At that point and in so many circumstances the crypto part is ultimately just a different kind of database. Databases and protocols are just boring... At least from the perspective of the person using the currency.
In general, who cares how Chase keeps track of my checking account? It might have this feature or that feature but when it is being used as it is there isn't much to be excited about. If you're Chase it might make life a little easier to choose one thing or the other but the rest of the world probably doesn't care.
Who cares? You should. Bitcoin offers a public audit trail less commonly known as triple-entry bookkeeping or momentum accounting. Chase still uses double entry.
What's more Chase charges $25 per month to keep an open checking account, keeps only a small portion of your funds on hand and may both lock you out of your account and freeze your funds on a whim whereas Bitcoin won't.
I'd rather not have the entire planet be able to audit my transactions.
I don't care what Chase does with my dollars because the promise isn't that there's a vault somewhere that a banker can point to a pile of bills and say "that's Cole's money right there." The promise is that at any time I can withdraw any amount of money, and o have no problem believing that promise.
As for locking my account on a whim, that's what I signed up for. Every time so far I have had a financial account locked it has been because someone who wasn't me was trying to use my money. As for avoiding being punished for crime well I'm not too into money laundering so I think I'll be ok. Otherwise it's balancing the risk that the bank will make a fixable mistake with the existing system which has the ability to fix errors and reverse thefts.
The public audit trail has yet to return thousands of my dollars from mtgox. I bet if there was massive fraud and or theft of the reserves at Chase that I would have had my money back immediately.
(I don't actually have a checking account at Chase)
> Chase charges $25 per month to keep an open checking account
This is just a ""feature"" of the backwards American system, plenty of countries still mostly have free current accounts. Although the very low interest rates are definitely putting pressure on banks to try to find ways to charge people.
Cash can't do those things either. It would be relatively easy to have a regulated bitcoin bank that offers such services. Coinbase is heading that way.
Presumably that wouldn't fit with any of the demands of cryptocurrency enthusiasts though, being able to freeze your funds etc. Also I'm not sure how they would tackle reversing any fraud given that bitcoin is amazingly irreversible.
If cryptocurrency is, for you, a way to get away from the abusive dominance of banks, why would you use such a service?
In general, who cares how Chase keeps track of my checking account? It might have this feature or that feature but when it is being used as it is there isn't much to be excited about. If you're Chase it might make life a little easier to choose one thing or the other but the rest of the world probably doesn't care.