>even in the comment you just wrote, you’re still arguing a different point than what you originally said. this time you’ve shifted from “cannot be used to do”

>even in the comment you just wrote, you’re still arguing a different point than what you originally said. this time you’ve shifted from “cannot be used to do” to “cannot do”. I think it is clear enough that I meant the same thing. If that wasn't clear, you can ask for further clarification. There is no need to make this into a pedantic game. >but it’s impossible to have those discussions if you keep claiming one thing and then arguing the other thing. No, it is not? Why would it be? In fact I will have those discussions with you now. >why didn’t we have permission-less privacy-preserving coins before blockchains? We don't have those with blockchains either. They are not permissionless nor are they privacy preserving except under some very extreme and impractical circumstances. You can have your permission to use a blockchain revoked if all the miners/validators reach consensus on blacklisting your wallet. Also, all public blockchains have no privacy by default as all the data is public. >what are the better ways of achieving such global systems, and solving double-spend/consensus than blockchain, today? Basically anything else, because blockchains do not actually "solve" consensus. The "consensus" is done simply by paying off the participants in increasing numbers as an incentive to stop them from bad behavior, it has nothing to do with the actual blockchain itself. They are able to "solve" double spend in a very contrived way, at the expense of being able to solve any other problem that might befall the network. The traditional way to solve double spend is to use good old fashioned accounting, it doesn't have that same constraint.