[keymone]

sigh, how this is still an argument?

try going a step further and ask yourself why is bitcoin "popular in the trade of illegal goods and for paying ransomware".

hint: there's a thing that is even more "popular in the trade of illegal goods and for paying ransomware" - cash.

hopefully it's enough of a nudge in the right direction.

[mirimir]

People have wanted an online cash equivalent for decades. It's a privacy thing. "Illegal" means whatever authoritarian jerks want it to, so we can ignore that.

Ransomware obviously uses Bitcoin because it's reliable, and can be anonymized. And people use Tor for child porn and "illegal" drugs because it's secure and ~anonymous. They're popular because they work. And in a way, they're canaries for decent privacy lovers.

[_ph_]

Sorry, thats just a strawman. Bitcoin enables sending money over the internet off official channels. You are not going to pay for ransomware with your credit card.

[keymone]

> You are not going to pay for ransomware with your credit card

ugh.. did you misread my comment? i was talking about cash.

[_ph_]

How do you pay for ransomware with cash? Put it into an envelope and send it off to another continent to the address of the criminals? I explicitly talked about sending money over the internet.

[keymone]

you pay ransom with cash. because cash has certain properties. which bitcoin also has. which is why bitcoin is being used as digital cash. which in itself isn't a problem and if it is - you need to fight against cash, there's orders of magnitude more illegal stuff being paid for using cash than using bitcoin.

[_ph_]

I was specifically talking about ransomware in all of my comments you answered to. You might disagree, but please don't put words into my mouth I didn't write.

Also, while ransom is paid in cash, these kind of crimes are not very common because the police can intercept at the cash exchange. It is really the ability to send money over the internet but off any official channels, which enables ransomware. Also, like with any other commerce, performing illegal purchases gets much easier with the internet, in this case facilitated by cryptocurrencies.

[keymone]

> You might disagree, but please don't put words into my mouth

i don't disagree, i'm trying to help you understand that what (allegedly) makes bitcoin popular for ransomware and illegal transactions is a set of properties that are also shared with cash.

either your argument is that those properties are evil and you're in favor of cashless society where big brother is always in control of all money flows - in which case that's the root of our disagreement and we can stop there.

or you value those properties but you're worried about all the illegal activities enabled by them, in which case bitcoin should be way down on the list of your concerns, top spot being held by the almighty USD.