Sidestep regulations - if you build a system that doesn't allow you to do certain things (e.g. change balances at will), then the government cannot force you to

Sidestep regulations - if you build a system that doesn't allow you to do certain things (e.g. change balances at will), then the government cannot force you to do them. But again - it's not about regulations. It's about interoperability. Centralised money transfer stuff is not new (PayPal? Banks?), the problem with it was always integration with other systems. Also, if it's a centralised database, it's hard to build real startups on top of it. Look at what happened to startups building on top of Twitter APIs when Twitter decided to change them. If you build some parts on top of a public blockchain, it gives guarantees related to accessibility of those parts in the future.