The cryptocurrency celebrity and software security specialist John McAfee, came reloaded after spending some days at a hospital last week. He said that cryptocurrency exchanges have became a sort of ‘traditional financial institutions.’ Specifically, he attacked HitBTC for having minimum buy-in fees that are quite expensive for some users.
McAfee Attacks HitBTC
In a tweet uploaded on June the 28th, McAfee defended low fees on virtual currency exchanges because they would allow the poorest individuals be part of the financial world, something that traditional financial institutions do not allow for.
About it he wrote:
“The crypto exchanges have become the thing that we have originally fought against. Their power is immense. Hitbtc, for example, has increased suffering for millions of poor people who cannot afford the minimum buy-in since it is greater than their monthly income. Boycott them.”
The crypto exchanges have become the thing that we have originally fought against. Their power is immense. Hitbtc, for example, has increased suffering for millions of poor people who cannot afford the minimum buy-in since it is greater than their monthly income. Boycott them.
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) June 28, 2018
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology offer similar financial services than those provided by traditional financial institutions like banks. The main difference is that cryptos allow individuals not to depend on centralized institutions and have the possibility to send and receive payments independently from where they are.
Indeed, with low fees and fast transactions, immigrants or countries that experience internal temporary migrations can use them and benefit from them. Workers in big cities and in more developed countries may be able to send back to their smaller towns or families part of the money earned with no fees or for just some cents. Let’s take an example of a withdrawal fee for MAID:
The withdrawal fee for any amount of MAID is $63.45 at the current price on June 29th 2018. The price was double about a month ago. This is absurd and it hurts the cryptocurrency community.
International financial institutions take important sums of money when these workers try to send money abroad. The remittance industry is very profitable for banks, but the fees paid by the poorest users may be related to several days of food, clothing and/or living.
McAfee has always been working in order to improve the world with decentralized technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies. It is important to mention that McAfee did not provide any explanation about which other exchange use or how to specifically boycott the exchange.
At the time of writing this article, HitBTC is one of the most important crypto exchanges in the market according to its trading volume.
