The average "unbanked" person in a third world nation couldn't afford a $20 transaction fee for their ordinary transactions. But bitcoin certainly looks like a way for some portion of this group to protect their capital since it's not controlled by states want capital controls.
Of course, there's a reason third world countries want capital controls - a lot of the people seeking to export capital are corrupt non-owning possessors of resources. Just as an example, whatever rank administrators within state oil companies and such who want to take things that actually belong to the nations - because such nations have rather weak administrative classes (not that the US isn't moving closer to "kleptocracy" itself).
So everywhere, bitcoin certainly looks like a device for protecting value - except once all the money that wants to move in has moved, then bitcoin's lack of actual practical use (see $20 fees) will make it not terribly valuable and all that money in it will be at a bit of risk.
Plus, phone-based money systems already are coming/in Africa. They solve the ordinary transaction problem. The problem of "how do you get money out of X currency or resource" isn't a logistics problem, it's a power-struggle. The reason Y person is fighting to get money out of X currency is Z person wants to stop that happening. But overall, remember neither Y nor Z are likely to be less than fully corrupt.
Use as currency for Bitcoin (and other coin networks) is still in it's infancy and cannot scale the way it needs to should it want to replace fiat.
The important distinction I would draw though that stores of value have historically been cumbersome to transport and liquidate, Bitcoin solves that problem in a very good way.
I feel it's important to also address this 20$ bitcoin fee meme that seems to be going around. While based in truth it is not 100% accurate.
You have the capacity to set your own txn fee on the Bitcoin network. If you don't mind waiting a couple of blocks (1-3 hours) to get your transaction confirmed , then the fees fall down to single dollars and even lower.
If you're selling a bulk commodity to a distributor in another market , you don't need ecommerce style confirmation times. Same goes for transferring large sums of wealth.
With that said, things like the lightning network will resolve alot of issues with Bitcoin scaling and in my (humble) opinion this is why LTC is pumping. (Atomic swap + Transfer over LTC )
> You have the capacity to set your own txn fee on the Bitcoin network. If you don't mind waiting a couple of blocks (1-3 hours) to get your transaction confirmed , then the fees fall down to single dollars and even lower.
This is infeasible because of insane volatility that BTC is experiencing. You either pay through the nose for a fast confirmation, or you are overpaying, or underpaying your counterparty.
Not to mention that VISA tends to be able to handle a bit more then 3 transactions a second. For some reason, BCH's market cap has not surpassed BTC's crippled protocol... Perhaps it's because nobody is using Bitcoin to transact.
VISA max transactions per seconds around 65000 right now. With daily average 1700 per second and daily high around 25000 transactions per second during holidays and such. I just don't see any cryptocurrency to be able to handle that.
"Single dollars" is still a nosebleed-high fee for a simple electronic value transfer. Consider that pricing on something like an ach transfer is quoted in fractions of a percent (so like 75 cents for $100 USD sent - and caps out entirely at some low value like $5 per transaction regardless of the payment size.
There are cheaper forms of transfer, yes, but there are also much more expensive forms of transfer. A wire transfer will cost you $25 or more and yet there are still millions of them sent per day.
If you choose an arbitrary '3 hours' you can make that fee anything. Any transaction of 50c for a standard fee until one week ago (and they'll clear too) will have been committed to the blockchain.
>The average "unbanked" person in a third world nation couldn't afford a $20 transaction fee for their ordinary transactions.
Someone in a country, who has the equivalent of $800 is life savings, is experiencing hyperinflation (Venezuela let's say). Are you telling me that they're not willing to pay 2.5% (20/800) of their savings to save 97.5% of it? Why do you think someone would be willing to let hyperinflation destroy 100% of their life savings when there's an alternative?
If it were that simple to deal with hyperinflation, why won't they just buy USD?
Because the government will forbid it? They can forbid the purchase of BTC, or the exchange of it for goods, too.
Oh, in-person off-the-books transactions will solve the problem? Well, you don't need BTC for that, you can do in-person transactions of bolivars for USD, too.
Because there's a shortage of USD on that market, they buy it at a premium and also gov't crack down. So they are esentially forced to diversify: they buy BTC expecting to change it for USD at a later date.
Of course, there's a reason third world countries want capital controls - a lot of the people seeking to export capital are corrupt non-owning possessors of resources. Just as an example, whatever rank administrators within state oil companies and such who want to take things that actually belong to the nations - because such nations have rather weak administrative classes (not that the US isn't moving closer to "kleptocracy" itself).
So everywhere, bitcoin certainly looks like a device for protecting value - except once all the money that wants to move in has moved, then bitcoin's lack of actual practical use (see $20 fees) will make it not terribly valuable and all that money in it will be at a bit of risk.
Plus, phone-based money systems already are coming/in Africa. They solve the ordinary transaction problem. The problem of "how do you get money out of X currency or resource" isn't a logistics problem, it's a power-struggle. The reason Y person is fighting to get money out of X currency is Z person wants to stop that happening. But overall, remember neither Y nor Z are likely to be less than fully corrupt.