[cdixon]

I agree it's imprecise. But I'd argue the de facto fees in the existing system are much higher than 2.5%. The biggest cost are all the transactions that should happen but don't. Most merchants/payment companies block payments from dozens if not hundreds of countries due to fears of fraud.

[comex]

That's only indirectly related to Bitcoin's use of proof of work, though. While Bitcoin's overall design has advantages and disadvantages w.r.t. security, I don't know why an irreversible version of the current system wouldn't similarly be able to reduce fees without needing to "waste" CPU power computing hashes.