Bitcoin Advantages
Bitcoin has several advantages compared to traditional money transmitting services. We already mentioned two of these above, the elimination of the need for third parties and the bypassing of restrictions.
Another major plus of the new cryptocurrency is the very low cost for sending and receiving bitcoins. While it is possible to send transactions completely free of charge, it is recommended to pay the small fee in order to speed up the sending process.
The fee amount depends on the data size of the transaction. A typical transaction is 500 bytes and carries a fee of 0.0001 BTC. At current prices of $913 per bitcoin, this amounts to a charge of 9.13 cents.
Because the fee is completely dependent on a transaction’s data size and not on the number of bitcoins being sent, a $10 transfer will carry the same fee as a $10 Million transfer. The fee will take a 0.913% piece of a $10 transfer but that same fee will only take 0.000000913% of a 10 Million transfer.
Bitcoin offers benefits to merchants as well, as transactions that involve the digital currency are secure and irreversible. Without the risk of fraud or fraudulent chargebacks, merchants can offer their products at a discount thereby generating more sales or pocket the difference themselves. In addition, with card processors out of the picture, merchants can save on the percentage cut taken by Visa / MasterCard.
