A lot of things are banned because its negative externalities outweigh its benefits, regardless of how the public uses it (ex. drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, pedophilia, etc). As a call to your conscience, even if you don't directly participate in those activities (in for the money), would you be ok knowing that you are complicit?
The evidence is pretty clear on the direct link of cryptocurrencies to organized crime, no matter how the tech industry (which controls the media) slices it.
Don't underestimate the Fed, they usually move slow to gather evidence against any case.
Well you're on the internet right now, using a technology which has done more than any other to make selling drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, and pedophilia easier. Are you okay knowing you are complicit in supporting that infrastructure?
There is no more a direct link between cryptocurrencies and organized crime than there is between matches and arsonists. The fact that one can be used as a tool by the other is not an indictment of the technology.
You never actually made a cost/benefit analysis, you just said some things have costs that outweigh their benefits. My comment clearly demonstrates that technologies which lead to externalities like drug use, money laundering, human trafficking, and pedophilia clearly don't automatically fail to pass a cost/benefit analysis.
I may have missed it, but the original commenter stated the negative externalities outweigh its benefits. What are the benefits of cyrptocurrency in it's current state that you feel outweigh the criminal use?
Well first of all it wasn't the original commenter who made that statement, then they said that some things are banned because the negative externalities outweigh their benefits, though they didn't specifically make any argument as to why cryptocurrencies are one of them and in fact chose poor examples where the ill effects are not externalities at all but the intended function of those banned things (which incidentally is where I entered the conversation to contest), and finally in context we're talking not just about cryptocurrencies at this very moment, but also the costs of losing all benefits of the underlying technology, which includes benefits currently being worked on and those not yet imagined.
But that all being said, the ability to trustlessly transmit value is, in my opinion, already more beneficial than any negative externality associated with any cryptocurrency. Indeed, the very reason that criminal enterprise has adopted cryptocurrency rather than just bartering illicit materials is specifically because the technology is useful for so much more. I for one would much prefer two consenting adults to exchange drugs directly rather than going through an organization with advanced money laundering operations which undoubtedly begets more frequent and more violent crime. All those complaints crypto-fanatics have about legitimate financial institutions apply just as much if not significantly more to illegitimate ones.
But while I believe that to be true, that's not a hill I'm willing to die on. Getting back to the conversation at hand, my point was that, unlike human trafficking or pedophilia which are evils unto themselves and should be banned even if they produce the occasional beneficial byproduct, technologies like cryptocurrencies or the internet are tools which are not inherently bad and which we all use despite the capacity for abuse. Using a baseball bat to break kneecaps does not make baseball bats evil, and the idea that baseball should be banned to prevent the misuse of baseball bats ought to be considered absurd. Trying to regulate something which is at most a loose proxy for the problem you actually want solved leads to numerous problems in practice [0], but it is also wrong in principle to freedom and prosperity to the many because you are incapable of dealing with the abuses of the few.
Ban roads the prevent bank robberies. 100% of bank robberies use a public road for their getaway. This is unacceptable. We need to ban roads immediately or else this rash of robberies will just continue.
As the original commenter stated, the negative externalities outweigh its benefits. You and a few others seem to have taken this to mean that a single negative externality should result in a ban.
"As a call to your conscience, even if you don't directly participate in those activities (in for the money), would you be ok knowing that you are complicit?"
By that reasoning anyone that uses paper money is complicit in cocaine use, because a 2009 study showed that between 85% and 95% of all US paper bills have cocaine on them, in some states averaging as high as 20 nanograms on individual low-denomination bills (it takes 150 nanograms in your system to test positive for cocaine).
Almost any technology, including Tide Pods, can be used in the argument anyone that uses and supports a technology for legal uses is complicit in illegal uses of that technology, rendering the argument meaningless. You may use Peer-to-Peer technology, does that mean you support piracy?
Many seem to me to be attacking BitCoin and other cryptocurrencies in total rather than attacking the aspects they hate. For example, anonymity is not innately tied to cryptocurrency, just tied to most of the current implementations.
A lot of things are banned because its negative externalities outweigh its benefits, regardless of how the public uses it (ex. drugs, money laundering, human trafficking, pedophilia, etc). As a call to your conscience, even if you don't directly participate in those activities (in for the money), would you be ok knowing that you are complicit?
The evidence is pretty clear on the direct link of cryptocurrencies to organized crime, no matter how the tech industry (which controls the media) slices it.
Don't underestimate the Fed, they usually move slow to gather evidence against any case.
As for the invested, once corpses pile up, they will flee: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27275189