Well, the Silk Road and its replacements have been orders of magnitude larger than the "ransomware industry". And there's arguably no moral requirement to obey immoral laws. So overall, cryptocurrencies have been a huge win for freedom.

Are you arguing laws against money laundering are immoral? Because they are a practical requirement in order to levy any type of income tax. Or are you claiming that Silk Road style sites are only illegal because of immoral laws? I get that the HN crowd generally has a libertarian and anti-prohibition bent, but outside of illicit drugs there are some inarguably horrible things being sold on those sites like child porn and murders for hire. Doesn't the government and law enforcement have a moral requirement to combat that?

Yes, laws against "money laundering" are immoral. They're an invasion of privacy. And income taxation is a joke. There are tax breaks for the wealthy. And they leverage them to pay even less. Cryptocurrencies democratize tax avoidance.

I suspect that most murder-for-hire offers have either been scams or entrapment. And regarding child porn, I can't imagine why anyone would pay for it. There's so much out there for free, after all.

Governments do whatever governments do. But so do people.

Fair enough I guess. I don't see much value in discussing this with a person who thinks taxation is a joke or that people buying child porn shouldn't be a concern because it can be acquired for free. Our opinions are already too far apart to find much common ground.

I don't deny that. But being a win for freedom and being a win for crime are not mutually exclusive.

I can't quite parse that :(

But I believe that "being a win for freedom and being a win for crime" necessarily overlap. Maybe entirely. Because anything that allows some authorities to curtail crime necessarily allows other authorities to curtail freedom.

> I can't quite parse that :(

Sorry. It means we agree.