The difference in speed between transactional commerce and bearer asset commodity money gave governments and banks a huge opportunity for custodial arbitrage. A centralized and globally interconnected banking system with a monopoly on fast long-distance transfers of value became too powerful and convenient for gold to keep up with, even if gold could still make for better private savings. The introduction of credit cards in the 1950s, e-commerce in the 1990s, and smartphone-based payments in the 2010s further cemented the importance of fast telecommunication-based payments.

This is the only time in history where, on a global scale, a weaker money won out in terms of adoption over a harder money. And it occurred because telecommunication systems introduced speed as a new variable into the competition. Gold, with its inherently slow speed of transport and authentication, couldn't compete with the pound, the dollar, and other top fiat currencies with their combination of speed and convenience, despite gold being in scarcer supply. The combination of legal tender laws, taxation authority, and greater speed has allowed fiat currencies to outcompete their slower but scarcer precious metal counterparts all over the world in terms of usage. This mismatch or gap in speed has been a foundational reason for the greater and greater levels of financialization that the world has seen over the past century and a half. Monetary ledgers became increasingly detached from any sort of natural constraint or scarce units of settlement, because the only scarce monetary alternatives such as gold were too slow to present a complete alternative.