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It's hard to write a good counterargument to this. The article goes in so many directions that it could never cover all his points. Any counterargument I can c

It's hard to write a good counterargument to this. The article goes in so many directions that it could never cover all his points. Any counterargument I can construct boils down to a difference of opinion & values. The author trusts his bank and his government to (a) handle his money in the way that he thinks is responsible and (b) handle disputes in a way that benefits him. On the other hand, I trust myself to handle my money responsibly, and I view my government as a great uncertainty because I don't understand the limits of their power (in the least nefarious, but relevant point, who can predict by how much my government will increase the monetary supply and deflate my purchasing power over the next decades? More nefarious, if I dissent, government can trivially lock most of my digital assets that aren't cryptocurrencies - e.g. bank account or investment funds).

richardwhiuk 9y ago
Sure they can - put you in prison with no internet access.
- wallacoloo 9y ago
  Sure, but there are plenty of dissenters that manage to escape being in the physical custody of their government. One might reasonably decide to leave the country before dissenting, in some scenarios. You can bet that Edward Snowden had all his US assets seized, for example. But if he had any cryptocurrency, he may have been able to take those with him.
  - mrep 9y ago
    So, for Illegal activity? The article has already consented that illegal markets are 1 of the 2 current use cases. Got any others?
    - wallacoloo 9y ago
      > So, for Illegal activity Say I'm someone like Ed Snowden (again). I own a house, a car, the clothes on my back, and Bitcoin. I up and leave one day to share government secrets with the press and hide in a different country. Did the car aid in the crime? Probably, to some degree - it let me physically make my way to the airport, and on to journalists to whom I shared secrets. Did the house aid the crime? Did the clothes on my back aid the crime? Both of those allowed me to live a safe and comfortable life. I wouldn't have made it past airport security without my clothes, after all. Did the Bitcoin aid the crime? Only in the same sense that a treadmill and a good diet aids a bank robber by making it easier for him to leave the scene in a hurry. So I think the claim that having bitcoin in your possession when committing a crime necessarily enables that crime (to a greater deal than any other everyday thing) is a bit nebulous. It didn't facilitate the crime, it just lessened the punishment. Possession of $USD cash provides a similar thing in the form of being used to pay bail.
    - josu 9y ago
      Jews escaping from Nazi Germany, Syrian refugees, Venezuela, Argentina, or every other Latin American country...
dorgo 9y ago
The ability of the government to freeze your bank account is based (to some degree) on a consensus (or at least tolerance) of the people in the country that the government should have these powers. Same is true for crypte-currencies. If some hacker manages to steal a big amount of money then (almost) everybody agrees to make a hardfork and the hacker looses his money. It is more decentralized and the hacker could keep some part of the money if there is a side chain. Hacker scenario already happend. But there is no need for a crime to happen to cause a tokens redistribution. If 80% of all token holders (miners for bitcoin?) are poor what stops them from redistributing the tokens of the rich token holders?

richardwhiuk 9y ago

Sure they can - put you in prison with no internet access.

wallacoloo 9y ago
Sure, but there are plenty of dissenters that manage to escape being in the physical custody of their government. One might reasonably decide to leave the country before dissenting, in some scenarios. You can bet that Edward Snowden had all his US assets seized, for example. But if he had any cryptocurrency, he may have been able to take those with him.
- mrep 9y ago
  So, for Illegal activity? The article has already consented that illegal markets are 1 of the 2 current use cases. Got any others?
  - wallacoloo 9y ago
    > So, for Illegal activity Say I'm someone like Ed Snowden (again). I own a house, a car, the clothes on my back, and Bitcoin. I up and leave one day to share government secrets with the press and hide in a different country. Did the car aid in the crime? Probably, to some degree - it let me physically make my way to the airport, and on to journalists to whom I shared secrets. Did the house aid the crime? Did the clothes on my back aid the crime? Both of those allowed me to live a safe and comfortable life. I wouldn't have made it past airport security without my clothes, after all. Did the Bitcoin aid the crime? Only in the same sense that a treadmill and a good diet aids a bank robber by making it easier for him to leave the scene in a hurry. So I think the claim that having bitcoin in your possession when committing a crime necessarily enables that crime (to a greater deal than any other everyday thing) is a bit nebulous. It didn't facilitate the crime, it just lessened the punishment. Possession of $USD cash provides a similar thing in the form of being used to pay bail.
  - josu 9y ago
    Jews escaping from Nazi Germany, Syrian refugees, Venezuela, Argentina, or every other Latin American country...

dorgo 9y ago

The ability of the government to freeze your bank account is based (to some degree) on a consensus (or at least tolerance) of the people in the country that the government should have these powers. Same is true for crypte-currencies. If some hacker manages to steal a big amount of money then (almost) everybody agrees to make a hardfork and the hacker looses his money. It is more decentralized and the hacker could keep some part of the money if there is a side chain. Hacker scenario already happend. But there is no need for a crime to happen to cause a tokens redistribution. If 80% of all token holders (miners for bitcoin?) are poor what stops them from redistributing the tokens of the rich token holders?