That's generally good advice, but how long before you can walk into a 7-11 and buy a "burn pad" for $20 cash the way you can buy a "burn phone" today? When it gets to that point, all the government databases in the world will quickly become obsolete.
We’re already there.
Vanilla Visa.
A gift-card Visa debit card you register online.
You buy the card, and put up to 500 dollars on it.
You log into the VV website and enter ONLY your zip code to activate it.
As long as you have the funds on the card, it works everywhere a regular Visa credit card works. I use them for Amazon, etc. In that case, if you get hacked or ripped off, the most you can lose is the original amount on the card.