Once again it is completely ignored that the whole online identity thing is a solved problem, in the EU. Millions of Europeans use eIDAS apps daily and enjoy single-sign-on across EU websites, can sign docs, make payments etc. etc. And there’s no privacy issues thanks to the GDPR, which it turns out is not just about cookie popups The tech is there, it works today, without crypto bullshit, and it is extremely useful.…
Reminds how US centric a lot of crypto companies are. An advantage of crypto that often comes up is “instant and cheap money transfers”. In the UK, I transfer money to my friends instantaneously and for free using just my bank account.
You can do the same thing in the US. The problem is that businesses can't easily do this without collecting bank routing information from customers, which is effectively "secret" because it allows anyone to debit money directly from their bank account, so they're reluctant to provide it.
What's needed is a low- or no-fee system for requesting payments from someone without collecting any secrets from them. The technology to do this is not hard -- use public key cryptography, or just require the customer to approve merchants before they can make debits. But the customer's bank has little incentive to implement this because the customer won't choose a different bank over it and meanwhile the banks own the credit processing networks charging the high fees.
Which is why people are looking for an external solution.