Andreas antonopolous keeps lecturing bitcoin will greatly help the underbanked in developing countries, but how exactly...
India is the largest remittance market in the world and most of the money is going to southern states,
Typical example, in tamil nadu northern districts the man of the house goes to gulf to help build burj kalifa, send the money through western union and that really helps them because they get cash in hand..
But if they adopt to bitcoin, the recipient here,which is usully the wife or children has to exchange the bitcoins to cash at one of the Indian exchanges, which require banking information as part of KYC.
Now what difference does it make? if they have bank accounts in the first place, the sender would send it through SWIFT to the recipient bank account.
In case of transaction fees if western union and swift could cut some, then compare it with buy and sell prices of bitcoins in all our exchanges...that would put it on the same line....
so what is the difference?
I wouldn't touch Andreas antonopolous with a 10 inch pole if it came to economics. His work as neobee's "technical advisor" (which he says was in limited capability) is enough for me to doubt any thing coming out of his mouth.
That said, as Benson said at a time when BTC can be used for goods a transaction fee of 0.0001 btc will be lower than what WU could afford to set up. Not to mention the instantaneous transfer of money. For now, yes it is not really ideal.
