[abalone]

It's not about whether merchants will adopt bitcoin. They'd be happy to take digital cash, or any method that pays out less to consumers.

The question is whether consumers will adopt it.. for more than the cases where anonymity is paramount. As it stands cards offer much better protections and benefits than cash, which is where most of the high fees go.

Not 100% of it -- networks and banks still do make money on the system. But the opportunity is much smaller than the gross processing fee would suggest. Between one and two orders of magnitude smaller. And when compared with the adoption and rollout costs of a new system, it's far less of a compelling case than cd's essay might suggest.