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So lets just adopt low overhead (read cheap) wireless QR-based payments like China has? Is there really a good reason to do cash anymore? We don't have to choose between expensive credit cards and cash, there are other solutions out there that are taking over the rest of the world.

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The big reason is less government traceability and surveillance. People like cash, we don't need everything to be digital and easily controlled. The fact that China does it doesn't really give me a lot of confidence that it's necessarily an awesome idea.

It’s not just China though, it’s almost every country going through a cashless transition at this point, so if it is awesome idea in Chad and Laos as well as Sweden and Australia, what does it mean elsewhere? Are we the only country that is rich enough to avoid a transition? The biggest issue in the states is that given a choice, the cash holdout businesses become increasing larger targets for theft (eg marijuana dispensaries in the Seattle area) as other businesses opt out.

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