Honestly as much as people complain the US Federal Reserve really just proved their enormous value and thoroughly vindicated fiat currency. The financial crisis of 2007-8 should have been a new Depression and it wasn't. Instead we've seen uninterrupted growth for close to 20 years. Markets have really internalized that the US economy is indestructible and the Fed will always protect us from disaster. Will it last forever? Of course not. But like Keynes said, "in the long run, we're all dead".
Euros, dollars, pounds, francs, and yen are all more stable and easier to use than cryptocurrencies.
It gets even easier once you toss in Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex, various debit card and regional networks, and ubiquitous banking services. Checks and online ACH payments are free or nearly free. Payment card platforms are cheap in consideration the value you get for them.
Meanwhile actually spending crypto is quite expensive - worse than Visa’s transaction fees, and far less consumer and merchant protections.
The key difference is that they all require identity to use and can be traced back to a person.
Cash requires no such thing. Neither do easily available gift cards. There is a little more friction involved.
As a merchant I have zero desire to sell online to an anonymous buyer because the fraud risk is too high. I have to know whom I’m shipping to and how they’re paying for it.
That is by design and is a good thing to everyone except cartels and communist governments.
What about people wanting to buy abortion pills?
Cash, at a pharmacy.
Crypto doesn’t make that any better.
Neither does online ordering. Online orders have to have a degree of KYC.
Banks racked up huge losses on subprime mortgages, get bailed out to save customer deposits which the banks continue to profit from, most bank execs walk away scot-free, and that's a vindication of the system? They literally gambled with customer funds, lost it all by enriching incompetent sellers of bad MBS, and got it replaced by the government. With the money supply being inflated from the replacement, the only people who benefitted were the bad actors who still have a share of the now diluted supply of customer funds.
The fundamental structural problems from 2007-8 are still here. The system has been running with paper over the cracks in the foundation for almost 20 years.
Every system ever has been a patchwork. Dodd-Frank and it's orderly liquidation rules are a genuine benefit. We had a commercial bank collapse a few years ago and there was no contagion.
Most of the market is now in shadow banks. What happens when they collapse?