That already exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala I'm a little surprised the article didn't mention this.

Yes but Hawala requires that the agents trust each other. A Hawala-like network could be built by agents who do not trust each other. Users of the network would not have to deal with Bitcoin at all.

I don't know if such a system will come into being but it seems like most of the pieces are already in place. The biggest problem would be converting local currencies into and out of Bitcoin.

> Not sure why you're getting downvoted for this

There's a portion of internet users who have decided that they really really hate Bitcoin and go out of their way to denigrate it and downvote anyone who doesn't share their views. I can understand the people who are skeptical, because Bitcoin definitely has its problems, but this seething hatred mystifies me...

Well, it did get a little crazy this summer with all of the articles and meta-observation about how viable the currency was vs "is HN being used to pump and dump the value".

It still was a fascinating thing to think about from a software point of view, IMO.