Today, I saw this article on cointelegraph.
Bitcoin ‘Not The Answer To Cashless Economy’ Says European Banks’ Top Brass
I am not going to discuss this article in detail. I just want to ask one question, are we talking about a different 'cashless'? In another word, are 'government cashless' and 'crypto cashless' the same cashless?
Nowadays, we can hear many banks and government talk about cashless. It appears that they like cashless and they aim to build a cashless society. Meanwhile, with bitcoin and cryptocurrency, we can also achieve cashless. Are these two cashless the same?
Actually, they are not. The government cashless is to encourage people to use debit/credit cards and mobile payment. Banks can easily track where the money comes from and where the money goes. They still have full controls on your asset. In the contrast, if cryptocurrency is used to replace fiat currency, the government will have a hard time to control the your wallet. Although they can still track the transactions on blockchain and see bitcoin is transferred from one wallet to another, they have no idea who the sender and receiver are, who may even be different countries.
Perhaps we can say that there are two cashless-es, the government cashless and the crypto cashless. Government cashless hates crypto cashless. Next time when we hear people talk cashless, we perhaps need to ask this first: What cashless are you talking about?