[utoku]

You almost identified the problem correctly.

Internet is already distributed. The attacks against Visa and MC are also distributed. But Visa and MC are not. They are single points of trust for our financial transactions.

A more distributed system, where a web of trust and transaction system exists, could be used. But such a thing hasn't been invented yet.

I thought about it some last year, but such a system is hard to design. I did design several prototypes, but they had lots of problems. It also involved changing the structures of presumed governmental financial structures ("central" bank for example, is also a single point of trust).

So I think, the rephrasing of the problem should be: We do need to think about how our financial systems can be reorganized to be 100% distributed systems to prevent future abuses by anyone, including governments.