As far as I can tell, most UK wire transfers are essentially immediate (at most a couple of minutes), even between different banks.
[1] An opportunity made possible by the ability (created by Bitcoin) to profitably and efficiently collect micropayments in poor regions of the world
As far as cash, try collecting cash payments for your grid of micro-generators recharging cellphones in the Amazon, see how well that works out for you. Let me guess, you're gunna fly some drones in to pick up the payments...
>As far as cash, try collecting cash payments for your grid of micro-generators recharging cellphones in the Amazon, see how well that works out for you. Let me guess, you're gunna fly some drones in to pick up the payments...
Try removing your micro generator from the community after you've installed it when they stop paying your rent. See how that works out for you.
I'd collect the payments when I delivered the fuel btw.
Maybe the "entrepreneurs" will in fact "smell the opportunity" and move in and save the day, but for what? What's the gain? Why design critical infrastructure so that its survival is based on a hypothetical market scenario, when it can be done right in the first place?
You also have to give your name and address to the recipient bank to somehow prove you're not laundering money or funding terrorism.
The quick-transfer system is only available for certain transactions. Most payments still take a while, and anything that involves a paper cheque still takes at least a week.
As for money laundering and terrorism - it's been proven over and over that it's easier to get a bank account for both than it is to get a bank account as an average Joe.
Not a few banks are knowingly involved in illegal transactions of one kind or another. So giving Bitcoin a hard time for the same thing is hypocritical.
Banks are certainly going to be killed by a global digital currency sooner or later, but it's going to need some kind of independent OpenMoney initiative.
BC is not that initiative, because the creators seemed to believe that starting a digital goldrush was more important than creating a rock-solid and secure peer to peer infrastructure for all transactions.
I doubt banks will still be around fifty years from now. In an all-digital economy they're not just parasitic, they're irrelevant.