I dunno man. I think it will be huge. Especially once people use it directly. Let's say I work in the US but my family lives in Mexico. I send them $60 a week of what I make and I pay say $8 to use PayPal. By using BTC I could save almost $100 a year. Additionally my family does not have to turn that into Pesos. They could use it to buy a toaster online, or whatever.
So for the worker the choice is pay an extra $96 or use universal money. That is huge. The remittance market is worth billions and nothing else addresses the banking needs of guest workers like bitcoin.
Topic: International remittances will have little afffect on the price. (Read 791 times)
Some people rate the price of BTC in accordance to the market cap of certain money transfer companies, or to the amount of annual transfer. Not only is this without reason, it forgets the fact that a remittance requires the buying and selling of the coins. Buy = price up, sell = price down. Thus transfers being made will have little affect on btc price.
your forgot one really important fact: volume.
right now the marketcap of bitcoin is (@cmc): $ 4,137,562,912
this means that at any given time - as long as the marketcap stays the same - the global maximum transaction size of bitcoin cannot surpass $ 4,137,562,912.
if we assume that bitcoin will be really used for international remittance the marketcap will grow by several orders of magnitude.
here is a interesting article from 2013 and 2014 though:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/10/02/developing-countries-remittances-2013-world-bank
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/18/global-remittance-industry-choking-billions-developing-world
If it was used widely for remittance purposes it'll serve to open the eyes of the people using it. I can imagine it would encourage BTC economies alongside the home currencies. You might not bother converting it if you wanted to order something from abroad.
Some people rate the price of BTC in accordance to the market cap of certain money transfer companies, or to the amount of annual transfer. Not only is this without reason, it forgets the fact that a remittance requires the buying and selling of the coins. Buy = price up, sell = price down. Thus transfers being made will have little affect on btc price.
The money transfer companies wouldn't always go out and buy the bitcoin, then sell them when the transfer is complete, they would surely have some on demand to perform quick transfers. Right now I am sure that Western Union has loads of foreign currency all over the world for just this reason.
I think the increased usage of Bitcoin would increase the price, along with competition for buying when they first start to buy in.
Some people rate the price of BTC in accordance to the market cap of certain money transfer companies, or to the amount of annual transfer. Not only is this without reason, it forgets the fact that a remittance requires the buying and selling of the coins. Buy = price up, sell = price down. Thus transfers being made will have little affect on btc price.
The effect would be, at worst, equivalent to the float while the money is being transferred. Something like how much money is being transferred at any given time, since that is that much less coin available to be placed on ask walls. At best it will a lot more because of Bitcoin actually having its first major legitimate use outside store of value.
Not really. For bitcoin to really excell money needs to be flowing in and out of bitcoin on a continual basis like conveyor belt and that is what would happen here as coins are continually being bought, sent, then sold and the cycle continues. The more demand by the remittance market should make the coins scarcer and push up demand.
well yes, right now the volatility of the price is more about manipulation than anything else, this is why adoption, and spread are very important
few individuasl controlling large portion of the supply, i'ts not a good thing ever
few individuasl controlling large portion of the supply, i'ts not a good thing ever
Some people rate the price of BTC in accordance to the market cap of certain money transfer companies, or to the amount of annual transfer. Not only is this without reason, it forgets the fact that a remittance requires the buying and selling of the coins. Buy = price up, sell = price down. Thus transfers being made will have little affect on btc price.
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