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.
“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.”<p>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.<p>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.
An excellent article, especially given the analysis of the social engineering tools used against the general public.<p>Sadly, I'm certain it will be read like as a too academical alarmist piece and forgotten soon.