Reminds me of hawala, an interesting money transfer system that doesn't actually involve the movement of money, based on the honor system and with roots in Islamic law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
Actually Bitcoin is like hawala, too, when used for cross-border finance transfer: the sender trusts the network that the reciever will be able to exchange the Bitcoins for the corresponding value in local currency.
Am I they only one alarmed by this?