Counterpoint: this was before the US government decided to create a pool of liquidity for cryptocurrencies, likely at taxpayer expense.
I'd say that's a use case. It's not a good use case for society as a whole, but it's a use case if the goal is to make money with cryptocurrency you hold based on a blockchain.
The article is mostly talking about non-currency uses of blockchain, like provenance tracking of real objects. US blockchain shenanigans have no bearing on its arguments.
They're not going to spend tax-payer money on crypto—thank God. Instead, they will take seized crypto from criminal activity, which would otherwise be frozen on exchanges or hard drives in evidence lockers, and put it into a reserve pool.
Yes. It's entirely a value judgement about which assets are useful for the government to hold and which aren't. Count me on the land useful and crypto not useful side. (Although I don't have a huge issue with them holding onto the seized crypto, and would have been / will be very mad if they start open market acquisition of it.)
Yes? I think most people find it reasonable for the federal government to use taxpayer dollars on land in ways they don’t for crypto. Or fine art or Porsches or other seized property.
The same could be said about tax deductions for charity, which are much more corrosive—they allow billionaires to launder their reputations and money.
The random Bitcoin recovered here and there and put into a pool is not even close to the harm caused to the taxpayer and, in the case of the Gates Foundation, the world.
I'd say that's a use case. It's not a good use case for society as a whole, but it's a use case if the goal is to make money with cryptocurrency you hold based on a blockchain.