A transaction fee is paid for the exchange and since very few transactions can be processed at a time, users often bid to prioritize their transactions. On Ethereum, another major cryptocurrency network, these offers are called "gas fees," sometimes averaging $50 to $100 per transaction. (It's hard to say exactly, because they are paid in units of Ether, a cryptocurrency whose dollar value varies.) However, if some big players bid to settle big trades, there may be a "gas war" that drives the transaction fee into the thousands of dollars. There are other obstacles.
Coinbase, perhaps the largest platform in the United States, requires users to upload additional identification in order to get paid, with long delays and no customer south africa phone number list service. In times of crisis or low liquidity, cryptocurrency platforms and banks usually completely freeze transactions. After you've managed to sell the cryptocurrencies – possibly after some delay, paying fees, and after a price change – the transaction goes to your bank. Unlike cryptocurrency platforms, banks must comply with securities and money laundering regulations, so they employ a small army of anti-fraud officers to vet large payments from unverifiable sources.
Your bank may reject the transaction, reject your transfers, freeze your account, or notify the tax authorities. In 2017, Wells Fargo refused to process any transfers to or from Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency platform based in the British Virgin Islands. A platform can block your money, your bank can block your account and you can lose your money without being able to get it back in any way. On June 13, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency platform, and Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lender, froze bitcoin withdrawals. And if you get hacked, scammed or just make a mistake, cryptocurrency transactions cannot be cancelled. The difficulty of getting hold of the money has two main consequences. First, it means that the only transactions it makes sense to do with cryptocurrency are those where the need for anonymity outweighs the high costs and slowness, which is why cryptocurrency is so strongly associated with drugs, money laundering , ransomware attacks and child pornography.