[Karnickel]

I think your comment raises some very interesting points, but that you go too far.

There are costs (in the wider not just monetary sense) and benefits to various approaches. The reason you had to resort to crypto-currency first of all seems to me to be the problems in the countries you lived in. If they had working institutions, if you had lived in a Western country and had had access to the banking there, would you have come to the same conclusions?

Also, there is a reason why Western banks and Asian ones too, it seems, prefer losing business over dealing with customers from some countries, and I doubt the reason is spite.

Having completely anonymous money sure benefits some small businesses (mostly those living in places with bad institutions), but it also enables a lot of very questionable businesses and people. I would suspect that as far as volume goes the latter might actually be far bigger than the former. As always those who have most to gain are those who have a lot of money to move (same with the question about who benefits from government more - the rich or the poor? The rich! Any "redistribution" is dwarfed by the amounts of money people get to make and to keep under the protections of strong government institutions). Anonymity, not just for money, always works for those who have their eyes closed to all the horrible things humans do when nobody is looking - and that is not a negligibly small amount. Of course, the extremely wealthy already have "anonymous money", tracing who owns what is very hard even for the government, but I doubt giving everybody access to anonymity would be a net positive.

[dreit1]

> Having completely anonymous money sure benefits some small businesses (mostly those living in places with bad institutions), but it also enables a lot of very questionable businesses and people.

I'm not in favor of this argument at all. The internet has incredible benefits, but enables a lot of bad actors. Encryption has incredible benefits but enables a lot of bad actors. Lots of good things also enable bad things, that doesn't mean we shouldn't allow them.

Outside of third world or financially repressive countries, cryptocurrencies are great for "global citizens." I have done contract work while living in a different country, for clients in other countries, both parties have found it much easier to pay each other using cryptocurrencies as opposed to fiat.

[candiodari]

The problem is that when it comes to governments and bad actors.

The difference, at times, is murky. Even in the west.

[ThomPete]

“but it also enables a lot of very questionable businesses and people.“

So basically like cash.

[Karnickel]

Not like cash at all. You can't pay with cash unless you are right there. Also, paying with large amounts of cash is hard or suspicious or even impossible.

[ThomPete]

So crimes arent possible with cash?

[Karnickel]

I don't understand what your question has to do with anything I wrote. Unless your intention is not an actual honest discussion, but to mislead - but surely that cannot be true.

[ThomPete]

My intention was to show you that there is in fact similarities between cash and bitcoin and that your claim that there isnt at all is wrong.

They are both used for crime and cash is used way more for crime than bitcoin is.

So your claim is simply wrong.

[Karnickel]

> that your claim that there isnt at all is wrong.

Well, it isn't, as I already pointed out. Is the main strength of your argument how often you repeat it?

> So your claim is simply wrong.

Ah, yes, as I suspected. A strong conviction in place of arguments, reasoning and considering other people's arguments.

[ben_w]

Fewer crimes are possible with cash than with cryptocurrencies. It’s not boolean.

[ThomPete]

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/09/19/22-billion-dollars-...

How you can even claim that with a straight face is beyond me. Here is just one person's cash usage.

[ben_w]

First, by writing “just one person’s cash”, it is automatic to infer you consider this representative. I assert that it is not, and furthermore that if it were even close then the criminal economy would vastly exceed the non-criminal one.

Second, look at the date on that and tell me, with a straight face, that they didn’t use any cryptocurrencies. If they really did have $22bn, perhaps even if they only had $22m, I expected they used a dozen forms of currency they couldn’t even name.

[ThomPete]

Yet more crimes are being done with cash than cryptocurrencies.

[ben_w]

How many crimes occurred on or by means of the Silk Road and it’s clones?

[mstade]

Which banks are desperately trying to get rid of.

[ThomPete]

Which they haven't yet.

[mstade]

But certainly not for lack of trying.

In Sweden, it’s fast becoming nigh impossible to pay for things with cash, particularly in places like restaurants, cafés and bars. If you have a business that deals in cash, banks make it almost farcically difficult to deposit said cash into your business account.

For example, in one town the largest bank will only accept cash through a deposit machine, outdoors, for one hour during the middle of the day. Oh and you can only deposit something like $1500 per day. Your only other option is to order pickups from a security company, which will cost quite a bit more than you’ll pay for card transactions most likely.

Granted, this example is from a smaller town (aprox. 12000 inhabitants, but LOTS of tourists from abroad that tend to carry cash) but even in a place like the capital Stockholm, you’ll have very particular cash handling restrictions. Some because regulation, but most because banks don’t like to deal with cash. It’s a very real security risk and requires manual labor – both of which are costly and like any business banks like to keep costs down. Most smaller (and local) branches these days don’t deal with cash at all, or deals in very limited amounts.

If you run a small shop that deals in cash, there’s a very real possibility that you’ll have to face the question of whether to pay a lot of money for secure cash handling, or just getting a safe and hope you don’t get robbed.

[ThomPete]

Sweden is an outlier (same things also happening in Denmark, where I am originally from)

But contrary to cash, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin can be traced fairly easily in fact, it's one of the most transparent currencies that's ever existed.

As color coins show it will be possible to trace the history of a coin and thus trace what's it's been used for.

This will potentially allow NGO's to recieve funding and track how they are used and make sure they can't be used for approved expenses all autimatic.

Cryptocoins are exactly what governments would want if they really thought it trough. The control they loose in creating the currency is gained in controlling the history of them.

[candiodari]

That's another problem cryptocurrencies solve. You'd think that when people say governments and banks provide currencies, that they'd provide very basic services related to that, such as the ability to get currency into an account.

As any business owner can tell you, they don't provide these services. Which of course means that someone could step in, provide these services, and actually has a chance of success.

It sounds so incredibly absurd, but it's actually true: governments do not provide the ability to transact in currency. Only banks do, and only for hefty fees. Hell, the aborted attempt by Varoufakis to issue a tax-backed currency by the Greek IRS would have been the first time I've heard any state providing such a service.

One might think, in reaction, governments would be a little worried and then 2 reactions are possible:

a) governments could make sure these services are provided. Basic banking services, after all, are a complete necessity in todays world. In trade they'd get insight, maybe even a little control, and would make a LOT of people very happy, because the government is omnipresent, and a lot of people feel that banks exploit things (e.g. cashing checks in the US).

b) governments could punish everyone involved, AND threaten everyone until insight is, grudgingly and only after every option to obfuscate things is utilized to the maximum extent, provided.

Of course in the case of b), insight would be a punishment inflicted on businesses and people, and make it very clear to everyone involved that citizens and the government are each other's enemy, and therefore naturally everyone would be trying to make that insight as useless as possible.

Needless to say, every government on the planet has chosen only a single avenue, namely b).

Can I just say: may God help governments as soon as someone realizes a way to provide a cryptocurrency that can't be easily blocked over radio or ... because it will turn into an utter disaster for them very quickly.

Or perhaps I should say: the first government to issue a tax-backed currency with a government provided ability to transact, banks, the entire financial sector, and all other governments are in extreme trouble.

[totalZero]

> I doubt giving everybody access to anonymity would be a net positive.

I would think that freedom from surveillance is a negative right, but you are framing it as a positive right. Why?