It has been long established by the early builders of computer systems and codified by the UNIX team at Bell Labs that:
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Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features".
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Expect the output of every program to become the input to another, as yet unknown, program. Don't clutter output with extraneous information. Avoid stringently columnar or binary input formats. Don't insist on interactive input.
Building a simple ledger layer first, and then a payment settlement accounting layer for p2p transfers is the UNIX way to build internet money.
And probably partly also in response to how simple and crappy the CPM-derived Quick and Dirty Operating System based MS-DOS came to dominate business, as well as why UNIX and its philosophy has come to dominate computer systems now. Playstation, Mac, iPhone, Linux on desktop and servers, Android is a cut down version of linux, a more catchy short phrase that sums up some of this is:
Worse is better