On June 1, 2018, shoppers across the U.K. discovered that their Visa cards had inexplicably stopped working. Queues formed at supermarket checkouts and IOUs were written at gas stations as motorists realized the plastic in their pocket was no longer good. The outage lasted for several hours and caused major disruption, exacerbated by the fact that, as with many western countries, most Brits no longer carry significant amounts of cash.
When the power goes out, the clerk pulls out the company smart card, complete with battery, and continues checking customers out, with their cards having batteries.
You see it is not paper, it is the watermark on the paper that makes it counterfeit proof. Our smart cards watermark the cash, or rather the issuing banker does, thus smart cards can carry digital , point to point cash. Works just like paper cash, is counterfeit proof just like paper cash, and we can actually embed the chip onto cash bills, and the digits will still be like paper cash. Bearer assets are king in the cash botnets, hot wallets the norm.
The crypto marketing folks fouled the semantics here, but central banks get it, they are dealing with it and that is important.
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