Compare and contrast this with military spending. Arguably, all of it is pure waste since you wouldn't need it in the first place if people weren't using violen

Compare and contrast this with military spending. Arguably, all of it is pure waste since you wouldn't need it in the first place if people weren't using violence as a means to resolve conflict. And yet here we are, so states have to allocate certain spending to maintain healthy military balance and support the walls of peace, so to speak. Even if the military is never going to be used offensively, to seize profit for the state, nations still have to waste resources on its maintenance as a deterrent of foreign aggression. (Oh, and occasionally some military-related or military-funded research results in something with non-military applications.) Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies are the same thing but for wealth and trade, being a necessary spending on deterrent maintenance. But this time it's not tied to any government, so naturally all governments are pissed off about it to a certain degree.