Reducing friction is among the top goals of the digital era. Sometimes, real-life payments hassles encourage entrepreneurial action to fix a global problem. Other times, innovators combine cutting-edge technologies in an attempt to bring more security and seamlessness to the healthcare space. Reducing friction also can be a relatively simple matter of point-of-sale innovating. But occasionally, friction takes on a different, seemingly irreversible form, and — in the case of cryptocurrency — looks likely to win.