People already mostly pay through mobile, cards, online, etc in existing government backed currencies, using existing payment networks.
The hill that needs to be climbed for trust in truly digital currencies (rather that just the digital representation of existing currencies, which is already what we mainly have with fiat currencies in things like online banking and electronic payments) is far vaster than that “people are used to doing some things digitally hence would trust everything else digital” one-dimensional take on the subject you put forward - it requires trust in the currency itself as well as in the payments network itself, which are the difficult parts (just notice how hard it is to get away from VISA and Mastercard as payment networks),
Mind you, maybe a government backed digital currency would work (though if I remember it correctly Colombia’s attempt at that failed miserably) but that’s really just a variant of a fiat currency that’s fully digital and in practice fiat currencies are already mostly digital (most people’s money exists as entries on bank databases, most payments are 100% digital and do not involve physical cash in any way form or shape and in fact most money in circulation developed nations isn’t in physical form).
I mean, a government backed digital currency would indeed technically be a digital currency, though controlled by a government, same as fiat currency, hence technically it would also be a fiat currency.
Trust is why I brought up a federal reserve issued digital currency. The federal reserve already creates US dollars. This would be the same except there wouldn’t be an entity printing physical dollars and you’d need an account to work with it, like a debit or credit card.
My point, going back to the original post I replied to, is that Fiat Currencies wouldn’t at all suffer from there existing such a government backed digital currency because that would be a fiat currency too, just one which is 100% digital rather that 90-something percent.
Such a thing defeats the original purpose of digital currencies.
People already mostly pay through mobile, cards, online, etc in existing government backed currencies, using existing payment networks.
The hill that needs to be climbed for trust in truly digital currencies (rather that just the digital representation of existing currencies, which is already what we mainly have with fiat currencies in things like online banking and electronic payments) is far vaster than that “people are used to doing some things digitally hence would trust everything else digital” one-dimensional take on the subject you put forward - it requires trust in the currency itself as well as in the payments network itself, which are the difficult parts (just notice how hard it is to get away from VISA and Mastercard as payment networks),
Mind you, maybe a government backed digital currency would work (though if I remember it correctly Colombia’s attempt at that failed miserably) but that’s really just a variant of a fiat currency that’s fully digital and in practice fiat currencies are already mostly digital (most people’s money exists as entries on bank databases, most payments are 100% digital and do not involve physical cash in any way form or shape and in fact most money in circulation developed nations isn’t in physical form).
I mean, a government backed digital currency would indeed technically be a digital currency, though controlled by a government, same as fiat currency, hence technically it would also be a fiat currency.
Trust is why I brought up a federal reserve issued digital currency. The federal reserve already creates US dollars. This would be the same except there wouldn’t be an entity printing physical dollars and you’d need an account to work with it, like a debit or credit card.
My point, going back to the original post I replied to, is that Fiat Currencies wouldn’t at all suffer from there existing such a government backed digital currency because that would be a fiat currency too, just one which is 100% digital rather that 90-something percent.
Such a thing defeats the original purpose of digital currencies.