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You call this "censorship-resistance" but it seems to be "law-resistance." This is a point that critics of crypto have been making for awhile: crypto's only use

You call this "censorship-resistance" but it seems to be "law-resistance." This is a point that critics of crypto have been making for awhile: crypto's only use-case seems to be to avoid the law. At least in the USA, the courts have typically granted wide latitude to technologies that have a mix of both legal and illegal uses, but crypto seems to only have illegal uses, so it looks more and more like one of those technologies where the courts often allow strict regulation or outright bans. Especially in the democratic nations, where the laws have the legitimacy granted by popular representation in the political process, there is no reason to tolerate a technology if that technology exists solely to evade the law -- there must be some clear legal purpose for the technology.

wollsmoth 4y ago
I'm not a big crypto person. But I do think that it does one thing well, it enables the transmission of value digitally. The same way I can transmit a file to you over the internet, I can now transmit a crypto coin of value. Now, personally I don't have a lot of issues with the prevailing system, venmo and similar apps. I don't have any issues buying what I need online since credit cards work and are widely available. I suppose crypto could be useful for industries that are legal, but banks do not like engaging with. Like adult entertainment.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  I can Paypal and Apple Pay and ACH you already. For likely much cheaper. Crypto adds nothing.
  - elil17 4y ago
    But then how am I supposed to commit crimes!?
    - stiltzkin 4y ago
      There are other ways to do crimes with USD.
      - DonHopkins 4y ago
        At least with USD, when you gotta do it, you can do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HrmD_vIMIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HrmD_vIMIk
  - godot 4y ago
    Not sure about "likely much cheaper". Those methods are either funded by VC money (for the case of early startups) or in the case of bigger companies, their other products that monetize you in other ways. BTC is expensive to transfer, but other options like LTC are not. It takes a small fraction of a penny (in USD value).
- jandrese 4y ago
  The thing is, crypto coins tend to be terrible ways to transmit value. They usually have massive overhead compared to pretty much every other system and are often quite slow. Anybody who has tried to pay for something directly with Bitcoin will see the problem instantly. The mining fee is a significant percentage of your transfer unless you're sending literally thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin and it typically takes 4-24 hours for the transaction to clear unless you're willing to increase the transaction fee significantly. Crypto currencies are so bad at this that PayPal is a better way to transfer money. Let that sink in.
  - joyfylbanana 4y ago
    I have been using Bitcoin for various online purchases for many years. For me it always works fluently. In fact I have had more cumbersome experiences with fiat payments. Not that I have much problems with any payment methods. I just prefer to hold Bitcoin and use it as my primary currency. I'm willing to willing to spend some extra effort to pay with it, but if it gets too difficult I'll resort to fiat.
  - csomar 4y ago
    Comparing a Bitcoin transaction to a PayPal transactions is comparing Apples to Elephants. They have different value proposition. A more fair comparison is comparing a PayPal transaction to a Coinbase one. In which case they are the same (haven't used PayPal for a while, so not sure if they are charging fees for P2P transfers).
- hungryhobo 4y ago
  what value are you talking about? currency themselves have no inherent value and are only backed by the confidence that people have of the issuer.
  - wollsmoth 4y ago
    The value is whatever you may exchange the crypto for. Much in the same way that the value of a dollar is what it buys you.
boomchinolo78 4y ago
When the social contract is so deteriorated and government so corrupt. Is that a bad thing?
anotherrandom 4y ago
Censorship-resistance == law-resistance. Rules for censoring are imposed by state entities or by private entities enforcing state-defined rules
jandrese 4y ago
More directly, "censorship-resistence" == "criminal enabling". In practice the primary use cases for Crypto Currency are: 1. Running scams (see: NFTs, most exchanges, etc...) 2. Speculation (HODL) 3. Laundering dirty money 4. Buying contraband (drugs, guns, etc...) 5. Tax evasion 6. Extortion payments (crypto-locking viruses, etc...) 7. 419 scam payments 8. There was once a way to pay for burritos from a specific restaurant using Bitcoin. 9. Everything else It really shouldn't be a surprise that lawmakers have taken a dim view of the subject. That said, there are a handful of legitimate uses for cryptocurrency, but it's hard not to think that we could find better alternatives for those use cases, especially given the disastrous environmental impact of many of these crypto schemes.
- joyfylbanana 4y ago
  Personally I have been using Bitcoin for legal & legit use cases for years. It is primarily a hobby, but personally I believe in the long run it will also benefit me financially. As a personal savings and checking account it works, though the volatility for many is understandably hard to bear. For online purchases in my country Bitcoin works very nicely. Also for travel related purchases. I would estimate that maybe 60-70% of my purchases are in Bitcoin these days.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    I would be fascinated to read the details about this kind of lifestyle. Buying groceries, plane tickets, concert tickets, etc... with Bitcoin.
    - stiltzkin 4y ago
      You can already do that, but with other tokens. Maybe you should read more about other blockchains other than bitcoin.
    - EUROCARE 4y ago
      It's life as usual - the biggest mainstream webshops here accept Bitcoin. I can buy anything I want that way - groceries, tech gadgets, kitchen machinery, garden equipment, whatever - with same-day or next-day delivery. The mainstream concert ticket sellers also accept BTC here. Not sure about plane travel, but I can use BTC to buy train tickets. If I can't use Bitcoin at a store directly, I can simply take out some cash at a nearby Bitcoin ATM - nowadays there's more BTC ATMs than my bank's ATMs.
gitfan86 4y ago
The only 'legal' purpose is speculation around 'decentralized innovation'. It is legal to speculate that Bitcoin or NFTs may be more useful someday, therefore more in demand. Obviously that makes it no different than beanie babies, but buying beanie babies is legal and a lot of people did it.
anovikov 4y ago
But originally, crypto was built with the expectation of being illegal and yes, to facilitate only illegal transactions, that live and die illegal with no communication with "white" money. It's only in the recent few years - to attract normies' money - it started to make weird detours into the legal space. I think there is no need mixing the two. Use normal banking, companies and taxable jurisdictions for white money - everyone needs some white income to explain what they are doing - and crypto for the rest. Crypto people i know (the real ones), want it illegal, because then their work has fewest impediments - it becomes nothing but coding in R, Solidity, some Python, and occasional visits to a guy next block for a pack of cash. No paperwork.
- joyfylbanana 4y ago
  Sounds like bullshit. Yes there have been criminals using Bitcoin since the early days. But there have been always a lot of people promoting it for normal merchants. There are lots of shops accepting Bitcoin these days, depending where you live though.
sumy23 4y ago
I think a very legitimate, legal purpose of the technology is for the implementation of financial systems. How many billions of dollars of computers, networks, mainframes, and engineers are dedicate to running the financial system? Distributed ledgers are basically an abstraction for implementing financial systems. Think about them as C for the financial system, where the current financial system is assembly. The doesn't mean public, decentralized blockchains are the answer the any particular problem, but blockchain technology can be useful even if they exist mostly as private chains run by financial institutions.
Ajedi32 4y ago
Would you make this same argument regarding, for example, Tor? Why or why not? To me it's the same thing. "Law resistance" is a prerequisite for censorship resistance, because governments are often the ones doing the censoring.

wollsmoth 4y ago

I'm not a big crypto person. But I do think that it does one thing well, it enables the transmission of value digitally. The same way I can transmit a file to you over the internet, I can now transmit a crypto coin of value. Now, personally I don't have a lot of issues with the prevailing system, venmo and similar apps. I don't have any issues buying what I need online since credit cards work and are widely available. I suppose crypto could be useful for industries that are legal, but banks do not like engaging with. Like adult entertainment.

brianwawok 4y ago
I can Paypal and Apple Pay and ACH you already. For likely much cheaper. Crypto adds nothing.
- elil17 4y ago
  But then how am I supposed to commit crimes!?
  - stiltzkin 4y ago
    There are other ways to do crimes with USD.
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      At least with USD, when you gotta do it, you can do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HrmD_vIMIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HrmD_vIMIk
- godot 4y ago
  Not sure about "likely much cheaper". Those methods are either funded by VC money (for the case of early startups) or in the case of bigger companies, their other products that monetize you in other ways. BTC is expensive to transfer, but other options like LTC are not. It takes a small fraction of a penny (in USD value).
jandrese 4y ago
The thing is, crypto coins tend to be terrible ways to transmit value. They usually have massive overhead compared to pretty much every other system and are often quite slow. Anybody who has tried to pay for something directly with Bitcoin will see the problem instantly. The mining fee is a significant percentage of your transfer unless you're sending literally thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin and it typically takes 4-24 hours for the transaction to clear unless you're willing to increase the transaction fee significantly. Crypto currencies are so bad at this that PayPal is a better way to transfer money. Let that sink in.
- joyfylbanana 4y ago
  I have been using Bitcoin for various online purchases for many years. For me it always works fluently. In fact I have had more cumbersome experiences with fiat payments. Not that I have much problems with any payment methods. I just prefer to hold Bitcoin and use it as my primary currency. I'm willing to willing to spend some extra effort to pay with it, but if it gets too difficult I'll resort to fiat.
- csomar 4y ago
  Comparing a Bitcoin transaction to a PayPal transactions is comparing Apples to Elephants. They have different value proposition. A more fair comparison is comparing a PayPal transaction to a Coinbase one. In which case they are the same (haven't used PayPal for a while, so not sure if they are charging fees for P2P transfers).
hungryhobo 4y ago
what value are you talking about? currency themselves have no inherent value and are only backed by the confidence that people have of the issuer.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  The value is whatever you may exchange the crypto for. Much in the same way that the value of a dollar is what it buys you.

boomchinolo78 4y ago

When the social contract is so deteriorated and government so corrupt. Is that a bad thing?

anotherrandom 4y ago

Censorship-resistance == law-resistance. Rules for censoring are imposed by state entities or by private entities enforcing state-defined rules

jandrese 4y ago

More directly, "censorship-resistence" == "criminal enabling". In practice the primary use cases for Crypto Currency are: 1. Running scams (see: NFTs, most exchanges, etc...) 2. Speculation (HODL) 3. Laundering dirty money 4. Buying contraband (drugs, guns, etc...) 5. Tax evasion 6. Extortion payments (crypto-locking viruses, etc...) 7. 419 scam payments 8. There was once a way to pay for burritos from a specific restaurant using Bitcoin. 9. Everything else It really shouldn't be a surprise that lawmakers have taken a dim view of the subject. That said, there are a handful of legitimate uses for cryptocurrency, but it's hard not to think that we could find better alternatives for those use cases, especially given the disastrous environmental impact of many of these crypto schemes.

joyfylbanana 4y ago
Personally I have been using Bitcoin for legal & legit use cases for years. It is primarily a hobby, but personally I believe in the long run it will also benefit me financially. As a personal savings and checking account it works, though the volatility for many is understandably hard to bear. For online purchases in my country Bitcoin works very nicely. Also for travel related purchases. I would estimate that maybe 60-70% of my purchases are in Bitcoin these days.
- jandrese 4y ago
  I would be fascinated to read the details about this kind of lifestyle. Buying groceries, plane tickets, concert tickets, etc... with Bitcoin.
  - stiltzkin 4y ago
    You can already do that, but with other tokens. Maybe you should read more about other blockchains other than bitcoin.
  - EUROCARE 4y ago
    It's life as usual - the biggest mainstream webshops here accept Bitcoin. I can buy anything I want that way - groceries, tech gadgets, kitchen machinery, garden equipment, whatever - with same-day or next-day delivery. The mainstream concert ticket sellers also accept BTC here. Not sure about plane travel, but I can use BTC to buy train tickets. If I can't use Bitcoin at a store directly, I can simply take out some cash at a nearby Bitcoin ATM - nowadays there's more BTC ATMs than my bank's ATMs.

gitfan86 4y ago

The only 'legal' purpose is speculation around 'decentralized innovation'. It is legal to speculate that Bitcoin or NFTs may be more useful someday, therefore more in demand. Obviously that makes it no different than beanie babies, but buying beanie babies is legal and a lot of people did it.

anovikov 4y ago

But originally, crypto was built with the expectation of being illegal and yes, to facilitate only illegal transactions, that live and die illegal with no communication with "white" money. It's only in the recent few years - to attract normies' money - it started to make weird detours into the legal space. I think there is no need mixing the two. Use normal banking, companies and taxable jurisdictions for white money - everyone needs some white income to explain what they are doing - and crypto for the rest. Crypto people i know (the real ones), want it illegal, because then their work has fewest impediments - it becomes nothing but coding in R, Solidity, some Python, and occasional visits to a guy next block for a pack of cash. No paperwork.

joyfylbanana 4y ago
Sounds like bullshit. Yes there have been criminals using Bitcoin since the early days. But there have been always a lot of people promoting it for normal merchants. There are lots of shops accepting Bitcoin these days, depending where you live though.

sumy23 4y ago

I think a very legitimate, legal purpose of the technology is for the implementation of financial systems. How many billions of dollars of computers, networks, mainframes, and engineers are dedicate to running the financial system? Distributed ledgers are basically an abstraction for implementing financial systems. Think about them as C for the financial system, where the current financial system is assembly. The doesn't mean public, decentralized blockchains are the answer the any particular problem, but blockchain technology can be useful even if they exist mostly as private chains run by financial institutions.

Ajedi32 4y ago

Would you make this same argument regarding, for example, Tor? Why or why not? To me it's the same thing. "Law resistance" is a prerequisite for censorship resistance, because governments are often the ones doing the censoring.