faizan

building a global account for payments

[faizan @imfaziiii]

The $2 trillion remittance scam: How banks rob migrant workers

maria works 12 hour shifts cleaning offices in new york city every month she sends $400 back to her family in guatemala by the time it reaches them it's $360. where did the other $40 go? into the pockets of western union moneygram and banks who've built a $200 billion industry on the world most vulnerable workers.

The Numbers

migrant workers sent $831 billion home in 2022 but paid $200 billion in fees more than new zealand entire GDP.

the global average cost to send $200 is $12.70 (6.35%) some corridors are worse 15-20% from south africa 8-12% from gulf states to south Asia.

western union processed $75 billion in 2022 and generated $4.2 billion in revenue a 5.6% take rate on money sent by minimum wage workers.

How the scam works

they advertise "low fees" while making money on exchange rates.

send $500 to mexico pay a $5 "transfer fee" but get an exchange rate 3-4% worse than market. that $500 becomes $460 after hidden markup plus the $5 fee total cost $45 (9%) marketing only mentions the $5.

The captive market

many migrant workers are unbanked and get paid in cash remittance companies built networks in immigrant neighborhoods with agents speaking local languages in many small towns globally there's literally one place to pick up transfers.

Regulatory capture

money transmitter licenses cost hundreds of thousands per state. only big players can afford legal operation across countries western union helps train government officials on compliance they wrote the rules.

The human cost

Maria $40 monthly loss equals $480 yearly nearly two months minimum wage in guatemala across 281 million migrant workers reducing costs by 2 percentage points would save $16 billion annually.

The stablecoin solution

stablecoins move across borders instantly with fees under 1% send $500 in USDC $2-5 network fee $5-10 conversion total: $7-15 instead of $45.

the challenge is infrastructure for local currency conversion.

The Resistance

western union partners with blockchain companies while maintaining fee structures and lobbying for regulations requiring expensive licenses for stablecoin services.

The bottom line

every month 281 million workers send money home while financial services extract $16-20 billion in fees. this is direct wealth transfer from the world most vulnerable to its most profitable corporations.

the technology to fix this exists the question is whether established players will regulate it out of existence first.

maria $40 multiplied by 281 million workers equals one of history largest ongoing scams.

[faizan @imfaziiii]

i still think about XPL price action this is one of the worst looking charts in crypto right now

i think everyone involved in the launch has some responsibility for this PA like launching plasma around a $7B valuation and then pushing it close to $14B made no sense there was no way the market could defend that valuation at the time

you had echo round participants, sonar sale participants, and people who received five figure airdrops already massively upof course they were going to sell into that valuation regardless of how good the product was

plasma one might be doing really well right now but the damage from the launch is hard to undo ironically you could probably argue that XPL current valuation looks much more reasonable now

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@Obesepotato_hl @QFEX @annanay

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@scene999 grats scene

[faizan @imfaziiii]

blockchains are insanely fast now but crypto still doesn’t have enough users to properly test what these chains are capable of

and i don’t even think onboarding is the main problem anymore cuz It’s not tbh crypto just failed to give normal people enough reasons to come onchain

look at what dominates attention today polymarket, perp DEXs, memecoins, speculation crypto identity still revolves heavily around gambling

we have infrastructure that is cheaper, faster, global and programmable, but we still don’t know whether these chains can actually compete with the systems running global finance at scale

decentralization can matter far beyond trading like payments, capital markets, identity, ownership, data, AI, coordination, censorship resistance, and access to financial infrastructure

but who really cares about this today? tbh nobody prob some builders

this tech has come incredibly far but adoption still has a very long way to go

[faizan @imfaziiii]

had to get this onchain pet it looks way too similar to my pfp lol

[faizan @imfaziiii]

Plasma card made it out of the screen

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@EvgenyGaevoy

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@mvkise irlmaxxing?

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@annanay @zeroxkyle see ya

[faizan @imfaziiii]

I’m bullish on this market again

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@proofofjake_ @tokenGBP wow congrats

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@BreathOfEstova @monad Grats

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@Cassini0x good luck ♥️

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@cryptunez Goat

[faizan @imfaziiii]

Monday

[faizan @imfaziiii]

shades of sky

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@imMubaaaa Yeah

[faizan @imfaziiii]

what a goated show

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@aabisanaytulla yup

[faizan @imfaziiii]

@marlouiise this is so good i am going to use it for pre seed round