Bitcoin has a very strong network effect
Bitcoin does not have strong network effect. Look at the numbers. There are very few active users, people who buy bitcoin mostly don't spend it. Bitcoin exists for 6 years, in internet time, bitcoin is a dinosaur.
People should stop misleading others by comparing it to the internet adoption rate, people are more or less tech-savvy today, hundreds of millions of people use torrents. There is no barrier to entry. People just don't see any reason to use bitcoin.
You don't need trillion dollars to compete with bitcoin, there is nothing to compete against. Bitcoin doesn't even offer decentralization, the mining is pretty much centralized.
Money is already digital. Bitcoin doesn't offer anything of value that other services, that use trusted currencies, with actual network, can't achieve.
Digital currencies work, can they be better, probably, but the same thing can be said about comparing bitcoin to altcoins.
When someone mentions that an altcoin with better tech might take over bitcoin, some people here are claiming that the first mover advantage and network effect will win, they compare it to the internet, that the internet could have been better. The protocol we use today won because it was good enough.
Well digital currencies, with actual network effect, by the same logic, are good enough, they already won.
The unbanked don't need bitcoin if it is too volatile. Volatility might be reduced if there will more users from developed countries. But most people in those countries, as concluded before, have no reason what so ever to use bitcoin.
This is why the unbanked would not adopt a volatile currency that is not trusted by the majority of people from developed countries.
Well what about remittances? There are millions invested in services that will compete on the global remittances market using traditional currencies.
For example:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/worldremit/
Anyway, forget about remittances, the unbanked and the first mover advantage. There is not much value bitcoin can offer to the world. It just wastes energy and pollutes the environment.