Online financial companies (paypal, stripe, square, kickstarter, etc.) are 0.1% moving bits around, 0.9% ensuring that the moving of the bits is robust, and the

Online financial companies (paypal, stripe, square, kickstarter, etc.) are 0.1% moving bits around, 0.9% ensuring that the moving of the bits is robust, and the rest is a bunch of other stuff. Things like fraud detection and mitigation, relationships with other financial institutions, relationships with sovereign governments around the world, familiarity with relevant laws and regulations, customer service, and so forth. I can set up a physical bank in 15 seconds. All I need is a shoebox (the vault), a notebook (the ledger), and a pen. And, indeed, in some circumstances this sort of bank is actually appropriate. But at the scale of worldwide commerce it is no more appropriate than a "banking" system that thinks that the software is the most important component.