I think we are talking about two different things. I would think they mean actual currency, not forcing you to finance. When I say I pay in cash, I'm not bringing over a briefcase, I'm writing a check.....although I have found many companies will give me additional discount when I do offer actual cash. When banks stopped paying interest, I decided my wall safe was a better place for much of my cash that was in the bank, so would regularly pull out $9k at a time.
The U.S. has proposed doing away with cash, but then what would the hookers, and strippers do?
From the government's perspective, it all makes sense. So much easier to track and tax your spending. I'm fairly certain this is a large reason why cryptocurrency became in vogue. People believing the government couldn't track it. However, there have been occasions when crypto has been stolen from people's accounts and the government has easily tracked it for them. Wouldn't surprise me if the government created these events just to show people it wasn't a safe place for your money without government intervention and you couldn't hide it from the government.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
