The banks and government would LOVE to outlaw cash - the banks because it's one of their biggest costs next to staff. Without either they'd be making pure profit from selling people's money minus the cost of the IT. You've been in banking so you'd appreciate that the basic idea used to be to borrow customers' money at low cost (interest rate) and lend it at a higher rate. Then the casinos came along.

The government would love to outlaw it as it would give them another sight on what people are doing (probably via GCHQ). HMRC wouldn't have to worry about cash deals avoiding tax, etc.

Fact was in the olden days people were paid cash wages. There was little debt. If you wanted something you couldn't afford it was hire purchase or a loan for which you needed a bank account which few people had and then a grilling by the branch manager. Otherwise, when your wage packet ran out, that was it. But the banks realised they could tap into this huge resource and offered "free banking" which of course it isn't and incentivised employers to join in

Both banks and governments will eventually be worried by cryptos over which they have no control. Transactions are effectively anonymous as I discover. When someone sells or buys it's impossible to find where the coins have gone. (My Trezor thingie sets a new receiving address for every trade.)

I agree with Gemcrusader that it's the next stage in financial traffic. As things stand neither banks nor govs nor tax authorities can track anything. The problems will come when authorities awaken to it. They'll probably force employers to pay in an existing fiat. Things like that.

It remains to be seen.


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