Entirely this, many in the West have no idea how difficult crossborder banking actually is for the vast majority of human beings on Earth.

And FBcoin won't make it any easier, capital controls in India and China won't just go away (not that FB is even allowed in China). Centralized entities will be regulated to maintain the status quo.

Yes, it's all legal issues. If the government doesn't want money to easily be sent in/out of the country, this isn't going to change that

"the West" being Europe. Transfers are still a huge pain in the US.

>Do you think it's as easy for those in India, China, or Kenya, for instance?

Actually yes. Take a look at xoom.com and it's competitors for example (flat rate money transfers at a fraction of swift fees). Only issue is getting money out of those countries. But that is a political and national issue.

And how about Venezuela?

Or for people without a bank account?

Are people actually using BTC in Venezuela, or do they just claim to be from Venezuela, and are asking for donations into their wallet?

> Or for people without a bank account?

I'm having strong doubts that you actually understand how the world banks. There are hundreds of millions of people who don't have bank accounts, and use electronic payments through their cell providers.

Western Union will let you put physical cash in someone's hand from across the world if you are willing to pay their fees.

Venezuela barely has a functioning electrical grid, so cryptocurrency would not seem to be a foolproof solution there.

Kenya is a relatively bad example. While a lot of people are underbanked mobile banking and - payments took off in a spectacular way.[1]

It's probably easier to transfer funds via M-Pesa then from a bank account in Delaware to a bank account in Detroit

And, at least in theory, America is a wealthy country without any borders.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

You’re right. I find it stupendously easy to move money within/into Kenya.

I can easily pay a street seller from my US bank account, directly to his/her phone, in seconds.

Pains me to say this because I had this international bank/credit card to M-Pesa transfers idea a decade ago, a professor dissuaded me from pursuing it.

5 years later, a bunch of services launched and many are thriving.

India has paytm, There are providers like worldremit who transfer money in a few hours. ( transfered recently from Europe to India)

IBM is working in conjunction with the Stellar protocol to try to solve this issue.

Check out IBM world wire.

https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/solutions/world-wire