[v64]

> Nothing, as long as you adhere to financial regulations and related laws where the systems and its users operate. Novel technologies don’t absolve you of adhering to the law. [...] Consider regulations and laws as requirements when building systems that store or transmit value.

This assumes that one lives in a jurisdiction where the law is just and financial institutions are trustworthy. As another example, if the United States were to make end to end encryption illegal [1], are you willing to say, well that's the law of the land, why do we need to keep developing Wireguard or OpenVPN? There would be other jurisdictions that don't disallow it, so the existence of jurisdictions that do disallow it isn't a reason not to continue to develop the technology.

Technologists can be picky about when it's okay to flaunt regulation. I won't speak for you, but many who denounce cryptocurrency for its dubious legal status will in the same breath praise companies like Uber for improving the transportation status quo by "disrupting" the outdated regulations that existed. I see cryptocurrency the same way. I hope that its disruptive nature will cause jurisdictions to reevaluate their financial laws. In the United States, the aforementioned announcement from the OCC today [2] giving guidance to banks on how to use cryptocurrency is a step in the right direction, whether or not you think it's a genuine opinion or opportunism. Certainly there is a place for centralized systems, but centralization should be optional, not a requirement. If one doesn't trust the person/company/government running the centralized service, there should be alternatives.

[1] https://protonmail.com/blog/usa-laed-act-anti-encryption/

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/04/occ-reg...