US Slowly Going Cash-Free, But Where’s the Bitcoin?
The US is starting to follow Europe down the 100% digital cash path – but does the mainstream media see Bitcoin as part of the solution?
3 Reasons for Ditching Cash
An article in this weekend’s New York Times gave the example of Sweetgreen, a chain of healthy-eating restaurants. After noting that cash transactions had declined to under 10% of totals and that airlines had long stopped using cash, management decided to go cash-free at a number of locations.
Less than 10 years ago, 40% of Sweetgreen customers used cash.
There are three main reasons for this. First is the growing number of payment options thanks to advances in technology, including chip-and-PIN cards, mobile devices and services like Apple Pay. Second, of course, is speed and convenience – neither customers nor businesses need to keep or handle cumbersome physical cash, and orders can be placed in advance.Thirdly is the opportunities the technology presents for data-mining. With users’ personal identities and histories connected closely to any account that manages electronic cash, businesses can gather far more information about who their customers are and what their habits are.Whether the latter reason is an advantage or disadvantage depends on your perspective. Straw polls of friends and family (outside the cryptocurrency space) usually reveal an indifference to physical cash, observation that it’s rarely used these days, and even a desire to see it disappear completely.
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