[tivert]

> What's the scenario where the government can take the digital money from your bank accounts but can't take the digital money from your crypto wallet?

In cryptocurrency's defense (I am not a Bitcoiner), it not as easy for them to do that, because they can't just order a bank to transfer it/freeze it....assuming the owner is going through a lot of elaborate, inconvenient, and easy to footgun security measures. If you have a Coinbase wallet you're in exactly the same situation as if you had cash in the bank.

HOWEVER, the cost people pay to get that is stupidly high. For every suave international drug dealer who's kept their money out of the hands of the evil government with Bitcoin, you probably have 1,000 dudes or more, who lost the keys to their wallet somehow or got their Bitcoin stolen in a hack.

So you probably shouldn't be worrying to much about duh gubbament.

And then, the obligatory xkcd about crypto: https://xkcd.com/538/ / https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/forget-hacking-this....

[fallingsquirrel]

These threads always leave me baffled. Some people say that only drug dealers use bitcoin. Others say the ratio of normal dudes to drug dealers is 1,000:1 or more. I guess it depends what sounds convenient at the time.

[tivert]

If you worry about the government seizing your money like that, you really should be someone whose money the government wants to seize [1]. Those people aren't regular dude software engineers.

[1] Also, keeping your money in a bank account almost certainly product you from those controversial civil forfeiture situations.

[Thorrez]

I think the argument is that the drug dealers are actually using bitcoin for its utility, whereas the 1000 normal dudes are just buying it as an investment, not to use.

[dowager_dan99]

if you replace "investment" with "speculation" I agree

[RGamma]

By head count maybe, but by value you gotta include the ransomware gangs, gambling rings, weapons dealers, human traffickers, money launderers, etc. too. And then it's probably not 1000:1 anymore.