Hey Tim,

I swear I am not among the crypt-zealot crowd…. honest ;-)

Still, I think it is fair to say that you *ARE* paying fees for credit transactions. They are baked into the pricing the merchants provide. No merchant wants to make a 2.5% fee explicit to you, since you might not buy in that moment. but the fact that all companies are paying those fees likely raises prices across the board as it increases the costs of providing goods for all, same for ACH but the fees are different. If there existed an alternate which was just as instant, and was (as you point out) accepted by a large number of customers and merchants, then it would reduce merchant costs.

I agree if the USG declares bitcoin illegal in the USA, that would really shut it down here. But the USA can do more than that, since they control the SWIFT network, they can shutdown transactions from other nations too.

A blockchain by contrast is not managed in a way that makes it easy for a nation to control its usage outside of its own borders. Thus other nations (e.g. China) might want such an alternative in order to have more autonomy.

I am guessing that china is interested in a blockchain tech since other nations would probably not trust a swift network controlled by the Communist Party, but might be more open to trusting a block chain. (I am definitely no expert on this, and it would really depend upon how independent that chain truly was… it just seems plausible to me.)