If only we had some kind of purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
How do you get that electronic cash in the first place without going through a financial institution?
Possibly by trading with someone who already has electronic cash, I guess – but how do I know I’m not laundering the other person’s money, and/or financing terrorism or CSAM with my fiat money?
If only there was a peer to peer electronic cash system that was instant and you didn't have to pay for fees for each transaction.
Jokes and cryptocurrencies aside. The digital euro is being built and will be deployed in the coming years, enabling offline digital money transfers. I'll have to see it to belive it.
>If only we had some kind of purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments
Unfortunately, all such systems are quickly co-opted for the purpose of speculative price schemery. Bitcoin will soon reach a point of no-return, when the smallest fractional has an exchange rate so high that it will be impossible to purchase small goods at all (except in bulk), though in reality that point was reached many years ago. The entire concept of cryptocurrencies might actually be irrevocably poisoned, because even a new system would have to deal with the public perception baggage of the last decade's many Ponzi-type scams and various joke/meme coins. If only Satoshi had been a social genius instead of a technical genius.
