I am glad we finally have a solution to this pressing issue.

I know it sounds silly but it’s legit. Tons of stories of people driving out to buy a car, getting pulled over, having $10k seized without being charged with a crime, and then having to sue to get it back under a presumption of guilt.

Bitcoin is harder to seize under civil asset forfeiture.

ETA: in the US. Not sure about other countries.

Or they could have just used a bank account.

More people have lost money to Bitcoin scams and exchange fraud (see e.g. Mt Gox) than have lost their money to civil forfeiture. Depending on the price of Bitcoin, but (based on the current price of Bitcoin) more $$$ has been lost to crypto fraud as well.

Some people can, but there are people who can't use a bank account. There are a surprising number of people who can't or don't.

One reason is that banks will refuse to open an account for people whose records show past behavior they don't like (bouncing checks, overdrawing accounts, leaving fees unpaid, etc.).

Some other people could open a bank account but have practical reasons not to. For example, identity theft. Someone drained all your accounts, but you still have a good-paying job. If you open another account, maybe they will drain that one too? Maybe not a good risk to take when you're trying to stabilize your situation.

Another example, probably more common, is poor people who have court judgments against them from people they owe money to. You have medical debt, or you got evicted and owe back rent, or you messed up withholding and you owe the IRS back taxes. You might be living so close to the brink that your monthly income is $1500 and you need $1499 to survive. The court lets the creditor garnish money from your account, so one day you check the balance and find $500 gone, and you can't pay your rent or buy gas to drive to work. So you prevent that scenario by dealing entirely in cash and not opening an account.

> More people have lost money to Bitcoin scams and exchange fraud (see e.g. Mt Gox) than have lost their money to civil forfeiture.

Can you please back this statement up with some citations for this? I'd be hugely surprised if the number of victims, or even the USD value, of BTC related fraud or foolishness outnumbered state sanctioned theft in the USA, considering how lucrative the theft is for the state, without any need for laundering the ill-gained funds either.

At the same time, it would be remarkable if more people lost money, or more money was lost, in BTC than through civil forfeiture, and possibly an ironic statement that exploiting foolishness is the quickest way to riches, rather than deploying state sanctioned violence.

This thread compares holding your wealth with a third party (such as in a bank) with holding your wealth yourself (such as in Bitcoin).

Your example isn't about Bitcoin, it's about third parties.

Far more $$$ has been lost to third parties than to Bitcoin.

Lehmann alone lost almost 300B USD of others peoples money. Banks are safe until they aren’t.

Not even remotely the same thing. Lehmann Bros was an investment bank, meaning that the value of accounts was tied to the value of the securities investments contained therein, and Lehmann engaged in trading activity on behalf of those account holders. (And note: by 2013, all of Lehman's account holders had been made whole for their losses https://www.ft.com/content/f06762de-cf94-11e2-a050-00144feab...)

Savings accounts (and checking accounts) are regulated very different from investment accounts.

> Not even remotely the same thing.

Well, Mt. Gox and Bitcoin? Not even remotely the same thing.

Right, because Mt Gox was purporting to be a bank where you could store your Bitcoin, when it actuality it did not have sufficient crypto to pay out depositors as a result of many hacks and other shenanigans perpetrated by their own employees or contractors and it was openly lying to customers. (By the time of the fatal "hack," Mt Gox was already insolvent.)

Lehman was an investment bank, not a commercial bank. Commercial banks aren't allowed to go into crazy leverage like Lehman did.

proof of your claims?

LAW ENFORCEMENT NOW SEIZES MORE PROPERTY FROM CITIZENS THAN BURGLARS: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/law-enforcement-now-seizes-mo....

There are many places around the world where the government is not the good guys.

Including the US of A

A more relevant example is escaping a country in chaos with your wealth intact. Exactly like how people have done when they left Venezuela, using Bitcoin to bypass the border control.

You won't believe how pressing it is for Chinese merchants in Russia. Crypto is their only way to repatriate funds back into China, and they are moving billions that way. There is a huge ecosystem around this in Moscow currently.

For some people, it is a pressing issue. Especially for people from corrupt or despotic states.

Plenty of rich people drive or fly across the country all the time "carrying" $1b worth of assets. They're called bank accounts, and you can access them with these things called "check books" and "debit cards" that you can use in infinitely more places than you can transact Bitcoin or other crypto.

Sounds all well and good until your bank account gets seized by the authorities.

So what country are your funds in and what are you doing that has lead to the funds being seized? Don't you think we need trusted authorities for enforcement?

>So what country are your funds in and what are you doing that has lead to the funds being seized?

The US? Random example: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/the-dea-seized-her...

>Don't you think we need trusted authorities for enforcement?

Perhaps, but not everyone is lucky to live in a low corruption country.

Access is not the same as ownership.

Your account can be frozen and confiscated with little recourse.

Your account can be frozen and confiscated, but you have legal recourse. There are several anti-forfeiture legal groups that will take these cases on for free as a matter of principle (and because they generally get court-ordered legal fees from the prosecuting agency if they defeat the forfeiture).

Oh, you're assuming the legal system is the same everywhere in the world as the US.

Let assume the person is in China. Or Venezuela.

In China or Venezuela, if your bank account is seized by the government, it's because you're already in prison, so not having access to money will be the least of your concerns. Rather, you will be worried about whether you'll ever get to leave prison, or more immediately, what form of mistreatment you will receive from the guards and whether the rest of your family was rounded up as accomplices for whatever alleged crimes you were charged with (if any).

And amongst that, the property remains out the hands of the government.

Perhaps it will be one day be moved and utilized by family descendants, whom have had time to find themselves in safer conditions.

That's the difference.

True, but you can do that far easier with existing assets.

Authoritarian countries can always simply block their citizens' access to exchanges, and even just outlaw crypto ownership.

In a near future, we might not even need exchanges. Pay your rent with crypto. Buy groceries with it.

Even if its outlawed, that only slows it down at scale. People will still accept it if it has value. Drugs/prostitution/contraband can be traded even in the places where it is most strictly punished, outlawing it does nothing.

That's not the use case here. The process you are describing leaves us vulnerable to the government and state actors who can access your bank accounts, see the records, and steal your money. We have absolutely no reason to allow government in to our finances, so we must do things like this.

With crypto, the only way the govt is doing that is if they coerce you. Try that with a "bank account".

>They're called bank accounts, and you can access them

In lots of countries this is not guaranteed. Most recent example is Venezuela, central authorities imposed limited withdrawals.

The same is true of cryptocurrency. Try accessing it without power and internet.

You can obtain you Bitcoin with a portable power generator and satellite dish if you are on the move or cannot access conventional utilities.

Sure but to get satellite internet, you need to provide some id to the satellite internet company and they can probably track you back.

You don't need any type of accounts is the beauty, I don't want to take time digging up the details but I'm sure if you search it you will find the service.

Fair point!

Isn't it funny how "the point of bitcoin" seems to change as it proves to be unsuitable for each of the increasingly narrow niches it fills.

if the world doesn't agree on monetary policy, then it seems beneficial to be able to circumvent that

Or securely send it over the internet for $12. Quite a bit cheaper than transferring $1B via the banking system.