[georgemcbay]

"The one thing that Bitcoin really excels at is the instantaneous transfer of unlimited amounts of money from one place in the world to another."

I'm being somewhat pedantic here but Bitcoin is absolutely terrible at this, because Bitcoins are inherently not unlimited.

On a less pedantic note, I'm not sure Bitcoin is any better than the alternative of a Bitcoin-free world for your example usage. Lots of "real" US Dollars these days are little more than bits in a database that can be transferred easily across the world, and that's true with or without Bitcoin.

[omarchowdhury]

Bitcoins are inherently unlimited - they can be divided down to 8 decimal places for a total of 2.1 quadrillion units.

[weavejester]

Do you mean "effectively unlimited"? They're not inherently unlimited in the current implementation; quite the opposite in fact!

[qdog]

I don't think they are "effectively unlimited" either, perhaps closer to "effectively dividable forever", which might not be true, not sure. However, once they are in full circulation they will be a deflationary currency, and giving someone a sliver of a bitcoin that's worth as much as what a full bitcoin was worth at X time in the past is not the same as adding more bitcoins.

I remember one of my economics professors always pre-pending "All other things being equal" before, relating any theories. I keep that in mind every time I start thinking about anything to do with economics, the pile of assumptions on how things are going to work is usually problematic.

[georgemcbay]

That's still not unlimited (tempted to quote Princess Bride here, but you're not the OP, so it wouldn't quite fit).

[dasil003]

Unlimited for the purpose of moving currency. Right now just trying to move a million dollars by Bitcoin will move the market significantly and likely one party will get screwed.