[nwzpaperman]

Technically, you'd be looking at BTC fiat CONVERSION cost + traditional TRANSACTION cost on the secondary party's ensuing transactions.

Fundamentally, money is nothing more than a unit by which to quantify value. Fiats can temporarily solve some problems like the issuer's spending constraint caused by a lack of units. The problem is that the unit is not standardized and thus becomes undesirable for trade as contracts for future goods/services become speculative beyond the operating complexities.

Which is longer: 2.54 cm or 1 inch?

The traditional transaction cost of the legacy financial system depend on the legal system perpetuating. Without the legal system and administrators (government) and its users (everyone), there are no contracts, no taxes and no fiat money.

This is why global legal harmonization is critical in the context of preserving the status quo. As discussed in the HyperMusic thread, changes in IP law in one "stable" country can engender massive economic flows to less regulation or more regulation depending upon who is favored.

BTC and its forks represent a parallel financial system that could possibly facilitate the preservation of much of the world's functionality in the event that the present legal system doesn't survive its next iteration to global force.