At least governments are sort of remotely accountable. If we've learned anything from the entire fucking history of the internet it's that nerds with power are not particularly accountable.

> At least governments are sort of remotely accountable

That's very "sort of", and very remote! I wouldn't trust my (the UK) Government as far as I could throw them!

Do you really think if the internet was architected by politicians or corporate suits rather than 'some nerds with power'that it would have turned out better?

No, but let's not conflate the internet and currency/

Wait, aren't you the first one to do that in your first comment in this thread?

I don’t think antihero did, I think Facebook did that with this project. Also PayPal before that.

Personally, I don’t trust any of these systems or organisations, neither tech, nor fintech, nor traditional banks. They’re all flawed for different reasons.

Technology is an attack surface the traditional banks don’t comprehend (from the horror stories I’ve heard from tech people who worked for them), and successful attacks on banking have rewards that tech… I don’t think fully appreciates.

> Technology is an attack surface the traditional banks don’t comprehend, and successful attacks on banking have rewards that tech… I don’t think fully appreciates.

True, but Tech also doesn't really appreciate banks. Banks make much of their money from transaction fees, from literally moving money from one point to another, to large IPO underwriting. Tech can certainly lower transaction fees, but a bank's transaction fees is more than just getting a job done, it's trusting that the job can get done. Banks are able to get away with large transaction fees because they have developed trust and credibility that many are willing to pay for. Tech simply sees this as an engineering challenge and ignores the non-tech legal and social guarantees that banks provide.

>you cant store them on a cold wallet

Literally the only wallet is a cold wallet. Cold hard cash.

Yeah but you can't send hard cash over the internet so let's stick to the "digital" requirement.

So you are saying there are even more benefits?

I'm saying there are less benefits because you don't own your own digital money(except if it's hard cash). The current digital payment system (paypal, visa etc) is pretty much like a glorified Spotify subscription. You don't own anything...just get a license to use it under various conditions. You can't even accept payments without a "processor" and that processor has its own t&c.

More importantly you can't travel with them without paying absurd exchange fees and aweful forex rates

Unless you use Transferwise, Revolut, Monzo or similar.

Not true, you still get screwed on cash withdrawals regardless of the service you use. Most ATMs apply DCC even when you hold the local currency

Now I think about it, I’ve never actually tried using my Revolut card in an ATM.

What I have done is used it for my day-to-day shopping in Germany for just over a year, for holidays in Switzerland, Austria, Finland, and Spain, and also as a really good source of exchange rates when transferring money from my Pounds-only bank to my Euros-only bank.

In all occasions, it deducts from the correct balance without conversion.

There are digital versions of USD and EUR eg. Tether and others.