> neither practical nor particularly convenient
My only take away with crypto is, think of that one movie "In Time" but instead of the whole time = currency concept and the arm clock, what if crypto could be applied to a physical piece of e-paper like thing, where it says what its worth, and its worth what it says, you can transfer it on a whim from the paper to your phone (to a wallet) and back and forth.
If anyone figured that out, fully seamlessly, fault tolerant, that alone imho would be worth investing time and attention into.
Basically make the crypto real and physical, something fluidly tangible to where everyone can hold it and understand it.
No one can hack your wallet if all your "crypto" is not in it. You can spin up new wallet on a whim.
The only real way I can think is something like how monero works, where whoever owns a coin can "decrypt" said coin (or that's my limited understanding of how monero works).
I think you just described cash.
That's the idea---to my mind---that's worthwhile for crypto to work toward. Something that has all the traits of cash but that can be used over the internet.
This. Something that elevates cash, can be cash, and go back to digital.
There have been a number of Bitcoin physical bearer instruments. Take a look at Opendime/Satscard, for example.