> Faster and cheaper transactions, and hassle-free cross-bank and international transactions are not exactly out-of-the-blue expectations.

I think a lot of these problems originate from the fact that deposits at banks exist only as records in the bank's database, and therefore can only really be moved between accounts at the same bank.

To create the illusion of moving deposits between banks, another bank must accept to take on the liability in exchange for something else, something that can actually be moved between banks. This is what is referred to as "reserves", which is what we call the special money that only exists as records in the central bank's database.

So we can think of deposits as "JP Morgan Chase dollars", "BoA dollars", "Wells Fargo dollars" etc. while the real money is the "reserve dollars" that cannot be acquired by individuals.

Innovations like CBDC might put the reserve money directly into the hands of individuals and fix the issues that you mentioned. So that would mean that the central banks will be the ones with the fighting chance against crypto, not the private financial institutions.