The real takeaway here is that peer-to-peer systems exist in deliberate opposition to the comfortable efficiencies of centralization. People often misunderstand this trade-off because they compare P2P not to the actual operating costs of centralized systems but to the illusion of frictionless transactions that centralization presents. That illusion is propped up by layers of regulation, hidden fees, custodians taking their cut and a compliance machinery designed to surveil and control the flows of value.
Your experience underscores that inefficiency is not a flaw but part of the point. The inconvenience is the cost of sovereignty. The time spent, the risk assumed, the liquidity constraints—all of these act as the real price of keeping intermediaries out. When you meet someone in a park to swap currency without a filter between you and the other human, you are in effect buying control of the transaction itself.
The state has built vast infrastructure to ensure that every taxable event, every recordable movement of money, is captured and indexed. This is dressed up as anti money laundering but in reality serves as anti autonomy. Centralized exchanges erase the waiting and the jogging but at the cost of making every transaction part of their ledger, their reporting system and ultimately their compliance with whatever government demands.
From a straight economic perspective yes peer-to-peer is cumbersome. It requires those willing to carry excess float. It introduces slippage in exchange rates and exposes participants to volatility in a much more immediate way. Yet these inefficiencies are actually the moat. They keep out the passive yes-sayers who accept tracking as the cost of convenience.
The real takeaway here is that peer-to-peer systems exist in deliberate opposition to the comfortable efficiencies of centralization. People often misunderstand this trade-off because they compare P2P not to the actual operating costs of centralized systems but to the illusion of frictionless transactions that centralization presents. That illusion is propped up by layers of regulation, hidden fees, custodians taking their cut and a compliance machinery designed to surveil and control the flows of value.
Your experience underscores that inefficiency is not a flaw but part of the point. The inconvenience is the cost of sovereignty. The time spent, the risk assumed, the liquidity constraints—all of these act as the real price of keeping intermediaries out. When you meet someone in a park to swap currency without a filter between you and the other human, you are in effect buying control of the transaction itself.
The state has built vast infrastructure to ensure that every taxable event, every recordable movement of money, is captured and indexed. This is dressed up as anti money laundering but in reality serves as anti autonomy. Centralized exchanges erase the waiting and the jogging but at the cost of making every transaction part of their ledger, their reporting system and ultimately their compliance with whatever government demands.
From a straight economic perspective yes peer-to-peer is cumbersome. It requires those willing to carry excess float. It introduces slippage in exchange rates and exposes participants to volatility in a much more immediate way. Yet these inefficiencies are actually the moat. They keep out the passive yes-sayers who accept tracking as the cost of convenience.