Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence.
And bitcoin also pays for murders, launders money, etc. I feel, just as cash, it is quite ethics agnostic. Not knocking cryptocoin, just don't pretend it is a singular force for good. It is representation of capitol, albeit in a unique way.
I highly doubt Bitcoin is much used for laundering money, transactions are all happening in clear and if you try to hide traces by creating multiple addresses you are going destroy your capital in transfer fees (which are very high right now). It's clearly not the best currency to hide untraceable money.
I'd argue it's easier to use BTC securely when you're already laundering money than when you want to use it legitimately. Just use throwaway wallets to receive BTC, pay for goods that can be converted to physical cash and proceed laundering that cash as usual.
It's no surprise all the cryptolocker viruses asked for bitcoin payments or cash equivalent cards.
Wouldn't it be possible to temporarily switch to an intermediary altcoin (eg. ethereum, btc) ? I'm not invested nor an expert in any crytocurrency, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
...which could have been used to replace productive fossil fuel expenditures. It doesn't matter how you fuel egregious waste; its still a pointless thing to do?
I'd love for that to happen! But as it stands, when you use electricity, you're using whatever the grid supplies. And for Bitcoin miners especially, this power largely comes from burning coal.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html