> Crypto is not mostly useless, it is just that people don't like the uses
Crypto has legitimate use as a rebel medium. It’s also plagued with criminality. Its promoters had a decade to clean up its act and refuse to self regulate.
That’s soured the public’s mood towards the whole enterprise. If crypto’s benefits are niche, its development should be niche. And if its sole beneficiaries are people in failing foreign countries, it might make sense to put the whole thing under the aegis of State versus continuing to create chaos from the private sector.
This only applies to literally one or two cryptocurrencies, stuff like Monero. They're very much the exception to the rule. Most cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum just publish the entire ledger which is constantly being pulled in by the PLA, the SEC, the FBI and myriad other law enforcement authorities the world over. Not to mention Chainalysis.
If the government that's oppressing you is capable enough to oppress you they're more than capable enough to, in the fullness of time, deanonymize your transactions and send you directly to jail for them. You're not just defending against the current start of the art tech but all future improvements - against an adversary with dramatically more resources than you have.
Illicit transactions on public ledgers are simply prosecution futures. People get jail time constantly for crypto transactions.
If I were a dissident in a country like the PRC hypothetically, I'd run like hell from crypto. Talk about asking for trouble.
That's before we even get to the point of how you plan to acquire these currencies without the government noticing.
They have a use: gambling and speculation at a massive decentralized offshore casino. Coinbase and Kraken are the cage. Binance, for example, and DeFi are the table games.
Crypto has legitimate use as a rebel medium. It’s also plagued with criminality. Its promoters had a decade to clean up its act and refuse to self regulate.
That’s soured the public’s mood towards the whole enterprise. If crypto’s benefits are niche, its development should be niche. And if its sole beneficiaries are people in failing foreign countries, it might make sense to put the whole thing under the aegis of State versus continuing to create chaos from the private sector.