When discussing e-currencies, I find myself asking what the incentives are in using them. What I find is that the biggest reason to use e-currencies is not any intrinsic benefit of the e-currencies itself.
Rather, it's the current banking system that has drawbacks which pushes myself and, I assume, others, to look for alternatives. For example, thanks to the move of digital cash over physical, banks has gone from being a care taker to a service provider. That might not sound as a big change, but it has a huge impact on the power balance of the bank vs the consumer. I personally am no longer in control my own money. If I wanted today to take out my own money from the bank here in Sweden, I would have to go down there and ask for permission. If I then give them a reasonable argument why I should be allowed to take out my cash from the bank, then they might allow me to come back in a few weeks and take out the cash. If they do not like my argument for taking out the cash, then they are perfectly legally allowed to deny me access to my money.
And that's only about access to my own money. We also have the personal information derived from transactions I make. That data is not even remotely under my control, as it is given out to be data mined by anyone within EU or who has a EU treaty for data sharing (like US). It can also be sold, or data mined by the bank itself, and the bank could claim copyright ownership on it.
Therefore, a major benefit of e-currency is that it removes the negative aspects of the current system. It doesn't really need to be anonymous or a cryptographically-secure form of value representation. It just need to be digital and in control of the individual who "owns" the cash. Those priorities might not sound as attractive for criminals, but for me it sound as the way e-currency will grow.
Unless there's some esoteric Swedish law that gives banks special privileges that I'm missing, the bank doesn't have any right to refuse you your money except according to published limits on the timing of withdrawals (and its obligation to freeze accounts under criminal investigation). These limits always can and have existed, and in fact were much worse when the bank genuinely was worried about having to redeem everyone's assets in physically limited gold or currency, instead of being able to pay your money into another account electronically and balance their reserve shortfall with electronic interbank lending and automatically approved loans from the central bank. They've got a lot less motivation to deny access to your funds and little chance of getting away with it, unlike an anonymous overseas intermediary in the trade of some digital asset which is intangible unregulated and not legally recognised as having any monetary value.
It is a relative new law (5-10ish years) called something like "anti-terrorism funding and money laundering law". It require the bank teller to inquire the nature of any withdraw or transaction, and the power/requirement to stop any money withdraw or transaction in case the teller aren't satisfied with the answers the customer gave.
All to the discretion of the bank. No criminal investigation is needed to stop transactions/withdraws. They might not be able to close the account, but they can prevent any money from being removed from it as long they like.
It's also the same law that are currently is preventing unregistered phones from using sms-purchase for tickets to buses and trains. The law directly forbids any kind of money transfers if one of the participants are not directly identified.
That's surprisingly draconian. That sort of thing would probably be met with some sort of popular backlash in the US, though I've little doubt it would pass.
Rather, it's the current banking system that has drawbacks which pushes myself and, I assume, others, to look for alternatives. For example, thanks to the move of digital cash over physical, banks has gone from being a care taker to a service provider. That might not sound as a big change, but it has a huge impact on the power balance of the bank vs the consumer. I personally am no longer in control my own money. If I wanted today to take out my own money from the bank here in Sweden, I would have to go down there and ask for permission. If I then give them a reasonable argument why I should be allowed to take out my cash from the bank, then they might allow me to come back in a few weeks and take out the cash. If they do not like my argument for taking out the cash, then they are perfectly legally allowed to deny me access to my money.
And that's only about access to my own money. We also have the personal information derived from transactions I make. That data is not even remotely under my control, as it is given out to be data mined by anyone within EU or who has a EU treaty for data sharing (like US). It can also be sold, or data mined by the bank itself, and the bank could claim copyright ownership on it.
Therefore, a major benefit of e-currency is that it removes the negative aspects of the current system. It doesn't really need to be anonymous or a cryptographically-secure form of value representation. It just need to be digital and in control of the individual who "owns" the cash. Those priorities might not sound as attractive for criminals, but for me it sound as the way e-currency will grow.