Why? Who would want all of their financial transactions to be public?
That's what they said about Facebook and Twitter. We're open about almost everything else because the benefits outweigh the costs.Say you need $50 to buy groceries. What do you do today? You put it on a credit card (at 12%?) or, worse, take out a payday loan. But there are almost certainly friends of yours who would gladly lend you the $50 if they knew you needed it.
I actually don't use Facebook or Twitter so that argument doesn't resonate with me -- I'm actually a big privacy advocate. Arguendo though, people have a choice as to what they post on Facebook or Twitter. The same cannot be said of a public ledger. While I recognize your likely counter-argument is to then "not use this system" to do business, I don't really think that's a positive for the proposed system. The problem isn't one of personal transparency. It's one of governmental accountability. With regard to loans from friends, oddly enough after driving down from the Santa Cruz mountains to get groceries this afternoon I realized I had forgotten my wallet. So, I called a nearby friend and borrowed some cash for groceries. Now if the phone based transaction systems were a bit more prevalent, I could have just used my phone for the purchase, since I didn't forget that, and just avoided any kind of embarrassment and comments about encroaching senility.
No loan necessary. I'm open to the idea that these are personal preferences though rather than definitive arguments. I believe in privacy -- others may not.