[csomar]

This gets repeated a lot around here but is far from the truth. Drugs are still traded, and so are other "illegal" items. And trading drugs is quite risky comparing to trading crypto (especially fully decentralized).

> usefulness of cryptocurrency is going to be considerably constrained

Sure, but you are missing why 3rd worlds like China, India and Morocco are trying to restrict crypto. They are worried about capital outflows. It's not a surprise most of these countries already have rigid capital controls. People who have decided they want to "outflow" their capital are not really worried about government restrictions.

[louloulou]

Yeah, people making these arguments haven't lived in developing countries with terrible, inconsistent, reactionary, arbitrarily applied laws. Where you have to "break the law" constantly in order to survive.

[joe_the_user]

Sure but bitcoin's value would be a lot less if it was only being used to skirt the abuses of third world regimes - and when those same third world regimes make illegal.

Most people who buy bitcoin today in the first world do so because it's made money for people.

Sure, in third world countries and elsewhere, people skirt or break the law on a regular basis. But they still don't it for kicks and they don't do it for "right to cryptocurrency", they do it because it will get them something and making crypto illegal will mean it gets people less and people use it less, reducing demand and price (minus the manipulation bitcoin experiences but at some point that manipulation won't be manageable).

[TheProbes]

The goal of drugs is to do the drugs. They are consumer goods. You buy them, then consume them. Crypto has no value unless you can sell it on to someone else, and that's it's ONLY value. That is the glaring difference, and it's weakness.