[wharfjumper]

I think the logical flaw is in the assumption that AML checks are a bug in traditional money transfer systems when in fact they are a government-imposed feature (largely following on from September 11 and the expanded scope of the FATF[1]). Therefore the same rules will eventually apply to cryptocurrency financial transactions negating many of the advantages that an unregulated process has when compared to a regulated one.

So the real question is: what is the technological benefit offered by decentralized ledger-type technologies versus traditional ones? The answer for many is that the technology is much worse in fundamental ways. Additionally the governance issues of a decentralized system or organization are very challenging to address.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Action_Task_Force

[mattdesl]

It’s not technically possible for a single controller (the government) to censor and prevent transactions on an individual level across the network. In other words, the antiquated AML system we use for bank transfers cannot be strapped onto crypto ad-hoc. This is either a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on who you are asking.

As to your fundamental question, the above might already hint at it: decentralization. It’s an open source spec; shared and unified across the globe, that is not in the control of any one state government or private company. Other features like near-instant settlement times, programmability, 100% uptime, privacy (ZKP), permissionless usage, minimal transaction fees (L2)—these are all practical bonuses that do improve on the status quo in today’s payment processors.