[hnthrow1010]

You're playing a semantic game here. Yes, technically if criminals are using it, it's not "useless". To the rest of us, it's actually worse than useless because the criminal activity is a net negative on society.

The idea that crypto is a hedge against inflation is laughable, look at any of the price activity in the last few months. Crypto tokens have no fundamentals or inherent value or anything. The price is completely random.

[jbaczuk]

I'm not condoning all the illegal stuff that happens with Bitcoin, to be clear, but just because a government says something is illegal, doesn't mean it should be. For example we're happy in the U.S. (well most of us I think) to be freed from oppressive rulers who taxed without representation, and something like Bitcoin would have been quite useful in that situation. There are many countries who are in a similar situation.