My personal assessment of the situation, from someone that finds cash extremely inconvenient, and the cash I do have will sit in my money jar for years before I use it.
# Digital
Disadvantages:
- Possibility of a major provider going down (VISA and MasterCard both have recently) and leaving you stranded for a day
- Increased risk of fraud and scams
- Easy tracking of money
Neutral:
- Harder to pay for illegal items without risk (drugs, prostitution, etc.), possibly fewer to less of those things
Advantages:
- Contactless payments are fast and convenient
- Large money transfers from bank to bank
- Insurance on money up to £85k (UK) if the bank goes bust
- Ability to buy and sell different FIAT currencies quickly
- Need to carry fewer things, on the bleeding edge in a big city you don't even need a wallet or card, just your phone will do
Mitigations:
1. Have multiple banks with different providers, one VISA, another MasterCard, etc. The chances of two going down simultaneously is very low.
2. Use a credit card for purchases and never use a debit card online. Credit cards are protected from fraud and you won't be on the line to pay for fraudulent purchases
# Cash
Disadvantages:
- Lack of security, if you hoard cash and you get robbed, that's on you.
- Cash rot: If you keep it around for a long time and it's no
longer legal tender, it's possible you will reach a point where you will never be able to exchange it (UK)
- Possibility of getting fake cash. £50 notes in particular are not accepted in many places.
- (personal) more to carry, coins are a real pain and can pile up quickly (we really need a £1 note or something)
Advantages:
- Easier to give people money in person
- Arguably easier to budget
- Easier to buy illegal items safely
If only we had a decentralized distributed network for peer to peer payments that avoided banks and allowed for verified transactions of value amongst distrusting parties.
Cryptocurrencies solve a problem that people don't really have -- namely that trust is in short supply. So even if some cryptocurrency was popular we would wind up right back we are because of the same market forces that brought us here the first time. Cash that you can send over the internet was never something people really needed or wanted.
* People won't want to actually manage their wallet and risk losing all their money and FDIC carries real tangible value so individuals won't have wallets, they'll have an account with a bank. And because nobody -- not you, not your bank wants to pay transaction fees all intra-bank transactions will be done off-chain.
* And there's never been a problem with intra-bank trust so transactions between banks will also naturally be off-chain with some trusted intermediary so all banks would have is an account with that intermediary.
* But how do people with bank accounts actually do day to day transactions? Banks could have a system where users have a local wallet that the bank xfers down and then performs a real crypto transaction with the other party and then back up to their bank -- but 3 rounds of fees just to buy a coffee? Some trendy start-up will emerge to do all these transactions off-chain for pennies.
* And then you run into the same problem with credit cards where you essentially need virtual accounts with unspecified amounts in them and if you actually try to do transactions like this on-chain you spend a lot of money in fees just to move money between the wallets of trusted parties.
So we'll wind up heading toward a cryptoless society for all the same reasons we're headed toward a cashless one now.
I don't disagree, crypto functions reasonably well as a direct replacement for cash. But for the same reasons people don't carry cash they won't want to carry crypto either. Crypto can become completely mainstream and not change anything about how banks and payment processors function.
“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
Moving the actual pieces of paper around is more expensive than moving bits around. This should be obvious. Sometimes you're paying an armored truck to move cash or somebody to count it. Other times you're accepting that tonight's deposit was stolen from you on the way to the bank.
I'm all for physical currency and we should vote and campaign to keep that part of our financial system but this isn't a conspiracy. Cashless will out-compete cash almost every time. The only exceptions are local businesses trying to avoid taxes.
10 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 30.6 ms ] thread# Digital
Disadvantages:
- Possibility of a major provider going down (VISA and MasterCard both have recently) and leaving you stranded for a day
- Increased risk of fraud and scams
- Easy tracking of money
Neutral:
- Harder to pay for illegal items without risk (drugs, prostitution, etc.), possibly fewer to less of those things
Advantages:
- Contactless payments are fast and convenient
- Large money transfers from bank to bank
- Insurance on money up to £85k (UK) if the bank goes bust
- Ability to buy and sell different FIAT currencies quickly
- Need to carry fewer things, on the bleeding edge in a big city you don't even need a wallet or card, just your phone will do
Mitigations:
1. Have multiple banks with different providers, one VISA, another MasterCard, etc. The chances of two going down simultaneously is very low.
2. Use a credit card for purchases and never use a debit card online. Credit cards are protected from fraud and you won't be on the line to pay for fraudulent purchases
# Cash
Disadvantages:
- Lack of security, if you hoard cash and you get robbed, that's on you.
- Cash rot: If you keep it around for a long time and it's no longer legal tender, it's possible you will reach a point where you will never be able to exchange it (UK)
- Possibility of getting fake cash. £50 notes in particular are not accepted in many places.
- (personal) more to carry, coins are a real pain and can pile up quickly (we really need a £1 note or something)
Advantages:
- Easier to give people money in person - Arguably easier to budget - Easier to buy illegal items safely
Did I miss anything?
* People won't want to actually manage their wallet and risk losing all their money and FDIC carries real tangible value so individuals won't have wallets, they'll have an account with a bank. And because nobody -- not you, not your bank wants to pay transaction fees all intra-bank transactions will be done off-chain.
* And there's never been a problem with intra-bank trust so transactions between banks will also naturally be off-chain with some trusted intermediary so all banks would have is an account with that intermediary.
* But how do people with bank accounts actually do day to day transactions? Banks could have a system where users have a local wallet that the bank xfers down and then performs a real crypto transaction with the other party and then back up to their bank -- but 3 rounds of fees just to buy a coffee? Some trendy start-up will emerge to do all these transactions off-chain for pennies.
* And then you run into the same problem with credit cards where you essentially need virtual accounts with unspecified amounts in them and if you actually try to do transactions like this on-chain you spend a lot of money in fees just to move money between the wallets of trusted parties.
So we'll wind up heading toward a cryptoless society for all the same reasons we're headed toward a cashless one now.
Crypto is catching on.
Sadly, I'm certain it will be read like as a too academical alarmist piece and forgotten soon.
Moving the actual pieces of paper around is more expensive than moving bits around. This should be obvious. Sometimes you're paying an armored truck to move cash or somebody to count it. Other times you're accepting that tonight's deposit was stolen from you on the way to the bank.
I'm all for physical currency and we should vote and campaign to keep that part of our financial system but this isn't a conspiracy. Cashless will out-compete cash almost every time. The only exceptions are local businesses trying to avoid taxes.