'Be Your Own Bank': Is this a good thing?
To clarify, I define ignorance as a general notion of limited knowledge.
'Be Your Own Bank'
The increased control conferred to holders of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies over their funds has been consistently lauded in crypto marketing campaigns.
The idea is intriguing, to be sure, but I have begun to question whether it is of pragmatic use.
I tend to be skeptical of the notion of revolutionary systems.
It would seem more likely that systems gradually develop from iterations of trial and error over time.
Accordingly, humans permute structures of social organization, in search for generally better conditions for sufficient groups of those involved in the particular system.
More specifically, I am inclined to believe that prevailing systems of centralization have arisen out of a similar search of sufficient mutual benefit, and have endured based on widespread experienced utility of such systems.
It would seem that centralized banking would be one such system.
Ignorance and Asymmetric Information
Even the most knowledgeable of us individuals, probably retain some ignorance in matters that can directly affect our lives.
So we form arrangements with specialists to handle these important matters, and rely on systems of trust to mitigate asymmetric information.
In this particular case, generally speaking, we shift the burden of securing our funds to Banks ("specialists") and rely on their economic incentives (and legal infrastructure) to act non-maliciously.
This is because, to competently perform this task ourselves would require a certain proficiency in bodies of knowledge many of us are unlikely to have (e.g. sufficient knowledge of computer security).
In other words, we expect funds to be more secure under the control of those presumably knowledgeable enough to competently secure them.
And rightly so.
Does it generally make sense to expect funds to be more secure under the control of those with little knowledge over what is required to secure them?
Conclusion
I question the general value proposition of 'Be Your Own Bank'.
It appears inappropriate probably for the majority of people, who do not and may not particularly wish to acquire a sufficient proficiency that would enable them to competently take on this role.
Moreover, I would assert that transferring control over fields we do not master is far easier and more effective in more centralized systems (e.g. hard to know if a freelance programmer is competent, whereas Microsoft can be assumed to have a stake large enough that they would uphold certain standards).