This "digital decentralized ledger" you are talking about is ever-growing. To be able to handle its size and keep its integrity, special entities have to keep it running for the layman to use. Nobody can carry terabytes of "blockchain" around all the time.
These special entities need to record all transactions and verify them against this ledger. As a result you are now even more dependent on these entities than ever before. You basically just re-invented banking, only in a bad, uncontrollable way that is prone to takeovers (51% attack) by anonymous actors.
> To be able to handle its size and keep its integrity, special entities have to keep it running for the layman to use. Nobody can carry terabytes of "blockchain" around all the time. (...) As a result you are now even more dependent on these entities than ever before.
And yet here I am verifying the entire Bitcoin blockchain on an old crappy Toshiba netbook with a normal Internet connection and an old hard-drive. I use this one weird trick and big entities hate me: I have my node configured to prune already verified blocks, it only needs about 20GB of disk to store the last few months.
By the way, if you want to archive it all, a 1TB HDD can store roughly 10 years of completely full 2MB blocks. You can get one of those for less than $40, or $4/year.
I come from a country where the central bank can issue money (not print it, that's someone else's job).
It's great. They can use their powers to keep inflation at a small positive level, help smooth out economic bumps, and help the money supply keep pace with the economy.
A fixed amount, ever, would constrain economic growth, reward hoarders rather than investors, disincentivise spending and generally be a poor substitute.
As evidence I present ... the entirety of the Western world and it's multiple decades of unparalleled prosperity.
You've provided no evidence or argument as to why central banking might be 'awful', after I just explained why there is much to be liked about it.
Please do provide your reasons, but if they're just the usual libertarian tripe about inflation and taxes, I'm afraid I might not give them much credence.
These special entities need to record all transactions and verify them against this ledger. As a result you are now even more dependent on these entities than ever before. You basically just re-invented banking, only in a bad, uncontrollable way that is prone to takeovers (51% attack) by anonymous actors.