The payment system problem nobody wants to solve

[slapper]

Whoever owns the most convenient method of paying things owns everything in the end

At this point we are seeing nations discover that their currencies are being made optional. Not due to some melodramatic meltdown or hyperinflation crisis, but because individuals are simply opting to use more convenient options in their day to day transactions. Government can regulate the banks, exchange, capital flows, but when one can make a cross-border payment as easy as sending a text message, all that regulatory infrastructure will be a waste

People in unstable economies are not asking "which currency is backed by the strongest institutions?" They are asking "which one allows me to pay my supplier in Vietnam without losing 6.5% to fees and waiting three days?" Comfort is swallowing sovereignty

And the countries getting disrupted can't really fight back very effectively. You either create your own convenient system (hard, expensive, requires tech infrastructure you probably don't have), or you put restrictions on the convenient foreign option (which just makes you look authoritarian and drives usage underground). Europe is discussing the concept of digital sovereignty when their citizens are already employing whatever functions. China has banned the entire category and is now scrambling to figure out how to compete without admitting they were wrong

This could be even worse than the previous system to the economic stability. At least when foreign reserves were tied up in bonds there was some friction, some time lag before capital could escape. Now? If your government does something stupid, everyone's savings can leave the country in the time it takes to open an app. Banks in developing countries are basically competing with the entire global financial system for deposits, and they are losing

So what's the endgame here? Are we content to believe that monetary sovereignty is dead to whoever is not able to provide greater convenience than the giants? Or can smaller economies really keep a certain degree of control without turning into financial North Koreas?

[KiaKia]

I like what you contributed, it is meaningful but I will like to make few points on my behave, you said whoever owns the most convenient method of paying things owns everything in the end, how so?

Because if this business is accepting crypto as payment and whatever they are selling is not what I need why should I buy from them base on the part that they are accepting crypto payment? The question is do they have what I need.

I think we will still get there in the end, very soon crypto will be a optional payment option available world wide, I am routing out for this too because there are so many things I want to get with my crypto in form of money but I can't, Trump is now opening the door, it is only a matter of time.

[Alpha Marine]

you said whoever owns the most convenient method of paying things owns everything in the end, how so?

The government had the most "convenient" method of paying for things, and they controlled everything. The only way to pay for things before was through fiat currencies. There were no other means of payment, so if you want to make an international transaction, you will have to use fiat currencies, even though there were different systems like PayPal, Western Union, debit card transfer and other ways to make payments internationally.
Today, you don't need to pay the Western Union fee of about $30-$50 in transfer fees, when you can transfer in bitcoin and pay less than a dollar in transaction fees to anywhere in the world without having to leave your house. If a company owns Bitcoin and Bitcoin becomes the number 1 currency in the world, then that company owns everything. "Owns everything' in this context is figurative in my opinion.

I think we will still get there in the end, very soon crypto will be a optional payment option available world wide, I am routing out for this too because there are so many things I want to get with my crypto in form of money but I can't, Trump is now opening the door, it is only a matter of time.

How exactly is Trump "opening the door" for this? Because from where I'm standing, he hasn't done anything that will make bitcoin or crypto an option for payment. When people who could have demanded the dollar for payment begin to demand bitcoin and other crypto, that will reduce the demand for the dollar, which will cause the value of the dollar to drop, and that is not what the US government would want. This is a reason I believe countries, especially the US, would not like Bitcoin to be used as payment.