[source]
> I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Sounds like WeChat Pay. It's been years now that beggars in China only carry QR codes.

> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

They solve a different problem or have the potential to: predictable/unbiased money issuance and on/off ramp for payment platforms.

replies(3): >>43623170 #>>43625445 #>>43629123 #
131. hooverd ◴[] No.43622635{4}[source]
Banking companies are more than happy to fold like a cardboard box if either government threatens their money-making.
132. hooverd ◴[] No.43622663{4}[source]
Google isn't, but there might be a startup that will in the next batch.
133. 34679 ◴[] No.43622696{5}[source]
I can think of at least one difference. If the government wants to lie about credit card transactions, Visa has to go along with it.
134. graemep ◴[] No.43622738{7}[source]
> The umbrella interoperability initiative that includes Bizum is Swiss (neither EU nor Eurozone).

and yet Switzerland is not one of the countries where Bizum can be used?

The UN does not have a common currency or a parliament etc.

135. Vox_Leone ◴[] No.43622793{3}[source]
But i have said nothing about Bolsonaro's lack of awareness -- his monumental ignorance is a known fact, mind you, and that is not the core of my argument.
136. strobe ◴[] No.43622818{3}[source]
at same time you don't wanna to ask bank for permission to spend your money every time:

"Can I buy some milk today? No!, let's visit our branch first and give some papers which will require significant time/effort to get for you."

Most just not experiencing things like this but once that happen it is hard to ignore this possibility.

replies(1): >>43625985 #
137. weinzierl ◴[] No.43622858{4}[source]
Is there an online bank that allows to create an account just with the CPF and no proof of permanent residence?
replies(1): >>43625241 #
138. RHSeeger ◴[] No.43622922{5}[source]
There is a pretty big gray area in there. Literally every society on the planet has some form of "giving up their freedoms" in exchange for some amount of security. I would argue that it's impossible to have a stable society without that. The thing that's important is deciding which rights are worth protecting and which ones are ok to give up in exchange for security (or other reasons, presumably).
replies(1): >>43626946 #
139. aembleton ◴[] No.43623093{3}[source]
What happens if you miss-type the email or phone number when making a payment? Is there any confirmation of the persons name?
replies(2): >>43623424 #>>43627003 #
140. seydor ◴[] No.43623111[source]
What about tax evading people? Is the system used to tax audit people?
replies(3): >>43624426 #>>43624616 #>>43628018 #
141. LtdJorge ◴[] No.43623133{3}[source]
QR codes carry data. It might be a URL or it might not.
142. kgen ◴[] No.43623141{4}[source]
Only in theory right? The moment you use it with a service that requires credentials or an email or a physical address to mail to, it's not, unless you somehow wash it through an anonymous pool somehow
143. tialaramex ◴[] No.43623156{3}[source]
This doesn't make sense as a prioritization.

Oh no, my government might be run by nazis -> Let's make the government services crap

The nazis don't need to use your crap government services, so you're just pointlessly making things worse, this is the same delusion as "But it's illegal". Why on Earth would crooks care whether what they're doing is legal?

I suggest:

Oh no, my government might be run by nazis -> Ensure this does not happen OR leave

replies(3): >>43623918 #>>43624357 #>>43624590 #
144. tetris11 ◴[] No.43623170[source]
I wish the homeless in London did this, I'd happily give a few pounds here and there if it were easy to. Back when I had cash on me at all times, I would think nothing of it, just toss a coin. Now in our cashless society, I found myself at a loss to do anything about the people suffering in front of me
replies(3): >>43623400 #>>43623602 #>>43624311 #
145. pastelsky ◴[] No.43623193[source]
UPI is great in terms of UX, but I don’t think it’s super reliable – especially big public banks go down all the time. The UPI base service had multiple incidents in the last 1 month too.
146. mvieira38 ◴[] No.43623391{3}[source]
Yup. Despite how magical and convenient Pix is, I still consider returning to cash just for the huge privacy liability of using Pix. But it's so engrained in the culture now that you can't really use anything else
replies(1): >>43628451 #
147. phillc73 ◴[] No.43623400{3}[source]
You could try carrying cash again, especially just a few coins for the homeless.
replies(1): >>43625466 #
148. cesarb ◴[] No.43623424{4}[source]
> Is there any confirmation of the persons name?

Yes, and it's a small privacy leak in Pix: it shows the person's name and part of their CPF.

replies(1): >>43623684 #
149. paleotrope ◴[] No.43623602{3}[source]
You could donate to your chosen homeless assistance charity and just carry cards that explain how to get assistance from the same org.
replies(1): >>43623807 #
150. yetihehe ◴[] No.43623657{3}[source]
Other machines can do it with single roundtrip (2s pause between pressing and printing). That one single manufacturer is slower than everyone, but hey, maybe the app (which requires location, phone number and vehicle number) will be faster?
151. mixmastamyk ◴[] No.43623679{3}[source]
The govt already has full access to your bank account! Always did and KYC ended privacy.

Preventing convenient payment technology only hurts the rest of us. If you want redundancy buy gold coins.

replies(2): >>43623806 #>>43625030 #
152. abecedarius ◴[] No.43623684{5}[source]
That doesn't sound small?
replies(2): >>43624051 #>>43627203 #
153. babypuncher ◴[] No.43623692[source]
I've been saying for over a decade that crypto makes no sense for micropayments and the only reason traditional methods don't work is because they are run by rent-seeking middlemen like VISA.

Watching the Indian and Brazillian governements solve this problem by by building the payment networks themselves and removing the profit incentive has felt vindicating.

replies(1): >>43624661 #
154. skeletal88 ◴[] No.43623727[source]
Europe has SEPA payments. They are very fast and reliable, and separate from Swift.
replies(3): >>43624044 #>>43630042 #>>43631120 #
155. hcarvalhoalves ◴[] No.43623768[source]
Correcting the blatant misinformation about the topic:

- PIX project started in 2016, public launch in 2020

- It was not "launched" by any President; the Brazilian Central Bank is an independent authority, with it own mandate, not a branch of the executive power

- PIX was co-developed with institutions of the financial sector

- It's a protocol that participants must implement, not an app. The specification is even on GitHub. I don't know what you mean by "its code is nowhere to be found".

- The Brazilian Central Bank is acknowledged as a benchmark, rather than "proverbially incompetent public work force"

replies(3): >>43625103 #>>43627221 #>>43630898 #
156. welshwelsh ◴[] No.43623806{4}[source]
We should focus on getting rid of KYC, instead of giving up on privacy and security.
replies(3): >>43623924 #>>43624948 #>>43626848 #
157. mulderc ◴[] No.43623807{4}[source]
Maybe not true everywhere but in all the towns I have lived in the homeless were well aware of organizations that provide assistance. No need to carry a card about it.
replies(1): >>43630239 #
158. AnAfrican ◴[] No.43623884{4}[source]
Because the underlying "account" is not necessarily a Bank Account.
159. gessha ◴[] No.43623918{4}[source]
The nuance is it does put you in a vulnerable position. It’s the financial equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. It looks super convenient to pay with Wechat and Pix but I can’t imagine how bad it would be if I get on the government’s bad side.

I really want a system where I can transfer money effortlessly but I also want a guarantee that I won’t be restricted access to my banking.

160. kardos ◴[] No.43623924{5}[source]
Indeed. KYC has a purpose though -- prevention of fraud, money laundering, etc. Getting rid of KYC without a similarly-effective solution for those things seems unlikely. Ideas?
replies(2): >>43627979 #>>43631784 #
161. mixmastamyk ◴[] No.43623990[source]
Cryptocurrency != OSS.
replies(1): >>43668060 #
162. graemep ◴[] No.43624044{3}[source]
I have only come across SEPA as a means of making transfers between bank accounts. Can it be used for payments too (e.g. instead of a credit card)?

It is also single currency - Euro only, right? Swift is global.

Dealing with many currencies and laws (e.g. countries with capital controls) is very complex.

replies(2): >>43624745 #>>43624938 #
163. luisrudge ◴[] No.43624051{6}[source]
It helps to prevent scams because you know who the money is going to (not foolproof, of course). CPF in Brazil is not as fragile or sensitive as the SSN in the US. You can't easily wreck someone's life just because you know their name and CPF. CPF numbers are shared pretty much everywhere since it's a unique identification code for a single person. All businesses ask for it when they're generating invoices/receipts etc. You basically use your CPF everywhere and there's virtually no risk in sharing it. That's not to say that identity theft is not a thing in Brazil. It definitely is, however the damage is usually not as bad as the stories you hear in the US and the blame is usually put on the banks / service providers for not doing the proper KYC to verify the documents. It'll be a headache for the person, but usually something that is quickly fixed.
164. sharpshadow ◴[] No.43624238{3}[source]
And then BRICS comes along connecting all those countries payment systems and voilà the circle is complete.
165. bananalychee ◴[] No.43624311{3}[source]
Can't even be penniless these days, you need a fancy electronic device, a data plan and reliable access to an outlet before you can beg for charity. Sad world.
replies(1): >>43624534 #
166. mhluongo ◴[] No.43624322{3}[source]
Indeed, TF2 hats and gift cards appear to do something well that this system doesn't :)
replies(1): >>43627136 #
167. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43624345[source]
> I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Yeah, if you enjoy having your money one hundred percent controlled by the brazilian government. I can't think of a more frightening proposition. You do realize this is the country that once suddenly confiscated everybody's money directly from their bank accounts, right?

Why did they do that? Runaway inflation. Just like its fellow latin american neighbors, Brazil has mismanaged all of its currencies and it will inflate the real to zero just like all the others, it's merely a matter of time. Just look at the country's economic situation. BRL is an absolute garbage currency. Why would you even want to hold onto this crap? You're better off holding USD if you can. You're better off holding real property if you've got the capital. You're better off holding bitcoins.

Cryptocurrency? They're basically the light at the end of the tunnel. You say you've lived here 20 years. Surely you know that judges are basically gods in this country. And we have judges admitting in writing that it's essentially impossible for them to seize or in any way touch your bitcoins without your secret keys. Do you seriously believe they have no chance? In this place? They're basically the solution to nearly every single problem in the "government is stupid" category.

Surely you know that the brazilian government sucks at pretty much everything except taxing you. And you're advocating for a system that essentially implements nation wide financial surveillance. Because our number one priority is to make taxation of an already heavily taxed people even more efficient, right? So that the politicians and judge kings can enjoy their world tours on tax payer money?

Pix is very convenient. That's all it is, and unfortunately that's all it needs to be to win the hearts of people. People won't be smiling after the government starts blocking their Pix keys for arbitrary reasons, preventing them from participating in society.

replies(1): >>43624884 #
168. ◴[] No.43624357{4}[source]
169. timewizard ◴[] No.43624424[source]
Wow. Reminds me of cash. Which has all those same properties.
170. Fidelix ◴[] No.43624426[source]
Yes. Every single transaction is open for the government to inspect. There is zero privacy in pix in relation to government surveillance.
171. lazyasciiart ◴[] No.43624534{4}[source]
And then people won't give you money because "look at them with their phones! I'm sure that could have paid rent for a month"
replies(1): >>43630219 #
172. WinstonSmith84 ◴[] No.43624538[source]
> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil - it's not even used in other Mercosur countries, what's the chance of having that adopted in other countries... And, that's problem #1.

How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption - maybe people are naive but governments won't unify to adopt a common system controlled by just a single entity / country.

What we may however end up with, are dozens of systems like Pix, one for each country, union, etc. Still cryptocurrencies as-is remain relevant (see point 1)

replies(25): >>43625367 #>>43625375 #>>43625647 #>>43626773 #>>43626927 #>>43627273 #>>43627295 #>>43627393 #>>43627721 #>>43628266 #>>43628397 #>>43628617 #>>43628632 #>>43629104 #>>43629151 #>>43629239 #>>43629613 #>>43629873 #>>43630034 #>>43630698 #>>43631142 #>>43631269 #>>43631814 #>>43632631 #>>43635833 #
173. mondobe ◴[] No.43624541[source]
Why was the beach using your phone?
174. lazyasciiart ◴[] No.43624590{4}[source]
Unfortunately you've described the essential American view of government.
175. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43624616[source]
> Is the system used to tax audit people?

You bet. Every pix transaction is reported to the brazilian authorities.

176. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43624661[source]
> removing the profit incentive

You're far too optimistic. The current administration is trying to work itself out of a major economic crisis and there's nothing they would like more than to tax the crap out of every single Pix transaction.

replies(1): >>43626708 #
177. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43624739{4}[source]
He's not wrong though. "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is a popular saying here. People who lived under a military dictatorship not even half a century ago will actually utter those words.
178. amelius ◴[] No.43624745{4}[source]
Also, does it support micropayments?
replies(1): >>43624856 #
179. mndgs ◴[] No.43624856{5}[source]
Yes, min transfer 0.01 EUR
180. ks2048 ◴[] No.43624884[source]
If you're thinking worst-case scenarios - what about if the government simply puts you in a cell and beats you until you give them your crypto keys?

The only hope for any system is if the people fight to not live within these kinds of fascist states. Crypto is not some magic solution - and has a lot of downsides which are mentioned often.

replies(1): >>43624945 #
181. mndgs ◴[] No.43624938{4}[source]
SEPA also works for SEK now, other EU currencies are in pipeline.

Swift is just a messaging standard and a message exchange network (distributed). SEPA is that, plus a settlement system (in a nutshell). That allows for speed and much more (instant payments, request to pay, pay by phone number, credit/debit transfers, etc).

You're bound to deal with currencies once you make any kind of transaction that originates in one currency and settles (finishes) in another.

182. dyauspitr ◴[] No.43624944[source]
The main difference is UPI is decentralized whereas Pix is centralized to the central bank of Brazil.
183. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43624945{3}[source]
> what about if the government simply puts you in a cell and beats you until you give them your crypto keys?

The thought does occur to me. Quite frequently in fact.

My parents lived through the military dictatorship. They once asked me to stop posting online because they were afraid I'd become some kind of target. I'm not kidding.

> The only hope for any system is if the people fight to not live within these kinds of fascist systems.

Brazilians in general tend to agree with you. That's the end game of quite a lot of brazilians. "The only solution for this place is the airport", they say.

184. mndgs ◴[] No.43624948{5}[source]
Won't happen. Ever. Or concede to money laundering.
185. mndgs ◴[] No.43625009{3}[source]
True that, ISO 20022 based.
186. leereeves ◴[] No.43625030{4}[source]
You're comparing Pix to bank transfers. I'm comparing Pix to cash.
replies(1): >>43625913 #
187. mndgs ◴[] No.43625062{4}[source]
You can, just the central bank /regulator of that country needs to want it. Example: Sweden, which now transacts on SEPA, jointly with EUR currency.
188. mndgs ◴[] No.43625103{3}[source]
It's based on ISO20022 messaging standard. Networking and security is typically custom in each country/standardized payment system.
189. jowea ◴[] No.43625241{5}[source]
I googled a bit, seems that maybe Bradesco bank allows it but it's a lot of paperwork and you need to be physically present at the bank branch.
190. reaperducer ◴[] No.43625367[source]
try to use Pix outside of Brazil

Try to use cryptocurrency for anything other than a few very specific transactions at a number of places in the world so small that it's a rounding error.

Still cryptocurrencies as-is remain relevant

And somehow less relevant than cash.

I can take cash from any country in the world to my local bank, and deposit it into my account. I can get a dozen different foreign currencies at my local branch in minutes, and almost any other currency in the world can be delivered to me by FedEx the next morning for a flat $10 fee.

I can take cash to any other country in the world and get it converted into the local currency, whether that's paper or digital in almost any city.

Crypto is great if you do a very few, very specific things in a vanishingly small number of places. But if I'd tied my finances to crypto instead of cash, I'd have been stuck many times in foreign lands.

replies(1): >>43626233 #
191. dakial1 ◴[] No.43625375[source]
Pix proposition is very valuable for governments, as it is the best way of controlling transactions, inside the country and cross-border.

To you second point, I think the pix penetration/popularity proves that the majority of the people trust the government for that. There are 2 key reasons for its success: It was mandatory for Banks to adhere to the system and there are no fees for using it.

Once multiple countries have their own PIX, they just need to build a federation structure to connect them and allow cross-border transactions.

Crypto-currencies have their place with people who don't trust the government, want to speculate and/or simply want to do tax evasion, but they are not and probably never will be mainstream as a transaction medium.

replies(4): >>43625946 #>>43628383 #>>43628621 #>>43629589 #
192. reaperducer ◴[] No.43625445[source]
> I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Sounds like WeChat Pay. It's been years now that beggars in China only carry QR codes.

I saw a guy at a freeway offramp in north Texas with a Venmo (?) address scrawled on a piece of cardboard.

193. reaperducer ◴[] No.43625466{4}[source]
You could try carrying cash again, especially just a few coins for the homeless.

I make a point of carrying cash. Especially for buskers. It's just so simple to push the "cash back" button at the PoS when I'm buying something else.

(I miss the days when you could buy a CD from a talented busker.)

194. mixmastamyk ◴[] No.43625913{5}[source]
Cash still exists, as well as the gold mentioned. Barter, haha. Didn't advocate against those.
195. ethbr1 ◴[] No.43625946{3}[source]
iTunes / Steam vs piracy is relevant here.

Most people want something that works well in the ways they care about.

People turned to piracy because it was a superior experience to the then-distribution-models.

Then, the majority of people didn't care that iTunes / Steam cost money and had DRM, because it provided a superior experience to piracy.

People want an outcome, easily, reliably: they don't care about the method of getting that outcome.

196. NicuCalcea ◴[] No.43625985{4}[source]
I do want permission from my bank, actually. Of course not for milk, but for a car or house, for sure.
197. ImJamal ◴[] No.43626122{3}[source]
You could always just use cash then Visa wouldn't know.
replies(1): >>43626166 #
198. WinstonSmith84 ◴[] No.43626233{3}[source]
> I can take cash from any country in the world to my local bank, and deposit it into my account.

If you are at a institution bank, probably but that's a non-existent use case - I never had Argentinian Pesos, Turkish Lira or Bulgarian Lev I suddenly needed to deposit into my bank account !..

> Try to use cryptocurrency for anything other than a few very specific transactions at a number of places in the world so small that it's a rounding error.

I'm not sure whether you travel much, but I always travel as a digital nomad. I pay small transactions with local cash or mostly bank cards as everybody does. But big amounts? That's where crypto comes into play. I've paid in crypto transactions worth a few thousands dollars because that's the only way to do it without incurring huge transaction fees and / or long processing time.

replies(5): >>43626821 #>>43627485 #>>43627648 #>>43629928 #>>43633711 #
199. dmonitor ◴[] No.43626674{4}[source]
The cell providers also get really opinionated about how much / how often your IoT device talks to the cell towers when they seek to approve your device.
200. owebmaster ◴[] No.43626708{3}[source]
Major economic crisis? 4 years growing >= 3% doesn't look like a crisis to me.
replies(2): >>43627599 #>>43629496 #
201. ◴[] No.43626773[source]
202. TheOtherHobbes ◴[] No.43626821{4}[source]
The huge transaction fees come from the occasional, but surprisingly regular, crashes in value.
203. m463 ◴[] No.43626843[source]
wikipedia doesn't say much about it.

I wonder about a few things.

Is it safe? I'm pretty sure everyone not carrying cash is very good for physical safety, but can someone be coerced into emptying their bank account at knifepoint?

Are there scams? Can stolen money be retrieved?

replies(3): >>43626875 #>>43626881 #>>43627589 #
204. throttlebody ◴[] No.43626848{5}[source]
Are there any reasons we can't have both KYC and privacy/security ?
replies(1): >>43631113 #
205. PaulDavisThe1st ◴[] No.43626875[source]
Presumably it has the same simple safeguards that a US system like Zelle or Venmo have. I needed to pay my sister-in-law $1300 the other day, and forgot that I have a $500/day transaction limit in place for such transfers, at my own choosing (setup when I opened the account).
replies(2): >>43626890 #>>43627458 #
206. tekno45 ◴[] No.43626881[source]
what system protects you from being coerced at knife point?
replies(1): >>43626914 #
207. m463 ◴[] No.43626890{3}[source]
I thought zelle was riddled with fraud?
replies(1): >>43626999 #
208. bonestamp2 ◴[] No.43626907[source]
Pix sounds great for most people and probably a good replacement for government issued paper notes and metal coins. But, the crypto purists like crypto that is not controlled by the government or the banks. Pix would obviously fail at attracting those crypto fans.
209. m463 ◴[] No.43626914{3}[source]
Writing a personal check? Stolen cellphone?

Cryptocurrencies are full of scams because you can't put the money back, and some are anonymous.

210. toomuchtodo ◴[] No.43626927[source]
80 countries have instant/real time payment systems today [1], and the Bank for International Settlements is working on cross border interoperability [2].

Cryptocurrencies will likely never go away, and will remain in use for certain use cases from a cross border value transfer perspective, similar to gold; either the token moves or the ownership is updated. More interesting is offering digital wallets for a single or basket of currencies to anyone you can remotely identity proof in the world (similar to nsave [3]).

[1] https://www.volt.io/real-time-payments-world-map/

[2] https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/nexus.htm

[3] https://www.nsave.com/ | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nsave

replies(2): >>43627319 #>>43629375 #
211. ◴[] No.43626939{3}[source]
212. TheOtherHobbes ◴[] No.43626946{6}[source]
And it's not as if crypto is particularly anonymous. Transaction analysis will identify you unless you work hard at covering your tracks.
213. gjvnq ◴[] No.43626978{4}[source]
I guess that's because pretty much nobody in Brazil knows what an IBAN is
214. PaulDavisThe1st ◴[] No.43626999{4}[source]
Perhaps. I use it to get cash to family members, no issues.
215. gjvnq ◴[] No.43627003{4}[source]
assuming that the typo didn't lead to an invalid/unregistered key, you will see the recipient's bank, full name and masked CPF number in the confirmation screen.

I really dislike the lack of a more anonymous way to transfer money but given how prevalent scams are here I feel like there was no better option.

Also, before PIX bank transfers required a person's full name, full CPF number, full account and branch numbers so arguably PIX is helping to improve privacy a little bit.

However the big issue is when people register their phone numbers as PIX keys because it means strangers can easily get full names from phone numbers.

216. desiderantes ◴[] No.43627045{8}[source]
So you wrote this new scenario where the parking ticket machine does NOT print a ticket unless you confirm it (after you already pressed the button)? And you get... mildly inconvenienced by some honking. Yeah you shouldn't drive.
replies(1): >>43627872 #
217. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43627084{8}[source]
Yes. As soon as June, Brazilian pix will support "Automatic Pix". Which means, basically, Pix will support subscriptions. So let's say, you authorize Netflix with pix, and then every month they will charge you with Pix automatically.

I find very likely Netflix or Amazon will be one of the first companies to support this in June now.

This was made initially to replace old school automatic debit for phone/electricity/etc bills, but it will support all services.

In Brazil, installments with credit cards are also super common... Basically when you put a credit card on any website or buy on a store, you can just choose to pay in 12x.

Well, they will add in September Pix Installments as well.

replies(1): >>43627706 #
218. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43627096{4}[source]
There's also "Pix Copia e Cola" (Pix Copy and Paste)
219. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43627118[source]
Banco Rendimento supports it, I believe.
220. dwattttt ◴[] No.43627136{4}[source]
I note that that thing is not "abide by the law"
221. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43627179{3}[source]
There's NFC support now... You can now use Pix inside Google Pay (with NFC or QR code etc as well).
replies(1): >>43631457 #
222. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43627203{6}[source]
Before Pix, people already needed to put the full number, the CPF, and Bank agency number, so it's an improvement compared to old Brazilian transfers.
223. dkga ◴[] No.43627208{4}[source]
You cannot seriously believe that. Visa or any other private card processing company would actively seek to exploit it for its financial gains within the limits of the rules. The central bank (which is not "the governmentTM") would use the data to make sure the system is functioning properly or some other public policy goal. That's all the difference in the world.
224. dkga ◴[] No.43627221{3}[source]
There you go: https://github.com/bacen/pix-api
225. yieldcrv ◴[] No.43627268[source]
Wise's unsupported business list is two pages long https://wise.com/us/acceptable-use-policy

and the transaction size limits is also too low, for me (I think you can send multiple in quick succession though)

to avoid random fintech platform and bank scrutiny for normal transactions and the higher scrutiny given to international transfers, I've used crypto for over a decade. For investment, to pay or be paid by vendors in other countries. Places where paypal/wise/revolute/n26 will flag, hold, or western union was the only option. This hasn't changed in that decade, only more onramps and offramps for crypto has changed for more proliferation.

once our crypto is within our respective domestic jurisdictions, cashing out typically has an extremely fast, non-scrutinized option, similar in speed to Pix

another comment mentioned that the Bank of International Settlements is working on instant cross border transactions, I suspect the scrutiny and transaction size limits will remain inferior to the unlimited size that crypto provides, and lack of scrutiny that a transaction converted to a domestic transaction will provide.

Been using stablecoins for a decade and the transaction costs have dropped as blockspace has become more abundant, and the stablecoin issuers create and redeem for free.

there is also the benefit of not needing the domestic currency or banking rails, since the crypto ecosystem has many investment options for different risk profiles, and many vendors to pay for goods and services.

It is very common that people do not find this competitive because they aren't aware they have a problem, or don't have a problem. But many people do encounter a friction once they branch out into another industry to try to change their circumstances, or earn larger amounts. That attracts enough people to crypto.

replies(1): >>43628895 #
226. singleshot_ ◴[] No.43627273[source]
Cryptocurrencies will always be relevant for people show any to exploit others by moving money across borders in ways that governments can’t control (e.g., organized transnational cyber criminal gangs).
227. holografix ◴[] No.43627295[source]
Can we just agree that a system where every user/member needs to keep a large if not the entirety of the history of transactions is never going to work well?

Fine keep using crypto as a store of “value” but as a way to handle day to day transactions it has failed.

228. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43627319{3}[source]
On top of that, the BIS isnt even needed for global real time payments. A company like Wise (formerly transferwise) or any similar entity can just hold accounts in each country and if the local settlement is real time they can also do real time global settlement by just updating their db and sending the money real time in the receiving location.
replies(3): >>43627572 #>>43628108 #>>43629270 #
229. chupchap ◴[] No.43627393[source]
How are you paying for a cab with crypto while travelling? For international payments, cards like Wise is simple and it works. You raised question about currency and the govt that manages it. The same question is true for most crypto as well; extreme volatility is not good for a currency.
230. rmsaksida ◴[] No.43627458{3}[source]
Yeah Pix lets you choose limits. There's decent granularity for those, you can pick max $ per day, per transfer, per period, and per device. There's a caveat that when you increase a limit it takes a day or two to come into effect (basically to avoid people being forced to increase their limits by criminals).
231. tekla ◴[] No.43627485{4}[source]
You don't have a no international transaction fee card? They're trivial to get
232. roenxi ◴[] No.43627508{5}[source]
People don't change because a state is democratic. There are still authoritarians getting voted into power and present in the government; they just get voted out if the damage they are doing gets too visible.
replies(1): >>43629912 #
233. irjustin ◴[] No.43627572{4}[source]
This is how they all work including western union. It's not a secret but it's not really talked about either.

No one pays FX fees on each transfer. Single large rebalancing transfers allows them to actually move money at optimal times and rates with bulk discounts. Then they can currency hedge and get larger spreads on the actual fx rate.

replies(3): >>43627601 #>>43628306 #>>43629740 #
234. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43627589[source]
> Is it safe?

Given the dimension of Pix, I never heard of someone losing money directly because of using it (for example, here in the past was common to see where credit cards were cloned)

> can someone be coerced into emptying their bank account at knifepoint?

There are limits of use. Banks have different settings for limiting the amount of money that will be transferred in different situations, like when using their apps outside a trusted network, at night, etc

> Are there scams?

Just like any other payment method. I dare say that it is even safer, as some banks (e.g. Nubank) alerts if you are trying to transfer money to a suspect account.

> Can stolen money be retrieved?

Perhaps if you contact the bank, but as far as I know it is not a feature :-(

replies(1): >>43628492 #
235. ◴[] No.43627599{4}[source]
236. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43627601{5}[source]
Yup, the point was, local real time = global real time. Local real time has been the actual thing required.
237. atum47 ◴[] No.43627624[source]
Kinda of depend on your bank though. I know several banks that screw up leaving the pix system offline.
238. Spivak ◴[] No.43627648{4}[source]
> that's the only way to do it without incurring huge transaction fees and / or long processing time.

You're joking right? I just did a $25,000 wire internationally with a currency exchange in the middle and it cost $75. It went through in one business day. You'll get more hassle trying to withdraw from your exchange than that.

When I bought my house and did the wire it cost $15. Where are you getting huge transaction fees?

replies(4): >>43627784 #>>43628557 #>>43629086 #>>43629914 #
239. alephnerd ◴[] No.43627706{9}[source]
Intruiging (in a great way). Do you have any recommendations of any Brazilian sources (Portuguese em Ingles) about the Brazilian and MERCOSUR FinTech and Public Tech industry? I'd love to dig even deeper, but my background is more NAM and Indo-Pac driven. I passed on NuBank eons ago and don't want to make the same mistake again.

> Brazil, installments with credit cards are also super common... Basically when you put a credit card on any website or buy on a store, you can just choose to pay in 12x

Yea that kinda makes sense. The market dynamics in Brazil reminds me a lot of India albeit better regulated (thank you OECD reforms), but tbf, there has been a lot of cross-pollination between Brazilian and Indian policymakers - Cambridge MA is that kinda melting pot, and Brazil has a very similar political dynamic.

replies(2): >>43628315 #>>43632369 #
240. 2OEH8eoCRo0 ◴[] No.43627721[source]
> Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil

Most people in Brazil won't do this so who gives a shit? You may as well say, "now try to use Pix on the moon!"

241. ty6853 ◴[] No.43627784{5}[source]
Unless of course you try to transmit it to someplace your bank or the government doesn't like, or the bank has dumb AML controls. In which case the transaction will likely get held up if it can be sent at all. If you try to transfer from somewhere boring like from the USA to Canada of course you can send $25k no problem (most of the time anyway, my bank has interrogated me and locked up my account before for attempting to send $1500 to my wife until I gave up and just used cash).

Meanwhile you could transfer $25k in crypto to Dubai and walk away with it in cash at an OTC desk in an hour via a wallet to wallet.

replies(1): >>43629836 #
242. inetknght ◴[] No.43627872{9}[source]
No, not printing the ticket isn't the scenario. Not printing the receipt for payment is the scenario.

It's not a new scenario. It happened to me.

I'm not mildly inconvenienced by some honking. That's just aggravating. I'm inconvenienced by having to call to get a receipt.

243. amrocha ◴[] No.43627979{6}[source]
Here’s an idea, get rid of cryptocurrencies and the need for KYC basically vanishes.
replies(1): >>43629132 #
244. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43628018[source]
it works like any other bank transfer, so yes. But the bank only reports after a certain amount.
245. FearNotDaniel ◴[] No.43628108{4}[source]
> Wise (formerly transferwise)

Off-topic, but: this is possibly one of the world's dumbest rebranding exercises. I forget now how many years ago they made the change, but I've never heard anyone outside the company itself refer to it as just "Wise" without adding "(formerly transferwise)".

replies(4): >>43628597 #>>43628819 #>>43629386 #>>43631069 #
246. neves ◴[] No.43628266[source]
I trust Visa and Mastercard with my money! A government is a lot safer!
247. unstatusthequo ◴[] No.43628278[source]
I don't understand the willingness of the masses to willingly give governments complete access to all of their transaction data. At least in the U.S. bank transactions are feebly masked by institutions. I have no doubt the government gets bank transaction data, but with Pix, it's just making it even easier to monitor what you're doing. Is it that the transparency makes it feel good? No middleman selling it or giving the facade of private transactions?

I do not see how this is better than cryptocurrency, which, while not fully anonymous aside from Monero, is at least decentralized.

replies(2): >>43630125 #>>43632950 #
248. neves ◴[] No.43628285{5}[source]
Maybe you can if the main use of a coin is for ransomware or drug traficking
249. xeromal ◴[] No.43628306{5}[source]
Kind of a tangent but I have some friends that are kurdish and that's how they transfer money to and fro the US and skirting whatever limits/regulations exist. They just give money to a money family in kurdistan and the money family here in the US hands it to them out of a restaurant or whatever. I've been fascinated with it since I knew it existed. It's all the same stuff with various coats of lipstick.
replies(1): >>43629259 #
250. vitorgrs ◴[] No.43628315{10}[source]
Not sure if there's an english website about it, but in Portuguese quality content you can find without paywall I would say is NeoFeed https://neofeed.com.br/

Brazil Journal too, but it usually focus more on market as a whole. https://braziljournal.com/

But most of the news are usually covered on Infomoney, Valor Economico, with the together with daily market coverage.

NeoFeed and Brazil Journal focus more on "high-quality", less content.

replies(1): >>43628685 #
251. xeromal ◴[] No.43628352{3}[source]
This sounds really cool. Is there a verification step where you confirm that the right number or identifier was entered for the first payment to someone? That's always one of my biggest concerns and I don't want to enter a number twice as the verification.
replies(1): >>43628434 #
252. rat87 ◴[] No.43628383{3}[source]
Cash is arguably more secure and likely less traceable and easier to use if you don't trust governments. I don't see much use case for crypto other then illegal activities (although possibly not always immoral)
replies(1): >>43628892 #
253. leonidasv ◴[] No.43628397[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

When you use Pix, your money is not in custody of the government. The money goes to/comes from a standard commercial bank, just like a wire transfer. What the government (Central Bank) does is just the infrastructure for moving money between bank accounts.

The point about not being a global standard is valid, though. Although there are initiatives in progress to connect similar instant payment systems from different countries as other users have noted.

replies(1): >>43628779 #
254. leonidasv ◴[] No.43628434{4}[source]
The UX is standardized by the Central Bank and they mandate a step showing the name of the person/company associated with that Pix key before you make the payment. So you can always double-check.
replies(2): >>43628602 #>>43632702 #
255. azlev ◴[] No.43628451{4}[source]
As a São Paulo citizen, I really don't recommend cash due robbery. Privacy may be a 1st world problem, but here, assault is a real concern.
replies(1): >>43628585 #
256. tpougy ◴[] No.43628492{3}[source]
> Perhaps if you contact the bank, but as far as I know it is not a feature :-( Acctually there is a feature to request the central bank to retrieve money stolen through PIX scam. It is called Special Return Mechanism (MED PIX). Link here: https://www.bcb.gov.br/meubc/faqs/p/o-que-e-e-como-funciona-...
replies(1): >>43628720 #
257. kspacewalk2 ◴[] No.43628557{5}[source]
The flat fee is a small part of what that transfer costs. The real transaction fee is embedded in the exchange rate. 2% markup is not an unheard of amount, which I guess would make your total cost $515 and not $15.

There's a reason Wise is a huge business and people in Canada resort to "Norbert's gambit" to exchange currency with minimal transaction costs.

replies(1): >>43628856 #
258. freddie_mercury ◴[] No.43628585{5}[source]
Even in America it is an issue. Younger Americans maybe don't realise how prevalent muggings used to be when cash was common.
259. FabHK ◴[] No.43628597{5}[source]
Runner up: Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy)
260. xeromal ◴[] No.43628602{5}[source]
That's exactly what I was looking for. That sounds great
replies(1): >>43628799 #
261. caruizdiaz ◴[] No.43628617[source]
> it's not even used in other Mercosur countries.

You can pay with Pix in Paraguay since the largest privately owned payment processor implemented it and it's available within all payment terminals (POS) across the country.

The government of Paraguay also runs a similarly good system called SIPAP, that is replacing card payments because it's faster and free to use.

262. fakedang ◴[] No.43628621{3}[source]
> Once multiple countries have their own PIX, they just need to build a federation structure to connect them and allow cross-border transactions.

To add to this, this is already happening. For example, you can already pay in the Middle East with India's UPI at quite a lot of places, or with China's Alipay or Unionpay.

263. uuddlrlrbaba ◴[] No.43628632[source]
Good? Dozens of fee free instant digital payment options sounds like a huge improvement over the outrageous network of credit/debit fees
264. alephnerd ◴[] No.43628685{11}[source]
Thanks my dude! Obv gunna do some due dilligence, but the sources you provided look solid.

Let's grab some cacha or other trashy/bourgeois booze when I'm back in São Paulo! I'm am Arak kinda guy

265. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43628720{4}[source]
Thanks for your information!
266. idiotsecant ◴[] No.43628779{3}[source]
That doesn't particularly address the point. Say the government decides that they don't like the political party you're supporting, or maybe you've been doing something they consider morally unclean like gambling or consuming pg-13 media. Let's say the government decides that your payments can no longer use the payment infrastructure. Now imagine it's effectively the only practical payment method.

It's a permissioned system.

Crypto is intended to be fundamentally different. Good crypto is permissionless. If you own it, you can spend it, regardless of what anyone thinks.

replies(3): >>43629048 #>>43629557 #>>43632078 #
267. lucasoshiro ◴[] No.43628799{6}[source]
You can see how it works in this video, after 3:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvz0Yiss4Go. It's in portuguese, but I think you will understand how the interface works.

Note that it is from a bank app (Nubank), Pix itself is not an app. Other banks have similar interfaces

268. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43628819{5}[source]
someone somewhere needed a promo...
269. maronato ◴[] No.43628828[source]
Scams are a social problem that can't be solved with technology alone. That said, Pix includes several features to help mitigate them:

The recipient's name and part of their ID are displayed on the confirmation page. This allows you to verify their identity, as the name must be linked to a real ID.

Users must set transaction and daily limits, with any changes taking effect only after 24–48 hours.People are encouraged to maintain lower limits.

Since transactions are tied to real individuals, it becomes easier for law enforcement to track down the recipient after a scam is identified.

270. Spivak ◴[] No.43628856{6}[source]
I think it was about 1% off the "theoretical best" exchange rate I could have gotten. But I don't exactly have access to those kinds of rates as an individual. Do crypto trades not have the same dynamic once you involve exchanges? Once you include the take from the USD ~> Crypto ~> $Other do you still come out ahead?
replies(1): >>43634936 #
271. dakial1 ◴[] No.43628892{4}[source]
That’s right crypto is also very traceable by the very public nature of the ledger
replies(1): >>43630866 #
272. hardwaresofton ◴[] No.43628895[source]
Where do you find crypto-native vendors?
replies(1): >>43632533 #
273. vasco ◴[] No.43629048{4}[source]
How do you propose to get money into and out of crypto in this world where your government doesn't want you to pay for anything? Or we just assume everyone starts as a crypto millionaire in this example?
replies(1): >>43631288 #
274. lmz ◴[] No.43629086{5}[source]
You do know that 3 out of the 4 most populous countries have currencies with restrictions on foreign exchange? Send a lot of money out internationally and they will ask for reasons and documents as evidence.
replies(1): >>43630036 #
275. happosai ◴[] No.43629104[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

Eh, the money was printed by government and any value it has is based on how much people trust their government. Using government payment processor is small potato compared to those...

replies(1): >>43629413 #
276. sneak ◴[] No.43629123[source]
I was expecting China to be totally cashless when I went last year. While everyone accepts digital payments, almost everyone also accepts cash just fine.
277. sneak ◴[] No.43629132{7}[source]
If you get rid of cocaine, the need for rehab centers also vanishes.

There is no way to “get rid of cryptocurrencies” at this point save for shutting off the internet. It is not within the power of the state to prohibit, any more than prostitution or cocaine.

replies(1): >>43630298 #
278. ilirium ◴[] No.43629151[source]
You have bizarre logic here. For example, in a topic discussed about GPUs, someone would say that it's not possible to run databases on GPUs, so GPUs don't have any chance of succeeding.

> How much do you trust your government with your money?

Do you trust crypto companies? Mt. Gox, FTX, Bybit…

Do you know that crypto companies must follow government rules, regulations, and laws? Russians were banned from using many crypto exchange platforms. China has strict rules for its citizens. You can buy and sell crypto in Brazil, but you must use only Brazilian reals.

Pix isn't global, but no one government person outside of Brazil can block this system.

MasterCard, Visa, Amex, and UnionPay work worldwide, but only a few countries regulate them, can block their usage, and can use data for tracking and statistics.

Pix is free to use, so no one needs to pay an additional "tax" to MasterCard and Visa (it's about 3%).

Google and Apple cannot say that if you want to pay, you must use only our devices.

> Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil

Now, try to buy ice cream from street vendors using any crypto coins.

replies(3): >>43629535 #>>43629722 #>>43632306 #
279. scott_w ◴[] No.43629239[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

If you’re not able to trust the government to not steal your money then I suspect you have bigger problems and should look to claim asylum elsewhere.

replies(1): >>43629631 #
280. fruit2020 ◴[] No.43629259{6}[source]
Don’t they need to pay for the plane ticket?
replies(2): >>43629320 #>>43649568 #
281. ljf ◴[] No.43629320{7}[source]
No they mean that a family member in the US gives them some of their own money, but records it to a family ledger. At some other point funds or value will be transferred, but it isn't transferred within the family for every payment.

Similar to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

replies(1): >>43649556 #
282. mmooss ◴[] No.43629343[source]
Are you worried about the power the central bank has?

What if they deny service to or apprehend the assets of people they politically dislike? Also couldn't they crush any hope of anyone's profitable business? Could a person or business function without it? What about in ten years?

What if they track people by their transaction and built profiles of them? They could essentially make it too dangerous to do business to people who are disliked.

replies(1): >>43631830 #
283. _rm ◴[] No.43629375{3}[source]
"Certain use cases", yes
replies(1): >>43633865 #
284. _rm ◴[] No.43629386{5}[source]
Followed by gross new brand styling

Could've at least gone with calling themselves "Wise.com" or something, like "Make.com" does.

Got nothing on "X" though. Have yet to hear someone in person say "on X" rather than "on Twitter".

replies(1): >>43629552 #
285. hgomersall ◴[] No.43629413{3}[source]
More than that, any value it has is based on the fact you have to pay taxes in it, by threat of violence.
replies(1): >>43630741 #
286. chgs ◴[] No.43629496{4}[source]
I assume op is talking about if it were implemented in the US.
replies(2): >>43631128 #>>43636447 #
287. pembrook ◴[] No.43629535{3}[source]
I would say your post has the logical flaws, not confronting any of the core criticism and instead misdirecting to other topics.

Creating efficient payment rails for its own currency is one of the most obvious roles for government imo. If the government provisions the currency, why would they not also provision the infrastructure (like the printing of the paper money).

That said, you’ve not offered a good rebuttal to any of OPs concerns, just repeated how good pix is within Brazil…right now with their current government.

Digital payments does present a uniquely frictionless route for tyrannical governments to assert power should they ever decide to weaponize it…unlike paper money which is harder to control.

Also, international payments is absolutely an issue with these systems. So you hate crypto due to its 2010s association with annoying Twitter bros. I get it.

But what are you offering instead as a solution to global money? Paying Wise stupid currency movement fees and waiting for them to close your account because you tried to buy a house for your family in the country you moved to?

replies(2): >>43630191 #>>43630666 #
288. riffraff ◴[] No.43629552{6}[source]
Really? You don't like the pea-soup on vomit color scheme?

I've been a loyal user of wise for more than a decade, since I used them to pay for my cross-currency wedding, and I can accept the name change since they wanted to show they were more than just money transfer (but just make it "bankwise", ffs), but the new brand style was a disaster.

Notice they dialed it down over time,it's now more neutral than at launch, so someone must have listened to the complaints.

replies(1): >>43631124 #
289. lompad ◴[] No.43629557{4}[source]
>If you own it, you can spend it, regardless of what anyone thinks.

Which is also its primary drawback.

Transactions are non-reversable, which inherently makes it unsafe for wide-scale use. Consumer protection is so important, clawing back payments is an incredibly important part of that.

Wrong copy-paste and all my money could just be gone forever? Yeah no, that's never going to fly in countries where consumer protection is seen as an important public good and always expected.

What you tout as a plus, is a major negative for the vast majority of people in developed democratic countries. In quite a few of them, access to a bank account is even a fundamental right.

And all that just because of some abstract fear? nty.

replies(1): >>43631330 #
290. HPsquared ◴[] No.43629589{3}[source]
For federation, the hard part isn't building the system but building the required trust between the different states and getting it all set up legally somehow.
291. CraigJPerry ◴[] No.43629613[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

The money that they issue? Your question is radically flawed.

That aside your main point is that crypto continues to be as relevant in cross jurisdiction payments even after the introduction of a pix like system of payments in each country.

Crypto transaction volumes across all crypto currencies are so low compared to FOREX in any of the worlds currencies (even relatively unused ones - currency speculators still drive transactions even there) that it’s basically irrelevant today in this use case. So your argument becomes it’s irrelevant today and will continue to be tomorrow.

If you’re to express the volume of all crypto transactions, not just those for the purpose of international transaction, just everything in all crypto currencies. The daily volume compared to transactions in all the other non crypto currencies ends up looking like a homeopathic dilution ratio, 0.00000000000000…%

292. johngladtj ◴[] No.43629631{3}[source]
So every Canadian?
replies(2): >>43630078 #>>43630662 #
293. DANmode ◴[] No.43629722{3}[source]
They said cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance,

the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology,

but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency.

Not just one feature of its existence.

Common conflation.

replies(3): >>43630121 #>>43631337 #>>43631618 #
294. dguest ◴[] No.43629740{5}[source]
Maybe this is a dumb question, but how is the "single large rebalancing transfer" accomplished? I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side.

My assumption was that it usually comes down to finding someone else with money in both currencies (i.e. a large bank or government) and exchanging one for the other. Of course that's unsatisfying: it's not just turtles all the way down.

Ultimately if I'm running out of, say, USD, and have a lot of CAD, I have to to buy a bunch of something for CAD and sell it in USD. If you wanted a "zero banking" currency transaction I guess the way to do it is to park on the Canadian side of the border, buy imports to the US, walk across to the US, and sell them.

Or maybe there's a magic money shredding / printing machine that I didn't know about. I guess an international treaty could actually authorize such a thing.

replies(3): >>43629937 #>>43629993 #>>43634718 #
295. galactus ◴[] No.43629836{6}[source]
“ Meanwhile you could transfer $25k in crypto to Dubai”

Thats a use case 99.99999999999999999% of humanity does not care at all about.

replies(1): >>43631683 #
296. weinzierl ◴[] No.43629853{3}[source]
From what I understand it supports transferring money to an account identified by a Pix key. I don't see that you can get a Pix key there.

Similarly Revolut has an announcement but I don't believe it is available yet.

297. asdfadf12 ◴[] No.43629873[source]
>What we may however end up with, are dozens of systems like Pix,

Lol It's not that we may ended up like that, systems like Pix are built for the sole purpose of domestic transaction.

Globally, Visa / Mastercard trumps crypto.

298. oulipo ◴[] No.43629885{3}[source]
Yes, it is more worrying. But indeed both are bad
299. oulipo ◴[] No.43629890{3}[source]
Yes but in a private entity, the government still has to do some work (which is in the public eye) to do it, there can be more whistleblowers, etc

So there would be more safeguards

300. Propelloni ◴[] No.43629912{6}[source]
People change a lot when the environment changes, this has been shown over and over again. You actually only have to look around. Yet it's the people who make the state not vice versa. Quite a conundrum.
301. WinstonSmith84 ◴[] No.43629914{5}[source]
> I just did a $25,000 wire internationally with a currency exchange in the middle and it cost $75. It went through in one business day.

This is exactly what I'm talking about and I'm not certain whether you're sarcastic .. Paying $75 on a 25k amount with a transaction time of 24 hours to complete is absolutely insane. You'd have used USDT or USDC or any other stable coin, you would have paid <$1 of fee and got the transaction done in seconds.

replies(1): >>43630936 #
302. brabel ◴[] No.43629925[source]
Here in Sweden we have Swish which seems to be very similar (just send money to anyone with a phone number/QR Code), but Swish is a private company, not government.

Relatedly, most company payments here, including water/electricity/etc bills, are paid using a system called Bankgiro, which is also a private company (and you can pay Bankgiro bills using Swish, of course).

And even the de facto national electronic identity system, BankID, is developed and provided by a private company. It is used to login to your bank as well as most government systems and any company can use it for login (which most Swedish companies do).

So, it differs from the Brazilian model in that all services are provided by private companies, not by the Government. Not sure which is better, to be honest. On the one hand it's hard to trust a Government like the Brazilian one given its history... on the other hand, trusting a private company even for public services seems wild: what if they go bankrupt, get sold to foreign investors, started using shady business practices??

replies(2): >>43630621 #>>43631133 #
303. pharrington ◴[] No.43629928{4}[source]
Can you be more explicit about what large, legal purchases you've made with crypto?
304. irjustin ◴[] No.43629937{6}[source]
> it's not just turtles all the way down

If you drill far enough... well anyway

> I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side.

The Treasury is the machine you're looking for. And the wire transfer, SWIFT, usually, is the tool of choice. In a sense, yes dollars are "destroyed" in that they leave that monetary system. Banks like BoA hold a few kind of ledgers with the country's central bank one which gets discounted during the outflow.

So euros are then credited to whatever institution you transferred it to. That country just became that much richer.

This is why places like HSBC, CITI have free transfers for intra-bank but you still pay $15 for the same via wire transfer? Why would you ever want to do that? beats me, but the point is you can and it has a very real affect on the system other than some internal database going +/-.

But in the end, it's the country's central bank credit/debiting any institution and then just... printing? when it wants? but other countries... m1... foreign debt.

so yea, turtles.

replies(2): >>43631009 #>>43634644 #
305. orthoxerox ◴[] No.43629993{6}[source]
Yes, at some point you have to load a plane with cash. The point is that each of the turtles can consolidate smaller payments to both minimize transfer fees and cancel out money flows running in opposite directions.
306. KingInTheFnord ◴[] No.43630034[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

Money is (for the purposes of this conversation) created and guaranteed by the government, and regulated by law, so I think it’s a little weird to not trust the government with my money.

307. XorNot ◴[] No.43630036{6}[source]
Do you imagine that large changes in your local currency holdings with no explicable financial transactions would be unnoticed?
308. OvbiousError ◴[] No.43630042{3}[source]
We also have Wero now, which unifies the mobile payment systems in belgium, France and Germany, with more to follow. Promises to be a unified mobile payment system across Europe within a couple of years.
replies(1): >>43630988 #
309. sanswork ◴[] No.43630078{4}[source]
Canadian here, I trust my government with my money because I don't run or fund any criminal enterprises.
310. ilirium ◴[] No.43630121{4}[source]
If we want to use technology in real world to solve real world issues, we need to consider all important non-technical things.

Nuclear Energy is great, but governments and international organizations want to control it because it is too dangerous. So, if we need to use Nuclear Energy, we must play by such rules.

Money is the same thing. Each government wants to control them, regardless of their form.

If someone wants cryptocurrencies to be widely adopted, there is no option but to give them to businesses and governments.

So, crypto would be regulated like usual money. Major blockchains have records for all transactions, which can be tracked and used by businesses and governments to implement more strict control over the whole world. Therefore, the more people use crypto, the less privacy they have.

The Internet and Web were designed to be anonymous, but cookies, IP addresses, data collection, ML/AI, IMEI, MAC, and the control of registration in ISPs and mobile operators have led us to a situation where the government and companies can easily track people. The same situation would be with crypto, which was designed to be anonymous but used in another way.

Don’t lie to yourself, bro.

311. Philpax ◴[] No.43630125[source]
Well, unlike cryptocurrency, it works reliably and quickly, does not require you to manage your own keys, and provides recourse if things go wrong. Those are pretty strong points in its favour.
312. ilirium ◴[] No.43630191{4}[source]
I don't offer any solution for the problems you mentioned, and I don't think it is possible.

If we want to have global money and a global payment system, they would be controlled by governments, international organizations, God, Devil, Cthulhu, Spaghetti Monster...

There is no magical solution. We, as a society, need to establish competing social institutions, and try to control them, and try to force them to compete. There is no solver bullet.

Don’t lie to yourself, bro.

replies(1): >>43630797 #
313. rcxdude ◴[] No.43630219{5}[source]
Maybe 1/10th of the rent for a month. Second-hand crappy phones are real damn cheap. I know someone who can't afford rent even if they paid for nothing else, and they go through one every 2-3 months.
314. rcxdude ◴[] No.43630239{5}[source]
Indeed, and there's usually a reason why they're on the street instead of going to those organizations (justifiable to a random other person or not).
replies(1): >>43668332 #
315. ◴[] No.43630287[source]
316. amrocha ◴[] No.43630298{8}[source]
Sure, there would be a black market for it, but that black market would be a lot smaller than the open market we have right now.

There’s plenty of legal ways of exchanging cryptocurrencies for real currencies, shutting those down would be a good start.

317. rubzah ◴[] No.43630621{3}[source]
The national e-ID scheme should obviously be government run.
318. bregma ◴[] No.43630662{4}[source]
I have never had any reason to believe my government is stealing my money, or even has any interest in stealing my money. It's not some centralized criminal organization like it is becoming in the United States or maybe in other third-world countries. I do pay my share of taxes (for which I receive excellent value), and some of that goes to consumer protection including banking and financial institution regulations.

Who I don't trust completely with my money is banks and financial institutions. That's why I have a government who regulates them. And hey, it has worked where elsewhere it has failed (see 2008 global financial crisis).

319. adanchristian ◴[] No.43630666{4}[source]
>Digital payments does present a uniquely frictionless route for tyrannical governments to assert power should they ever decide to weaponize it…unlike paper money which is harder to control.

This is true, and there's already a proposed law to ban paper money in Brazil.

replies(1): >>43630828 #
320. hnbad ◴[] No.43630698[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money?

I cannot fathom the reasoning that would lead you to believe this question is a big gotcha.

The value of any currency comes from the trust in the economy and military of the governments that stand behind it. The USD's value is backed by the economy and military of the United States. The Euro's value is backed by the economy and military of the Eurozone countries. If you live in the US and the economy collapses to the point the USD loses its value, the value of the USD will be your least concern - same if the US were invaded by a hostile military force and unable to defend itself.

Your currency is literally backed by your country. Your country issues the currency and your country sets the rules for how much additional currency banks can conjure into existence. Whether you use that currency in cash, bank transactions or payment systems doesn't affect that point. Cash is the only one of the three that's meaningfully different in that it allows the physical transfer of money without a "paper trail" because you can exchange it for goods and services directly (which doesn't apply to e.g. handing over keys to crypto wallets as part of a transaction because you can't move the balance off the wallet without leaving a digital trail).

There is no inherent value in cryptocurrencies just as there is no inherent value in state-backed currencies. The value of cryptocurrencies primarily hinges on their use as a speculative investment - even stocks or futures have a more concrete value basis (representing ownership of parts of a company and future ownership of trade goods respectively). This means its value is not tied to the performance or power of any one state but it also makes the value much more volatile and unreliable and much easier to manipulate.

Cryptocurrencies also stil rely on trust: for most cryptocurrencies you have to trust the people who issued it (and in some cases the underlying code), given how many have suffered from "rug pulls" and pump-and-dump schemes before. For currencies like BTC you also have to trust that no single actor can be able to perform a 51% attack. For currencies like ETH, you have to trust the smart contracts that might be involved (and have been exploited/abused before). Most people also rely on third party services to actually trade crypto currencies, so they need to trust those as well and there have been plenty of scams involving them even where they didn't turn out to be unreliable outright.

All currency is vulnerable to manipulation by agents with control over disproportionate amounts of it - billionaires, megacorps, banks, states using it as a reserve currency, etc. But non-cypto currencies suppress some of that control with their own and they have a symbiotic relationship with their currencies (i.e. if the USD does badly, that affects the US economy, which affects the US government budget, which affects its ability to maintain its institutitions including the military).

So the question then is not how much do you trust your government but do you trust your government more than the wealthiest other actors (domestic and foreign) that would exercise influence over the currency in its absence. Given that the state is not only the only thing enforcing the idea of property rights but also able to take everything away (including your physical freedom and life) from anyone who lives in its sphere of direct influence, even if you distrust your government more it's a moot point unless you also have the ability to flee it at a moment's notice if necessary - and I'd wager that's not the case for the overwhelming majority of people.

You say we may end up with systems like Pix for each country/union - sure but there's no reason there can't be interoperability between them the way there is with SWIFT transactions. At the moment Brazil seems to offer Pix International and Pix Roaming to open the system up to tourists and Brazilians travelling abroad but there's no reason similar systems can't develop a standard for direct compatibility without having to require support by each foreign bank or POS system.

321. hnbad ◴[] No.43630741{4}[source]
To be fair, that threat of violence is also the only thing enforcing your claims of property ownership. In its absence you'd have to rely on your community's consent.

I guess that alternative scenario sounds more dystopian the more wealth you have - but with enough wealth you can also imagine having a private security force providing that threat of violence to keep the community in check.

322. MacsHeadroom ◴[] No.43630797{5}[source]
Sounds like you're trying to solve a byzantine generals problem.
323. carlhjerpe ◴[] No.43630828{5}[source]
Digital payments also present a uniquely frictionless route for a functioning democratic government to tax goods and build a better society
replies(1): >>43633335 #
324. scotty79 ◴[] No.43630864[source]
It's so nice to have an example of how nice things could be if we don't let corporations nickle and dime us for crappy rent-seeking service.
325. carlhjerpe ◴[] No.43630866{5}[source]
Somehow Monero (XMR) gets around this, used in the biggest European underground pharmacy Archetyp.

Each transaction is somehow only known by sender and receiver

326. Vox_Leone ◴[] No.43630898{3}[source]
Your arguments are pretty lame. Pix was indeed launched in the Bolsonaro administration, but it is incidental. You are flailing around the bulk of my argument, which is about the source code openness, without actually attacking it.

It might as well be illegal today.

Art. 16 da Lei nº 14.063, de 23/09/2021: estabelece que os sistemas de informação e de comunicação desenvolvidos exclusivamente pela administração pública são regidos por licença de código aberto, permitida a sua utilização, cópia, alteração e distribuição sem restrições por todos os órgãos e entidades públicos.[0]

Art. 16 of Law No. 14,063, of 09/23/2021: establishes that information and communication systems developed exclusively by the public administration are governed by an open source license, allowing their use, copying, alteration and distribution without restrictions by all public bodies and entities.[0]

[0]https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servic...

So, lets open up its code!

replies(1): >>43632965 #
327. carlhjerpe ◴[] No.43630936{6}[source]
How about the exchange rate padding when you go from crypto to useful currency and back?
replies(1): >>43631103 #
328. nani8ot ◴[] No.43630988{4}[source]
Sadly no one I've mentioned Wero to knows about it so I've never used it. I feel like banks were too set in their old ways and PayPal ate their lunch.
329. dguest ◴[] No.43631009{7}[source]
> The Treasury is the machine you're looking for... In a sense, yes dollars are "destroyed" in that they leave that monetary system.

So are you saying there's an procedure where the US treasury takes USD out of circulation, and the ECB introduces the equivalent in Euro, according to some official exchange rate? How do they set the exchange rate?

replies(1): >>43634658 #
330. nani8ot ◴[] No.43631022{4}[source]
That's something I've wondered for a long time. Especially know when real time bank transfers aren't allowed to cost more than regular bank transfers (usually free), there's really no point in creating a seperate system.

But it seems to me like banks don't really want to make bank transfers more comfortable for small transactions.

331. tim333 ◴[] No.43631069{5}[source]
I think it's kind of a status thing that you can afford a short word domain like wise.com. But yeah, in conversation I still call them transferwise.
332. WinstonSmith84 ◴[] No.43631103{7}[source]
it's a 1:1 when you convert a stable to USD - some exchanges might take a small fee like 0.01% or so ... On Coinbase it's a 1:1 https://www.coinbase.com/en-de/converter/usdc/usd
333. karn97 ◴[] No.43631113{6}[source]
Is this a real question?
replies(1): >>43661580 #
334. SomeUserName432 ◴[] No.43631120{3}[source]
SEPA payments are quite expensive though, which most likely explains the prevalence of local payment system in every country.

The transaction cost compared to most domestic systems is absurdly high.

335. tim333 ◴[] No.43631124{7}[source]
I've been with them a while also and haven't noticed a huge change apart for switching the colour from blue to green?

Site from 4 years ago "The cheap, fast way to send money abroad" https://web.archive.org/web/20210305145221/https://wise.com/

vs now "Send money globally for less" wise.com

replies(1): >>43631373 #
336. owebmaster ◴[] No.43631128{5}[source]
Sure not, he is just a common type of brazilians we have here called "viralatas".
337. carlhjerpe ◴[] No.43631133{3}[source]
There's a reason why our government doesn't do anything that you can squint into a monopoly, the EU comes after us with pitchforks when we implement government monopolies. So the alternative is regulating some standard that a private organization implements and hope regulations are sound enough to not be exploited, or pray self regulation works.

That's why our railways are falling apart and why we have 2500 pharmacies but people up north have to travel to the town 100k away to get meds.

I wish the government that we elect every 4 years with public voting and kindergarten bartering could take ownership of things that are essential to life in Sweden, but nop it's all privatized so the companies can optimize profits by removing utility (BankID seems to be an exception here where the incentives align between companies and citizens).

338. SomeUserName432 ◴[] No.43631139{3}[source]
The PIX QR codes are URLs without the preceding https://

Scanning a PIX QR code with your camera will just result in text, not a payable URL. You have to scan it in your online banking app for it to be processed as something.

Your banking app will load the details about the payment and you'll see the recipient details before performing the payment.

Even with regular barcode payments, these barcodes are registered with the bank before it's a valid barcode. A lookup is done, if it exists the recipient details are displayed, often the amount, and verifications that it has not expired. (Do not receive after date X)

Brazil has a pretty decent banking system, though the worst online-banking experience I've ever had. (Slowly improving)

339. tim333 ◴[] No.43631142[source]
Cryptocurrencies seem to have settled into a different use case. No good for paying for coffee, but good for gambling.

Like if you want to bet on "Elon out of Trump administration before July?" you kind of have to go to polymarket or similar. (current price 41c)

340. bayindirh ◴[] No.43631265[source]
Finance can be fast if wanted, and I don't think there' s a deliberate delay in Wise's animation.

In my country, we have a similar system, and before my bank sends me a push notification about the outgoing transfer, the push notification for incoming transfer pops up for most of the time. The delay between push notifications rarely goes above 2 seconds.

Ours has an upper limit to prevent abuse of the system, but you can't beat instant, actually.

341. 627467 ◴[] No.43631269[source]
Actually, you can find "pix accepted here" in shops/exchanges in neighboring countries. It's probably more wide spread near the border. Similar to east Asia, were alipat/wechat is widely accepted in areas flooded with Chinese tourists
342. idiotsecant ◴[] No.43631288{5}[source]
The same way we get value into fiat currency. By exchanging it for goods and services?
replies(1): >>43640326 #
343. idiotsecant ◴[] No.43631330{5}[source]
Transactions are non-reversible in the same way cash is. Are you equally worried about me paying rent in cash? Buying a hamburger with cash? It's not a big deal, and mostly a UX issue as argent and others have shown.

I like the idea of my money being my money and not just mine as long as my government isn't annoyed with me. I don't much care if other people are afraid of it. That's a great thing about crypto. You are free not to participate, unlike the corpo-fiat systems.

replies(1): >>43633253 #
344. immibis ◴[] No.43631337{4}[source]
Now that I've recognized this pattern I see it everywhere: someone invents part of a solution, probably including some cool technology, then hails that as the solution and insists everyone else is wrong for not getting it.

The classic one is some FOSS people inventing a protocol where servers can talk to clients, and declaring a problem solved, when in actual fact, most people don't have a server. Mastodon is this, but so is XMPP.

HTTP took off because there were servers you could fetch things from with HTTP, not because it theoretically allowed you to fetch things from servers.

Paper euros aren't cool because I can "have money". They're cool because I can go to the grocery store and trade them for something to eat. My bank card isn't cool because I can "have money". It's cool because I can go and swipe it and not have to count paper euros. If you want cryptocurrency to be cool, you're going to have to get it integrated into grocery stores, which is, of course, impossible because it can only process 7 transactions per second. You also need a way to convert my paychecks into cryptocurrency, but this is basically solved with crypto exchanges now.

345. riffraff ◴[] No.43631373{8}[source]
They also switched to the peculiar slanted round font ("wise sans"), and padded every page with whitespace so it has a much lower information density. The actual experience past login never had much so yeah it's not as much a change as the public branding.

But mostly, it's the light-green-on-dark-green text which I dislike, and I _think_ they dialed down its usage compared to e.g. the brand announcement[0] and how the blog looks[1] compared to the main site. Then again, de gustibus.

[0] https://wise.com/community/en/brand-new-look [1] https://wise.com/gb/blog/welcoming-libby-to-the-board

replies(1): >>43633714 #
346. kyrra ◴[] No.43631422{3}[source]
Google Wallet also supports Pix via Open Finance. You don't need your bank app after going through account linking.

(Googler, opinions are my own.)

347. kyrra ◴[] No.43631457{4}[source]
Technically Google Wallet. There is no GPay app in Brazil.
348. senorrib ◴[] No.43631474{6}[source]
You can absolutely not use Pix in Argentina. Maybe some street performer will, but most places barely accept cards, let alone pix. Cash is still king there.
replies(1): >>43633775 #
349. lolinder ◴[] No.43631618{4}[source]
> the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology,

> but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency.

That's because the middlemen are inevitable and they work the way they do for a reason—governments won't let them work any other way.

Cryptocurrency is a technological solution for a human problem, and you can't analyze the impact of the technology divorced from the human reality without losing so much resolution as to make your analysis meaningless.

350. ty6853 ◴[] No.43631683{7}[source]
Dubai / UAE is about the largest per capita inflow of high net worth individuals, and even on an absolute basis has one of the highest immigration inflow of high net worth individuals.

Yes if you are poor as dirt and can just take your life savings of <$10k (probably 99% of humanity) on an airplane if you need to use it in another country, you can do so no problem and you do not care, the idea of a crypto OTC desk likely does not even occur to you. It is still solving the same problem, but by being small enough that no one cares.

The data pretty well speaks for itself. Humanity with money cares a lot about escaping capital controls. This is inviolable, the more the banking system handicaps itself the more capital flows into less regulated products.

351. irusensei ◴[] No.43631784{6}[source]
That’s not really true. Most financial crimes are big operations facilitated by banks. Criminals love KYC because that’s a chance to make their operations seem legit.
352. enaaem ◴[] No.43631814[source]
If you don't trust your government then you don't own anything, since it's the government that enforces and arbiters property rights. The fact that you own a home is only written on some piece of paper and you trust the government to enforce it.

Crypto is only worth something because you can convert it to fiat and with that fiat can sign fiat denominated contracts that are enforced by the government.

353. irusensei ◴[] No.43631830[source]
I don’t know why you’ve been downvoted. In fact in Brazil people got their financial operations restricted for expressing their opinions on the internet. Pix is an authoritarian government wet dream.
354. fkyoureadthedoc ◴[] No.43632078{4}[source]
Then they can also decide you can't have a license to drive a car, that you can't fly, that you can't own a home, that you can't pass a background check, that you can't have a social security number, that you owe an exorbitant amount of tax, that you should be in jail, that your immigration status is revoked because you wrote a news article they don't let, etc etc etc

Your government already has a monopoly on violence and owns your whole life.

replies(1): >>43661357 #
355. nonethewiser ◴[] No.43632306{3}[source]
> How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption

You mischaracterized that.

> You have bizarre logic here. For example, in a topic discussed about GPUs, someone would say that it's not possible to run databases on GPUs, so GPUs don't have any chance of succeeding.

He's saying it wont get adopted worldwide. Not that it wont succeed (which is a very ambiguous metric).

356. owebmaster ◴[] No.43632369{10}[source]
> Do you have any recommendations of any Brazilian sources (Portuguese em Ingles) about the Brazilian and MERCOSUR FinTech and Public Tech industry?

the best source I could find is this: https://finsidersbrasil.com.br/

357. nonethewiser ◴[] No.43632489{4}[source]
OK so it's firmly in the "not reasonable" territory for tourists. Just pay cash or credit card. Tourists aren't going to wait a while for a Brazilian tax id then use a Brazilian bank account before their trip. Just to select Pix as your payment method instead of card you already have in the Uber app.

This isnt a take down of Pix. Sounds excellent and should be replicated in other countries. Lets just not pretend its a viable solution for tourists.

replies(1): >>43633189 #
358. yieldcrv ◴[] No.43632533{3}[source]
In pretty much any active telegram group or discord for a crypto project

And if you start your own community, people come out of the woodwork early on or after any AMA session

Outside of that there are job boards and word of mouth

359. hmmm-i-wonder ◴[] No.43632631[source]
Canada has etransfer/interact which works well.

>How much do you trust your government with your money?

Well I'm in Canada, I would trust the govt and the banks with my money before I trust anyone else (yes yes, trucker protest bullshit still didn't shake my confidence)

Which is ultimately the problem. The govt and well regulated banks are the only ones you should be able to trust, but in many case you can't trust governments or their ability to regulate things.

360. extraduder_ire ◴[] No.43632702{5}[source]
Does the format for the ID have a check digit in it? Like IBANs and credit card numbers can both be checked offline by an algorithm to tell you that you've made a typo.

From my reading, the system seems like it's intended to be used with a connected device and scanned/copypasted rather than typed or read over the phone.

replies(1): >>43639353 #
361. extraduder_ire ◴[] No.43632787{3}[source]
According to the wiki page for pix, Italy is in talks with Brazil to implement the exact same system.

Across the whole EU, there's already a pretty low limit on card transactions and a deadline of later this year for banks to implement SEPA instant transfers.

362. immibis ◴[] No.43632950[source]
"Is the government spying on me?" tends to be a concern that is secondary to things like "Am I getting paid?" and "Can I buy groceries?"

Technologists repeatedly get this wrong. The best money system is the one that lets me buy groceries in exchange for working, not the one that's cryptographically unbreakable. Unless I'm running an illegal internet-based drug empire, in which case, the ones that aren't cryptographically unbreakable are disqualified, since I'd need the government to not be able to trace the money flow in my illegal drug empire. But even real illegal drug empires that are not internet-based mostly use government-issued currency, with measures taken to hinder tracing!

363. hcarvalhoalves ◴[] No.43632965{4}[source]
You should read up on "autarquia federal". The Central Bank is not part of the government.
364. jowea ◴[] No.43633189{5}[source]
There seems to be a new solution for tourists in Brazil to use Pix but with their digital wallet: https://www.infomoney.com.br/minhas-financas/pix-para-gringo...
365. jowea ◴[] No.43633253{6}[source]
And with a digital system like Pix at least you can definitively prove you did pay, unlike with cash, unless you take extra steps when paying.
366. pembrook ◴[] No.43633335{6}[source]
Yes, all governments are honest, non-corrupt, and never abuse power.
replies(1): >>43633384 #
367. carlhjerpe ◴[] No.43633384{7}[source]
No, but abusing a payment system makes little sense. If people don't trust it they won't use it and then it serves no purpose. Incentives between government and people can have overlap
368. reaperducer ◴[] No.43633711{4}[source]
I'm not sure whether you travel much, but I always travel as a digital nomad.

I was a "digital nomad" before that was even a term.

I've done "work from home" in Japan, China, Macau, South Korea, Belgium, and at least ten American cities. Even way back when we did it with payphones, Telex and fax machines.

Get off my lawn.

369. tim333 ◴[] No.43633714{9}[source]
Oh yeah, the second one [1] is kind of ugly.
370. lbschenkel ◴[] No.43633768{4}[source]
But is true. I am a Brazilian who lives in Sweden and there are multiple banks here that have blank bans on transfers from/to Brazilian banks due to the amount of fraud and money laundering and lax KYC controls. It is simply too much work for the banks here to vet those transactions and they decided just to refrain from doing it.
371. dysoco ◴[] No.43633775{7}[source]
Where? Pretty much every place accepts Mercadopago at least in Buenos Aires and PBA. From big stores to smaller ones to street performers or small shops in the middle of the road.
372. _rm ◴[] No.43633865{4}[source]
(DRUGS)
373. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43634644{7}[source]
This is very very wrong. Sheesh. Stop.
374. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43634658{8}[source]
No, of course there isn't. The explanation is absolutely ridiculous.

Go ask chatgpt, it will explain it quite well.

replies(1): >>43639645 #
375. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43634718{6}[source]
Yes, it's just the banks. They have both. It's really not rocket science.

It should be satisfying in the following sense - the financial system is nowhere near as complicated as it seems. There is no magic. If you find yourself feeling like there is some magic somewhere, just ask another question because there is likely just a word or a layer of indirection that is making something quite simple seem mysterious.

replies(1): >>43642537 #
376. ninalanyon ◴[] No.43634777{5}[source]
Vipps works in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
377. kspacewalk2 ◴[] No.43634936{7}[source]
No idea, never owned or used crypto. I guess for large amounts the reference point should be total transaction cost using Wise and/or some version of Norbert's gambit if your currency pair is a popular one and dual-listed securities/ETFs are readily available.
378. scrubs ◴[] No.43635833[source]
>How much do you trust your government with your money? Sowing or stirring up doubt or implicitly initiating a conspiracy means you don't have an argument for crypto.

Bitcoin can never be a Pix replacement. It's too damn slow, and others have pointed out, having to manage the entire transaction history is just stupid. (A end customer might not have to do serious book keeping on transaction history, but companies would.)

Pix works great for Brazil. That's what it was intended to do. And that's what it does. Case-closed.

379. matheusmoreira ◴[] No.43636447{5}[source]
Not at all. I thought twice before discussing this because brazilian politics aren't the point of this thread. The fact is Brazil is facing a major crisis due to stupid fiscal policy. Government spending is high and taxes need to make up for it. They were stupid enough to increase taxes on fuels, thereby making everything more expensive.

This is a country with obscenely high interest rates, currently at over 14% per year. It's just ridiculous. And inflation is still hovering between 4% to 5% per year, just under pandemic levels. The solution is for the government to stop spending money. They don't want to do that, they want to increase taxes instead. As a result, we're at record breaking taxation levels, last year Brazil achieved its highest tax revenue since 1995.

The current administration spent the last two years crying about the central bank's high interest rates. I can't even fathom what'd happen to this country if they got what they wanted. Mercifully, central bank has some degree of autonomy from their stupidity. After a couple years they get to appoint the head of the central bank. It turned out even their own guy wasn't stupid enough to lower the rates.

I think the only reason they haven't taxed Pix yet is the fact Pix is too popular already. I have no doubt they're still gonna manage to increase revenue by cross referencing Pix data for tax purposes.

380. leonidasv ◴[] No.43639353{6}[source]
The CPF (persons) and CNPJ (companies) numbers has two check digits.
381. irjustin ◴[] No.43639645{9}[source]
> The explanation is absolutely ridiculous.

You'll need to provide more constructive feedback. Or are you suggesting that it's not "destroyed" and that the origin country can freely transfer money without discounting its books?

replies(1): >>43640018 #
382. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43640018{10}[source]
There are so many problems with your explanation it's hard to know where to start. Just ask ChatGPT to explain it and go back and forth until it's clear.

Really, it's bad form to comment on something technical where you are just miles out of your depth.

383. vasco ◴[] No.43640326{6}[source]
So you will find employment with someone who also has trouble with the government? Why would they pay you in crypto? In this hypothetical world where the government doesn't want you to pay for things, and crypto exists, why aren't they also going after your crypto and employment?
384. dguest ◴[] No.43642537{7}[source]
Well, at your suggestion I did ask ChatGPT, and it pointed to one sort of magic trick: currency swaps between central banks. That is (kind of) a machine where one type of money goes in one side and the other type comes out the other. There's even a cool tracker [1].

But yeah, it's mostly just market forces that keep things stabilized, it seems.

[1]: https://www.cfr.org/tracker/central-bank-currency-swaps-trac...

replies(1): >>43646533 #
385. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43646533{8}[source]
Even central bank swaps aren't magical. The ECB for example has an account for the US Fed, the same way they have an account for HSBC or whatever. The ECB can credit the account for the US Fed, the same way it can for anyone else.

The main trick that folks get hung up on (and, you might be too) is that most "money" is just an IOU from a bank. We've just created a sophisticated way to trade the IOUs and call it "money".

replies(1): >>43647652 #
386. dguest ◴[] No.43647652{9}[source]
This is pretty much what I was asserting in my original post, my question was if there was some additional mechanism beyond simple market forces.

It's not inconceivable (nor magical in any way) to imagine treaties that would allow an actual conversion from one currency to another, where USD go in one side and Euro come out the other. Situations like this have existed in the past: currencies have been converted when, for example, the former currencies in the Eurozone were converted to Euros.

No such situations exist right now: entities just hold multiple currencies and exchange them for you.

replies(1): >>43648584 #
387. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43648584{10}[source]
It's simpler than you are imagining. In practice, anyone can make USD go in one side and EUR come out the other. It's just the notion that something is "destroyed" which is wrong. If I owe you x USD, you can call me and we can agree I now owe you y EUR. If my name is "JP Morgan Chase Bank", it's really easy. And, the "m1 money supply" just changed. But, m1 is kind of nonsense because... it includes checking account deposits which are just IOUs from banks. So, no one just got richer (the bank still owes you money) and nothing is really going on.

Your mental model is falling down around the definition of "currency", "money" etc. It isn't what you imagine it is. We just have a system for trading bank receivables and call it "money".

replies(1): >>43662728 #
388. xeromal ◴[] No.43649556{8}[source]
This is exactly what it is. I kind of dig it and I'm glad I know the name now
389. xeromal ◴[] No.43649568{7}[source]
Someone posted a link in response to you, but no money actually crosses borders.

I think the best way to explain it is an example.

My contact needs to get money to his family across the world. I happen to have a cousin that I love and trust who lives there and runs a gas station. My contact gives me 10k USD + a fee and then I call my cousin and tell him to give 10k to the contact's family member if they give the right password. At the end of the year, I meet up with my cousin and I bring him some gold or other goods depending on what our deficits are to each other.

390. idiotsecant ◴[] No.43661357{5}[source]
The answer to 'bad things exist' is not 'therefore nothing can ever be better'. You fix things 1 step at a time. Removing the hand of the state from the levers and dials of the value transfer system is a good thing.
replies(1): >>43680630 #
391. hakfoo ◴[] No.43661580{7}[source]
I could see some sort of certificate driven approach.

Customers and merchants generate a keypair and CSR. The CSR by design contains no personal information. You submit the public key/CSR and seperate identifying information to a KYC authority.

The government generates a signed certificate the bank can use to open an account, and the customer or merchant signs their transaction requests using their private key to associate them with the account.

The bank has a paper trail showing KYC was performed, but does not have any personal information about the participants, almost akin to the old "numbered Swiss account" cliche.

Ideally, the KYC authority deletes the personal data after issuing certificates, but I'd expect it would be more "information can be released under court order" or "revocation policy blah blah blah".

That's the level of tradeoff I'd expect is politically viable. Bank of America doesn't know you're buying hentai, but if it turns out the 1000-year-old character is actually 12, a court can lift the veil.

392. dguest ◴[] No.43662728{11}[source]
I appreciate the replies, and asking chatgpt is good advice.

It took some prompting to get it to say "It's really not rocket science." though.

https://chatgpt.com/share/67fa2c5f-d940-800a-bdad-b723e763e0...

replies(1): >>43674091 #
393. kylebenzle ◴[] No.43668060{3}[source]
I would be interested to know what your definition of free and open source software is.

But for the record Bitcoin and it's cousins are the exact definition of free and open source software as it is both free and open source. Just because you don't like it doesn't change the facts.

394. mulderc ◴[] No.43668332{6}[source]
My experience is they are already using those services but most of those services can only provide so much. In my state most people on the street already have Medicaid and food stamps but it isn’t like that is enough to get you a place to live or a job. The programs and services available can keep someone alive but are rarely comprehensive enough to deal with chronic mental and physical health issues that impact the ability of someone to thrive in a market economy. Even the most rightwing 20th century economist recognized that the state will need to step in for housing and employment for some part of the population.
395. danielmarkbruce ◴[] No.43674091{12}[source]
The condescension is towards people in finance pretending there is a lot of complicated stuff going on, not towards people trying to parse it.
396. fkyoureadthedoc ◴[] No.43680630{6}[source]
Those things exist because we want them to. You call it bad that there's a government that decides I own my house and nobody else can take it. I call that a good thing. The government can already freeze your bank account with no problem, they don't need Brazil's system to do it.