[papabrown]

I used to believe that as well. I have business and family in other countries and the traditional approaches were way too expensive ($50 for a bank wire, $X fee plus horrible exchange rates via Moneygram, etc). I used Bitcoin a few times to move money from my US accounts to my overseas accounts where I could then transfer it in local currency through the local banking systems.

But then it started taking longer and longer for bitcoin transactions to clear. And the price was often moving during this window between when I bought in one currency and I could sell in another currency.

Now I just use TransferWise. Less hassle. Costs are much more reasonable (a few bucks for small amounts) and I don't have to have do multiple transactions to get money from Point A to Point B.

[Tossrock]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I also experienced the long confirmation time issue, but it seems to have settled down after the segwit fork, which allowed more transactions per block.