Elephants or ants: will alternative payments make a dent in (inter)national payment schemes?

I copy the title from a very interesting conference last friday from GigaOM about US market: "Elephants or ants: will MVNOs make a dent in national carriers?"

The observation was: "Mobile virtual network operators are popping up everywhere, but will they ever be large enough to threaten the large national carriers? Can they build a profitable business? Time will tell, but these companies have high hopes."

By analogy we may submit the same question about alternative payments which are popping up today : "Elephants or ants?"
Of course some ants are more dangerous and biggest than others, and some elephants are less healthy than others.
I'll let you give names ...