[SomeStupidPoint]

Digital currency isn't competing with credit card networks, it's competing with ACH.

ACH transfers take days; wire transfers take minutes to hours and cost tens of dollars. There's ever possibility of running a digital currency that can clear transactions on the order of minutes with minimal cost. Bitcoin isn't well suited to that, partially because it hasn't been managed well.

A credit card would still pre-authorize against a balance at an institution, but it would settle between the customer and merchant bank on the same schedule (when the merchant cleared their transactions for the week) or faster (eg, on the order of minutes). That makes credit cards considerably closer to cash (fast) than what they are now, like checks (slow).

And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, and have it clear on the order of minutes. (Not great for coffee, but something like buying a car.)

Digital currencies can be those things, they're just not.

[deepGem]

And for people who wanted it to settle immediately or treat it like cash, they could make a direct transfer, , and have it clear on the order of minutes.

Can you please elaborate on this a bit more. What is direct transfer and how is it different from bitcoin /ethereum payments. From what I understand, they are the same.

[SomeStupidPoint]

That was connecting on to the previous paragraph, and contrasting with pre-authorization through a payment network -- I meant a direct transfer of currency from customer to merchant, instead of using a financial institution as an intermediary to vouch for you having money.