There is a reason crypto-currencies are still growing in popularity. You might have electronic convenience and decentralization convenience at the same time.
First off, Walmart will wire up to $50 for $5 domestic, not $25.
Second, what's the point of sending $1 to much of the world, where it isn't legal tender?
Third, "cashless" in this context means domestic use. Even if we were all cashless tomorrow, you'll still have to pay transfer fees to put $1 into an overseas account. Plus, the bank on the other side may charge to accept that transfer - mine does.
Fourth, the failure rate for sending $1 through the postal system has to be pretty low, because it's hard to detect a single bill in an envelope. A high failure rate would mean that every letter would be opened up, just in case there's cash. That level of tampering is easily detected. (Of course, sending cash overseas is different, as international letters stand out, and perhaps might more often contain cash. But I have send cash to South Africa and it got there just fine.)
If we instead talk about sending $1 inside the US then it's $0.49 for the stamp and $0.07 for the envelope ... for what may be door-to-door delivery.
What other system can beat that price? (I think Bitcoin's transaction fee is slightly less, but not significantly so.)
Does that mean domestic bank transfers between accounts aren't free in the US? I suppose that would explain why cheques are still in use.
I've never paid for a bank transfer within Europe, even when the transfer crosses national borders. I've always just assumed that to be one of the basic ideas of a banking system.
Here in my Western European country, national transfers done over the Internet are paid, unless both accounts belong to the same bank; they cost around .5€-1€. They're free at the ATM, though; it's clearly a convenience fee, not a cost.
Further examples: I have a bank account in Germany and UK and neither charge me for bank transfers. I haven't even heard of a bank account that charges for transfers in Germany.
US is pretty unique and backwards in this regard. International wire transfer in EU is either something like eur 0.20 or free, depending on how bank structures its fees (the internal txn processing cost to bank is somewhere between 0.005 - 0.02 depending on volumes).
