Quote from: Hydrogen on February 14, 2017, 05:14:49 AM

Two of the main arguments against bitcoin I've read are.

1) Bitcoin transactions are slow.
2) Bitcoin is electricity intensive, inefficient and wasteful.

I never understood how bitcoin was supposedly slow in contrast to traditional banking methods of moving money when bitcoin transfers might take 2-3 hours tops. Bank wire transfers could take 2-3 days tops. Bitcoin already seems much faster than wire transfers. I don't know if its fair for bitcoin to receive so much criticism in terms of transaction time

Wire transfers will soon become obsolete

If you need instant payments you may want to use card-to-card transfers which are as instant as it gets. You may have to pay a fee but with wire transfers you have to pay almost the same fee anyway, so it doesn't make any significant difference. On the other hand, Bitcoin transaction fees are growing in dollar terms quite in line with Bitcoin price itself, therefore the fees may be quite comparable in size to fiat transfers unless you are transferring dizens of bitcoins, of course. But in the latter case the fiat fees will be likely limited as well