Remittances are a huge part of the global economy but traditional money transfer services can be slow and expensive. Bitcoin offers a faster and more cost effective alternative. Could bitcoin disrupt the remittance industry and become the go to solution for cross border payments? What are the potential for bitcoin to change the way we send money internationally and what barriers still stand in the way of its widespread adoption for remittances?
Bitcoin wasn't created to disrupt or eliminate the traditional banking system so I don't see it disrupting fiat local or global money transfers. Bitcoin gives it's holders privacy and freedom when doing p2p transactions, this is the major difference between Bitcoin and fiat. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital cash that serves as an alternative to fiat and it has created an added option for money transfers, it now depends on every individuals whether they want to explore the privacy of using a decentralized digital currency or centralized currencies for their transactions.
We can not write off the efficiency of traditional money transfers because Bitcoin is yet to attain the level of adoption that fiat currencies have. Perhaps in the future Bitcoin can compete favorably with fiat currencies when it's adoption increases geometrically. But as of today most people still prefer the traditional banks for money transfers to Bitcoin transactions
Bitcoin will be the best when it comes to big, not-often-done transactions.
But for other stuff, especially the things that we buy or spend funds on a daily basis, it wouldn't be enough, in my opinion.
That's why there would be alternatives to fiat, or maybe BTC alike.