I'm not in the Crypto camp, but - I think the argument here is that there's a lot of things that a government can do on paper that it can't actually do in pract

I'm not in the Crypto camp, but - I think the argument here is that there's a lot of things that a government can do on paper that it can't actually do in practice. Banning goods is an obvious one - drugs still find their way around in the economy. A lot of regulations play this way, too - rules on what can and can't be done tend to attenuate with distance from cities (ask anyone in a rural area what they think of gun laws - and then ask them what they've actually got in their gun safe). Whether or not you think this is good effectively depends on how much trust you have in the current laws to have gotten it all right, but bear in mind homosexuality was against the law in all parts of this country until the 60s and some up into the 2000s, and weed only started becoming decriminalized for recreational use in 2012. I think the core argument is that there's currently a difference between the government's powers on paper and its powers in reality, that widespread government-controlled digital currencies have the potential to substantially close that gap, and that that is a Bad thing because progress in society often relies on and grows in that gap. The counterargument that tax dodging, money laundering, and all other kinds of ill also happen in that gap is true, but that's the cost for keeping our options open.