While this is true, they also are petrified of something they themselves don't have authority over. I don't think the hesitance is surprising, these are governments that are obsessed with controlling most aspects of their citizens lives.

On the other hand, these nation states would use cryto if they were technical and knowledgeable enough of the intricacies of such market. Venezuela already launched its own crypto-currency (the Petrodollar) which was a complete flop. You'd think that a nation state with all its resources, people, sovereignty and army would be able to make a cryptocurrency (probably an Ethereum fork) work. Well, it's simple: They can't.

Most countries today rely on a system they barely understand how it works. They collect taxes, print money and try to export/import stuff. The whole system is glued together by a nation that somehow appeared before, during or shortly after the second world war. Their answer to instability in markets is almost always restrictions (either in money transfers, or blocking imports, or arbitrarily confiscating wealth).

These systems have barely evolved especially in less developed countries, and even in first class countries are still quite archaic. It doesn't help that these system do not have knowledgeable people about these technologies who could help shape policy, recognize trends or act.

The only reason these countries still have semi-functioning finances is that a large portion of the population never heard, or have the technical capabilities to deal with crypto. The newer generation is going to force a re-draw of nation states and probably bankrupt some governments in the process (it's already starting to happen).

They don't even want to use that system. They want to create yet another that is state-controlled.

The US are only in this controlling situation because of a historical accident (WWII).

If they hope to establish non US-controlled ways of exchanging value, I suspect they'll have to relinquish some amount of control, unless - of course - China becomes much more preponderant both economically and militarily.

Well, the good news on that front is that most international money transfers use the IBAN system rather than swift, and IBAN is run by a consortium of EU banks.

Source?

And while it may be the case by number of transactions, I'd be very surprised if that was true by volume.

Edit; I think your parent comment is confusing concepts. IBAN is international bank account number. You enter an Iban as the target address for your swift transfer. I wasn't aware of a different system that also uses IBAN ... is there one?

When you wire money from e.g. Europe to the US, they don't speak IBAN, you have to specify US-centric bank account designations.