[janeroe]

> The idea that "normal people" will be able to use bitcoin at all ... is laughable.

The idea that "normal people" will be able to use cash at all is laughable.

The idea that "normal people" will be able to use gold coins at all is laughable.

And yet, many use (or used to) and don't need a mommy state to tell them what to do.

[jokethrowaway]

I'm all for getting the government out - but cash or gold is way easier to use.

If you have a political problem, you need to solve it politically. You can't hack it with a technical solution or politicians and their rich friends will just find a way to use it against you (like it's happening with btc, enjoy limitless tracking and the rich elite profiting from btc as much (if not more) than you) or ban it (like it happened to e-gold).

[reedjosh]

> you need to solve it politically.

And what do you do when politics are fully captured by corporate and oligarchical interests?

The majority of bitcoiners see no way out of our current political system. The dollar underpins the US hegemony.

Bitcoin wouldn't be necessary if the government would allow alternative currencies, but until bitcoin, it had squashed numerous attempts at alternatives.

So to say that we need to solve it politically misses the point. Bitcoin is a solution to solve what is seen as a political mess. Further, politics is just non-violent war. This _is_ a political method.

> their rich friends will just find a way to use it against you

I don't entirely disagree. I see bitcoin as a start. The lightning network already brings some anonymity to transactions, but it could be made to do better.

Monero (XMR) is a privacy based crypto that already does so and can currently do 1500tps on chain (BTC does ~7). Crypto is war against oligarchs motivated by failed traditional politics. Monero and other techs like decentralized exchanges are a step up in weaponry of this war.

[jokethrowaway]

I have a feeling Monero et similia will be banned together with encrypted messaging (encryption = terrorist). We lose more freedom every year at the hands of governments, I don't see why this trend is bound to improve.

I think what you do is you flee the country and move somewhere smaller where you have greater freedom and a greater chance at influencing politics.

My granddad was putting bombs in nazi buildings, but I don't think it really helped. We needed the USA to come over and kill the bad guys.

I don't know who will come to save us this time.

[reedjosh]

Decentralized exchanges will prevent their ability to ban it.

[G3rn0ti]

Well, the concept of holding cash and gold at home is easier than managing a private key. But as soon as you want your money to work i.e. earn interests or invest it, crypto currencies are easier to work with. I mean, you can literally deposit and earn interest by touching a button inside your Coinbase wallet, right now.

Regarding your second argument: Change in the financial system does not happen by itself. You need severe pressure. DeFi has a huge potential to put pressure on the traditional financial markets to make them more accessible to the poor and limit their excesses (monetary inflation).

The government could of course “ban” Bitcoin and DeFi. But since they are decentralized it can’t make them really disappear — only more cumbersome to get into (and out of), for example, by closing down centralized exchanges. But the government can’t really prevent you to meet a “dealer” cashing in/out on your cryptos.

[acdha]

> But the government can’t really prevent you to meet a “dealer” cashing in/out on your cryptos.

If that “dealer” doesn’t report your transactions under KYC or either of you don’t pay taxes, you’ll get a hard reminder that governments can and routinely do prevent things like this. It’s especially risky to break those laws with cryptocurrencies because you’re leaving a full irrepudiable history of every transaction so when they bust your dealer they get _every_ transaction, not just the one that was caught, and that’s for everyone they’ve dealt with — and since those transactions are all by definition illegal, they have both grounds to investigate and an easy lever to pressure each person to turn in bigger players in exchange for leniency.