> Check cashing, wire transfer, western union style money transfer are all overpriced because competition doesn't really exist. And competition doesn't exist,

> Check cashing, wire transfer, western union style money transfer are all overpriced because competition doesn't really exist. And competition doesn't exist, because in many parts of the world in order to transfer/manage large sums of money you need to have political influence (read -> bribes) to operate at scale. This is the "hush hush" secret of any money transfer service that operates worldwide, and why you don't see many people try to enter the space. Source - friend ran a P&L at WU in a high risk area. > Coins going up in value just because they are scarce or first movers, is just like Pets.com being valuable because they have a good domain name. Not true. Pets.com goes up in value because it has utility: i.e. tangible business/economic value associated with marketing and driving customers to your business.