The rhetoric around explanations of the utility of cryptocurrency has changed a lot in the past few years.<p>These days, the major emphasis is on circumventing the fees/processes associated with banking (as opposed to the libertarian and/or anonymity rhetoric, which dominated a couple years ago). As a witness, this landing page.<p>And I think the rhetoric has converged to the strongest argument -- political ideology aside, the only true substantial marketplace advantage of BC over sovereign currency is the ability to side-step the banking industry.<p>But then, this makes Bitcoin mostly a cottage industry taking advantage of technology to side-step banking regulations. I see two likely outcomes -- regulations are extended to BC and BC companies start charging as much as banks to compensate for the inherent riskiness of the business, or banks push for regulatory reform while making their services significantly cheaper and faster.<p>I hope for the latter, because if fiat -> fiat transaction is your only goal, cryptocurrency is just an inefficient hack. If I just want to transfer some cash to someone, I'd much rather go directly through my bank (quickly and without fees) than route through another currency just for the hell of it. There's no reason to broaden the attack surface and add yet another middle-man (I mean, entrepreneur).<p>In reality, I expect a combination of the two former scenarios will cripple BC, and that a new era of internet cash transfer services will serve this market instead.