Crypto is heavily regulated at least in the US, Western Europe and huge swaths of Asia. Exchanging to/from fiat can only be done through entities subject to KYC, AML laws, and OFAC regulations. Additional regulations are coming - see "travel rule".
Bitcoin is infinitely more traceable than cash. Here's one of the most popular software routinely used by law enforcement to trace crypto payments: https://www.chainalysis.com/. Tumblers / mixers, etc. have only limited cloaking power.
Most of these criminals perpetrating ransomeware aren't in the US or Western Europe.
Which is a call for regulating, not banning. If you want to use something different which the author said somewhere else, to back some other point and say that it outweighs what the author says here, then actually do all those things. What are the author's own words elsewhere, where, and what point are you trying to make by vaguely gesticulating towards them?
The author is extremely prolific and vocal about his support for outright banning cryptocurrency. It's all over his blog, it's all over his Twitter. He is proud to admit it. It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance.
The most expedient actions would be fourfold:
Halt all wire transfers of dollars in and out of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Halt foreign entities trading in dollar cash-equivalent crypto assets.
Add Chinese and other foreign cryptocurrency exchanges hiding in tax-havens to sanctioned entities lists.
Regulate the sale of any existing cryptocurrency assets to US persons by classifying them as securities investment contracts moving forward.
> "It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance."
I'm asking what relevance your comment has. "He calls for a ban" - so what? Make a point.
There, can you stop being so obtuse now? You are wrong. My point is that the author is calling for a ban and that nobody was putting words in his mouth, as you suggested.
It isn't "obtuse" to ask you to back up your sneering with evidence. It also seems to have no relevance to this thread and "why arguments of this kind are so common"?
But, to address your point, because they're good arguments. "We need to regulate $thing" has saved lots of lives. No longer can you sell plain river water to drink, dump sewage directly back into rivers, dump industrial waste into rivers, build houses which collapse, build hotels with no fire consideration, build using asbestos, make buildings with electric wiring without circuit breakers, adulterate food with sawdust and plaster, sell products with lead paint, burn leaded gasoline in places where people breathe, and on and on and on.
That's progress; try things, filter out the things which are badder than they are good.