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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
And you still haven't explained how you would pay for ransomware over the internet via cash. We are talking here about the ransomers being in a different continent even.
And we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities. Cash transactions over a certain limit have to be logged, there are physical controls at the borders as well as searches. So having a suitcase of cash cannot be concealed easily.
Yes, especially with local crime, there are cash transactions. That is regretteable, but cannot be avoided. The difference is, that physical cash servers a very important practical purpose: making legit payments easy. From using vending machines with coins to just paying for your groceries, you can do that easily with cash.
However Bitcoins don't seem to have a large practical values beyond the illegal actions. I am not aware of a large econommy based on Bitcoin transactions. It also can be shown that the pure time required to perform these transactions would be a hurdle. So most of Bitcoin is just speculation, the practical aspect largely based on the shady uses.
ugh.. did you misread my comment? i was talking about cash.