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> But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It
by ardy42 6y ago
> But leaders pay a political price for instituting draconian enforcement measures, while their country pays an economic price, which makes them less likely. It's one thing to send armed agents to storm the homes of executives of a large private bank to shake down the bank. It's another to do it against end-users at a scale where it becomes effective.
I don't think the political price is as high as you think, and armed agents don't have to storm the homes of end-users at scale. All they have to do is storm enough homes discourage people by making it clear the risk is real, and everyone internalizes the rules.
If cryptocurrency is contraband, it's the worse kind of contraband because it advertises that you use it to the authorities through easily monitored channels (since you have to connect to identifiable internet services to use it).
- CryptoPunk 6y ago>>All they have to do is storm enough homes discourage people by making it clear the risk is real, and everyone internalizes the rules. I suspect the scale of enforcement needed to discourage widespread usage would be very large, and incur political and economic costs that are prohibitive. That's corroborated by the fact that the USD circulates widely in countries suffering high inflation, despite it being in the best interest of the elite of these countries for people to only use the national currency. >>If cryptocurrency is contraband, it's the worse kind of contraband because it advertises that you use it to the authorities through easily monitored channels (since you have to connect to identifiable internet services to use it). Only if public access to strong encryption is prohibited, and there are economic costs associated with a country doing that.