I doubt it's about the government like another poster mentioned. Cash works great to subvert the government and that's exactly what a lot of little shops do. It's probably because as a merchant:

1. You don't want to _ever_ wait 45 minutes for a transaction to potentially be confirmed on the blockchain. Even before the recent craziness and high fees this would sometimes happen.

2. The price fluctuates wildly. Pretty hard to reason properly about whether or not you'll be able to pay your employees this week if your "store of value" could drop 20% or more at a moment's notice.

3. The fees charged by exchanges to convert to fiat are exorbitant. Unless all of your suppliers and handymen take Bitcoin, you will get screwed by this on the regular.

The bulls usually scream "Lightning network, scaling, store of value" or some other nonsense, but the truth is, today Bitcoin is garbage as an actual currency.

They take zero effort to setup, since it just adds to your existing phone bill. Unlike bitcoin, where people need to install apps, navigate subscribing to financial-like systems they don't really understand. The conversion rate will be tiny, and very few people who consider paying with Bitcoin will complete the process and actually be in a position to scan the QR code and hit the button. None of the other crypto currencies are even on the public's radar, and won't be unless Visa or Mastercard join in.

>>What happened?

Bitcoin Core betrayed the original vision of Bitcoin and hotwired it into a high-cost settlement system. The average transaction fee in Bitcoin is something like $38, which is more than the average weekly salary in many countries.

I believe that cryptocurrency will eventually attain mass adoption. The timeline has been pushed back a few years though because the main network has failed.

All these apps give the government more control, that is why their use is encouraged.

Bitcoin "as app" (once or if it works) will be more like cash payments, privacy wise. That is were I see the main advantage. I find it spooky what Visa and Mastercard now about all of us... at least about me.

> Bitcoin "as app" (once or if it works) will be more like cash payments, privacy wise.

One massive caveat is that all Bitcoin transactions are public, traceable, and permanently stored in the Bitcoin network. In most ways it's worse than cash, in some ways it's probably even worse than credit cards.

zk proofs supposedly resolve that issue.

monereo, zcash, and eventually ethereum

the concept seems to make sense but I'd be curious how to audit such an obfuscated system

s/monereo/Monero/