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A government prohibiting crypto and/or making it impractical to access isn't evidence of the technology's failure. To make an analogy, see the laws and prohibi

A government prohibiting crypto and/or making it impractical to access isn't evidence of the technology's failure. To make an analogy, see the laws and prohibitions around encryption. Many countries (USA, France, etc) have had severe restrictions on cryptography over the years; some countries like China still do have these in place, and others like UK are considering new laws that further impede access to encryption. Yet none of these policies are strong evidence of some failure of encryption technology and the ideas it has brought forth. France, 1999: > France to end severe encryption restrictions [...] Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month jail term. Right now, apart from a handful of exemptions, any unauthorised use of encryption software is illegal. Encryption software can be used by anyone, but only if it's very easy to break. https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/ https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_...

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
Indeed, cryptography for information transfer has been a successful technology. This is due to the work of many activists leveraging the prior existence of the fundamental rights related to communicating freely in the constitutions of many countries. Despite this, as you say, governments have tried to make laws around this, which are partly successful. But there is a crucial difference between cryptography for communication and cryptocurrencies. You have to provide an account of your financial activities at the end of the year to your government, and lying on it will get you in serious hot water. You don't have to annually tell the government who you communicated with and how. So, you using encryption technology will never land you in trouble, unless the government catches you. For instance, millions pirate copyright material around the world, but governments find it very difficult to catch the ones setting up the sharing sites. But any non-trivial usage of cryptocurrency has to be reported by you to the government, and if you don't the tax authorities will come after you. So the government at this point has close to complete control over which cryptocurrency transactions you can freely engage in, and which ones you can't.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

Indeed, cryptography for information transfer has been a successful technology. This is due to the work of many activists leveraging the prior existence of the fundamental rights related to communicating freely in the constitutions of many countries. Despite this, as you say, governments have tried to make laws around this, which are partly successful. But there is a crucial difference between cryptography for communication and cryptocurrencies. You have to provide an account of your financial activities at the end of the year to your government, and lying on it will get you in serious hot water. You don't have to annually tell the government who you communicated with and how. So, you using encryption technology will never land you in trouble, unless the government catches you. For instance, millions pirate copyright material around the world, but governments find it very difficult to catch the ones setting up the sharing sites. But any non-trivial usage of cryptocurrency has to be reported by you to the government, and if you don't the tax authorities will come after you. So the government at this point has close to complete control over which cryptocurrency transactions you can freely engage in, and which ones you can't.