BUt I get your point, I used some automated "pay by crypto" checkout system a few months ago, their automated system never picked up the transaction even though the coins where in their wallet, they first blamed me and said they would refund if I paid the fee's which were not in a coin I had on hand so had to do some giggling about to get this small amount (was like < $1 of coins so it was easier to just pay this fee than it was to complain), then after they recieved this fee they said they would return the funds minus 8% as that 8% was their "handling fee".

NOW they did return all the funds I transfered so maybe that 2nd email was just a canned message but it was still a jab to the gut them saying "yeah, our system messed up and we want you to pay to fix it".

Things like that happen when you have an intermediate handling the transaction, and personally for my day to day transactions I'm happy with using the existing banking system

BUT the existing system does have flaws in my opinion. For one example, sex workers, banks do not like touching that subject. Crypto removes the gatekeepers to electronic payment transfers, well it does until you want to convert it back to fiat and your crypto gets blacklisted by the exchanges. But me personally, I don't think crypto is the answer, but kicking banks into understanding that adults are adults and don't need banks holding the reins.

(Granted payments in the adult industry are some of the most charged back which becomes a pain for payment providers).

And back to the topic: yes banks deserve some stronger kicks and that can be achieved only through politics (aka, getting involved). Cryptids only shuffle the burden around a bit.

Try that with a credit card transaction and you'll get kicked out for ordering 5 beers and only trying to pay 1. :D

- I want to have a beer!

- ok, scan this QR, and accept the transaction

- there you go!

- thank you, here are your 5 beers

- oh, did I just pay for 5? I wanted 1! can you refund me and take these back?

- sure! can I see your QR code?

- there you go!

- thank you, here is your 1 beer and refund

Note that I'm totally burnt on bitcoin for practical reasons, but your example is just silly.

It's just a conflict to make the point stand, we are not discussing my creative writing here, so don't hurt my feelings for no reason please! :)

It's just that in the case of btc, there's no central authority to cancel the transaction. You need a court order to force the bar to manually send the money back to you. The bank cannot freeze the funds. Enforcement is crippled. If this is not a reputable business (unlikely for a bar and very unlikely for a small sum like that but bear with me), it's way more likely to lose your money.

This is one of the reasons why money transactions are hard and costly. You cannot pretend that a blockchain fixes all that.

If I lose 50 € to some unscrupulous merchant, that's worth it to not have to ask the bank for permission for and tell them about every transaction.

in other words, you aren't poor enough for the loss of 50 € to mean that you are going to have less food this month and won't be late on your rent because of it.

But poor people do use banking services and in both countries I've lived in (US and Norway), there are built in consumer protections. They aren't perfect, but they are stronger than you get with crypto. You can often resolve a payment issue, for example. FDIC protection in the US covers most folks (most folks don't save more than whatever the limit is now).

And this protection, even if imperfect, helps folks have a little more stability in their lives.

To the extent that the risk profile is or will become (with expanding regulations) the same as with cash, cryptocurrencies provide no meaningful improvement over cash, but have significant drawbacks.

So why should we take all this effort to get to "just like cash, but with extra steps"?

In this world however, disputed transactions may even be more than half, depending on the industry. You can't approach something that ignores this as a serious financial tool.

Compare a frozen bank account to a fraudulent transaction you can't revert. Sure, the latter is more frequent, but the former is devastating.

That's a feature, not a bug.