The war on cash has been a favorite pet project of the economic central planners for quite some time now. They want to eliminate hand-to-hand payments so that governments can control, document and tax everything. The governments hate paper cash as it is so hard to track and the light in the darkness for them to rectify this is Bitcoin and its distributed ledger but they want control of it first. Although you won’t hear anything about this in the mainstream press the wheels are already in motion to eliminate the paper cash system and among other tell-tell signs that this is the case was in December of 2015 one of the world’s largest and oldest bank note printers De La Rue announced it is cutting banknote capacity by a massive 25%. They are also eliminating 300 jobs and closing 50% of their production line. Over the last few years Spain banned cash transactions over €2,500, Italy made cash transactions over €1,000 illegal; Russia banned cash transactions over $10,000; France made cash transactions over €1,000 illegal and in the United Kingdom banks now charge businesses for depositing amounts over £1,000. Central banks see moving to digital currencies as a way to eliminate underground economies and believe it could prevent another banking crisis as negative interest rates if they were to become too strong could trigger a bank run. So if there is no paper money to withdraw and store under our mattresses it means there couldn’t be one. These are the problems they see with Bitcoin, it isn’t the flaws in the protocol that can be addressed as it is programmable, but that it enables everyone to become their own bank, in charge of their own private keys, protected by cryptography which they have no control over. It is common knowledge that bankers have had a vision for a cashless society for over 50 years now and the only thing holding it up is a lack of regulations, arguments of structure and a power struggle to control. The technology is there as Bitcoin provides all in a complete package and it doesn’t need regulated or anyone in control. They can use regulations to take control of the protocol, only they know if they implement them now they will halt the innovation in its tracks and with it their ultimate goal of control. As Ron Paul put it; “The cashless society is the IRS’s dream: total knowledge of, and control over finances of every single American. This is now a global dream, not only about total knowledge and control of finances but of every aspect about our lives that can be documented on a database from land registry to our DNA. Remember all governments want a digital economy with a distributed database of all transactions no matter what they say in public. A globalised world needs a global currency, instant, borderless only with the trust in math and not in greedy people. This R3 consortium is just a diversion and is really a stepping stone to Bitcoin and the banks use of its distributed ledger which they tell us is the real innovation. What they don’t say publicly is that in order to move a transaction securely may it be a smart contract, monetary value or a stock market trade 100% secure and verifiable over the Blockchain, they need to use a bit of Bitcoin every time. The war is well and truly on within the community as well, using the oldest trick in the book, divide and conquer. A core developer has abandoned ship, the scaling debate is still in full force, and decentralisation of mining power is a big issue, censorship of views and the division being taken at difference of opinion on public forums. At no time more in its seven year history did the digital currency community need to stick together and to its core principles of decentralisation and privacy and lead the direction of the protocol, which if isn’t kept decentralised will end up being used as a tool of enslavement, because either way at this stage it isn’t going away.