Plastic cards are <i>not</i> a clear improvement over cash.  And actually, Fed notes are not even a clear improvement over gold and silver certificate U.S. notes.<p>They are better for certain, specific goals, but by no means a universal improvement.<p>There is no bill that I receive that I can more easily pay with Bitcoin than with an electronic bank transfer, bank check, CU draft, or money order.  There is no item I want that I can buy more easily with Bitcoin than with cash, check, debit card, or credit card.  It is not a reliable store of value.  I never need to send or receive international money transfers.  I don&#x27;t buy or sell black market goods or services.<p>The biggest thing it has going for it is potential.<p>I really, really hate the giant, swinefornicating, too-big-to-fail banks.  Nothing would please me more than their rapid and well-deserved downfall, as people start to use crypto to recapture more of the value of their own economic contributions, and cut out some of the middlemen charging tolls and skimming off the top.  But I&#x27;ll be cursed to the abyss before I replace a Bank of America with a PayPal.<p>All I can buy with Bitcoin right now is a tiny FOADIAF to the banksters--which would probably feel <i>really</i> good.  But right now I&#x27;d rather just give them the finger for free and use my spending money to buy pancakes instead of crypto outputs.<p>Still watching, though.  I have been watching since 2010.  I keep seeing Bitcoin users creating and using trust-dependent services rather than designing new transactions that remove the need for that trust.  And then I see those services fail, to the detriment of the users.<p>I&#x27;m not sure what, exactly, I&#x27;m looking for, but I haven&#x27;t seen it yet.  It makes me wish I was even remotely qualified to write crypto at the level required to design a worldwide digital currency system.  But I&#x27;m not, so I can&#x27;t personally improve on Bitcoin, even though I want it to be better.