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As much as anything, people need bank accounts to receive payments to be part of a modern economy. Many retirees would fall well into the "people without money
by hakfoo 5y ago
As much as anything, people need bank accounts to receive payments to be part of a modern economy.
Many retirees would fall well into the "people without money" category, but they still need to get their Social Security payment direct deposited.
Many employers, especially in low-wage "people without money" sectors, aggressively push extortionate-fee prepaid-debit products on their workers if they can't accept a conventional direct deposit.
Putting everyone on a single network, at the very least for this use case, reduces cost and complexity. Can you imagine the guaranteed confusion and error in a system where 40% of your employer's payroll was paid over ACH, 25% via crypto transfers split among a dozen blockchains, and the rest via paper cheques or prepaid debit cards mailed out?
Yes, it's not the only possible solution to a payments ecosystem, but it's the closest thing to a universal one we have. People understand how it works and there are well-established risk and mitigation models for it.
This is part of the reason I'm a bit hesitant about things like the "self banking" paradigm via cryptocurrency. Even once we solve the nuts-and-bolts problems of risk mitigation and seamless user experiences, it's likely to be a sharded market for the short term. I can easily imagine incurring fees and delays because my money is in a Dogecoin wallet but the water company only wants Monero to settle their bill.