[here]

As someone who is paying 5% to deposit a foreign check, and also lost a non-trivial amount when a ripple gateway folded, I can say I am still excited to see another iteration on the idea.

5% as a consumer spread on international transfers is ridiculous, and seemingly only avoided using some sort of forex exchange with high minimums and excessive red tape.

Bitcoin exchanges do not offer reliable or timely deposit/withdrawal in most local currencies to consider it an alternative.

The trust points are no worse than existing banks / currency exchange / forex models that allow this type of transfer to take place. If we are lucky, we can improve and decentralize those choke points further.

Yes, those who control the choke points have the potential to make stupid amounts of money based solely on traffic, much like existing banking models and many startups.

Worth reading is the recent blogpost that I'm sure most regulars have seen https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective.