One of the more amusing developments of the last decade has…

One of the more amusing developments of the last decade has been watching people redefine "cash" until it means almost the opposite of cash.
Cash is simple.
I hand you money.
You receive money.
Transaction complete.
No channels. No liquidity management. No routing. No watchtowers. No counterparties monitoring the network while you sleep. No carefully balanced webs of obligations stretching across half the internet.
When someone explains that their version of "digital cash" requires payment channels, liquidity providers, routing paths, watchtowers, and periodic settlement back to a base layer, they are not describing cash.
They are describing a financial system.
The comedy arrives when they say this with a straight face.
Imagine a man claiming he has invented a bicycle. Upon inspection, the bicycle requires a support crew, a fuel truck, three mechanics, and an air traffic controller.
At some point one begins to suspect he may have built an aeroplane.
The watchtower is my favourite part.
Nothing says "cash" quite like needing a third party to watch the network for you while you are offline.
That is rather like claiming your front door requires no lock because you have hired a guard to stand outside it twenty-four hours a day.
The remarkable thing is that every additional complication is presented as evidence of elegance.
"Look! We solved trust by introducing a network of trusted relationships."
"Look! We solved scaling by moving transactions somewhere else."
"Look! We solved cash by creating a system that behaves increasingly like banking."
One almost wants to applaud.
Not because the argument is convincing.
Because the performance is so committed.
If cash requires channels, watchtowers, routing, liquidity management, counterparties, and periodic settlement, then apparently the simplest object in economics has become more complicated than launching a satellite.
And people wonder why normal human beings look at this industry as though it escaped from a laboratory.