What effect could Bitcoin have on international trade?

At present? Immediate future? Negligible.

Whilst Bitcoin is great, international trade requires a more stable (read: non volatile) and more bank-friendly alt-coin.

Bitcoin is neither at the moment. The current world trade is in Trillions of Dollars, and insofar as I can tell, Bitcoin is not even a small insignificant blimp on the world’s international trade radar.

Does this mean Bitcoin is useless? Far, far from it. I think bitcoin (or its variant) that would have a very important role to play in international trade, once we are past this friend or foe phase with governments, financial institution and regulators that we are going through.

When economists, bankers and the regulators can agree on the importance of a worldwide cryptocurrency like Bitcoin - trade will change.

Where value transfer can be instant, low fees, and includes other features that international trade demands, (like mutual escrow, currency hedge, insurance, revocable clauses, etc.)

You will see that international trade requires not only a coin, but one that has additional features built in like smart contracts, insurance, etc.

We are not there …yet.