[allochthon]

From the article:

low transaction costs for worldwide commerce would still be great.

I'm late to the whole bitcoin phenomenon, but here is what I really like about crypto-currencies. My US credit union (not even a commercial bank) charges me 40 dollars for an international wire transfer to Canada, and the bank on the other end will charge me 15 dollars. If this were done in bitcoin or a similar currency? Nothing, as far as I can tell, if you do it through the right exchange. And that's how it should be.

I suspect that banks don't even know to be worried at this point.

[pbhjpbhj]

I just looked at transaction costs on 2 exchanges and they were both at 0.2% for < $1000. One offered reductions for higher value transactions, the other was fixed.

Kraken and BTC-E resp.

[allochthon]

I might have been a little quick to jump to a conclusion, there. ;) But is there anything currently stopping someone from opening up an exchange whose only fees are an initial membership fee?

[pbhjpbhj]

Greed?

Or possibly just that an initial-membership-fee model risks not covering costs long term and so looks like a potentially unstable proposition?