No, it is a meaningful distinction for some. For those of us hoping to avoid the overhead of payment processors by using bitcoin, it puts the two methods on equal footing instead - there's still a middleman taking a (likely nontrivial) cut from our purchases.
Also, I imagine CNY -> USD conversion is probably done on an exchange instead of through a company like BitPay, so the comparison might not be very accurate.
> Also, I imagine CNY -> USD conversion is probably done on an exchange instead of through a company like BitPay, so the comparison might not be very accurate.
There is no such thing as a Forex exchange, it is done through banks who hedge their exposure to other market participants over-the-counter and take a cut just the same.
There is absolutely no reason (in the long term) that Bitcoin would cost more to exchange for merchants than any foreign fiat currency does today.
And even today, a ~1% Bitcoin processing fee is approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of what credit cards cost to process.
This is a pointless distinction.