[Cryptography] What has Bitcoin achieved?

[John Levine]

>> They're [mPesa] acting as a bank.
>
>You mean, a cheque payment system.  As a matter of monopoly marketing,
>banks would like you to believe that only a bank can accept cheques ...

>The point of distinction for banks is deposit taking -- which means
>taking your money, placing it into long term assets (mortgages) ...

If it takes your money and promises to give it back on demand, that's
pretty much the definition of a bank.  What they do with it is
irrelevant to whether it's a bank.  In the US, S&Ls and savings banks
were largely restricted to mortgages, but commercial banks did
commercial loans, and all of them bought government debt.  These days
the distinctions have been fuzzed away to our detriment, and there are
a lot of shadow banks such as money market mutual funds that act as
banks but outside the regulatory rules.  There is also a move to move
checking accounts into "narrow" banks with 100% reserves of cash and
government bonds, charging customers for the service, so you get what
you pay for and there's no danger of default.

Who can issue checks entirely depends on who is allowed to join the
clearinghouses that settle the checks.  Here in the US it's things
regulated as banks (banks, S&Ls, credit unions) and some others like
American Express (which is not a bank in the US) for travelers checks
and the post office for money orders.  There are multiple
clearinghouses, some operated by the Fed and some private.  I don't
know what the rules for joining are.  Note that physical checks are no
longer settled in the US, just check images.

To bring this back to crypto, none of this applies to Bitcoin or its
clones because they make no promise that you can get your money back.
All you can do is (probably) sell them on to someone else.  I have
likened them to pet rocks without the rocks.  Since there are no
rocks, you have to trust someone to hold your virtual rocks or at
least document where they are.