I don't think the fees are higher than PayPal's when it comes to overseas transfers + currency exchange. I'm an EU citizen and remember receiving some cash from a friend in the USA and it included normal overseas transfer + conversion to Euro, and it costed me about €20. Me, because my friend didn't even know it's going to consume so much, so he sent a full sum and when I got it it, the fees were deducted from the sent amount and I got much less than I had expected.
Bitcoin is much cheaper and you immediately know how much you're sending. Also the fees are paid by the sender, not deducted from the money being sent.