> Workers in the US often send money back to families in third-world countries. Doing this with BTC is less expensive and faster than with wire transfers.
How high are those fees, these days? IIUC, in recent years, several companies have enabled regular-money-based transfers over the Internet at lower fees than in the past. Some quick searching indicates players include Zelle, PayPal, CashApp and Venmo For example, I just checked the PayPal (ugh) fee for transferring 1,000 USD to a Mexican bank account. If you have a US bank account linked to PayPal, the fee is zero. I've heard Zelle is also free (?)
Even if for some countries its probably more expensive - I wonder if it's that high. Plus, on the BTC side, you need to factor in the fees for converting to and from BTC.
About the illegal drug trade: I don't see how BTC improves product quality. As for the violence - world states, primarily the US, control the level of violence, and it isn't really about the method of payment. As for the risk of drug-runners being caught - most of these are small-time businessmen rather than workers. So I feel this is a bit of a forced example. If anything, the benefit here is possibly reducing state involvement in drug trafficking and bringing us closer to de-criminalization.