Anyone can confiscate it.

Let's say the Government wants your cryptocurrency. You rub your hands together with an evil laugh and say it's protected by a private key that you've memorized!

They put you in jail and say you can come out when you hand over the keys to your cryptocurrency.

Or it could just be a random person with a plumbing wrench that will happily stop hitting you in the head with it if you give up your private key. Or it could be someone that breaks into your house and steals your wallet's recovery phrase. Or it could be you accidentally sending ETH to a BTC wallet.

The best metaphor is perhaps digital cash. No government can edit the cash in your wallet out of there, but as the owner, you can definitely lose it by force or stupidity.

Well the FBI owns the largest Bitcoin wallet. And I am pretty sure it's not from mining.

Ref: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@loryon/fbi-is-global-stakeholde...

Depends on who you ask. Being lawless is not a feature to me, for example. Some of what I think you mean by that I will probably want, but not lawlessness itself.

If someone steals your coin... That's it. Game over. There's no way to force them to give it back. Assuming they are in the same country as you and you can identify them, then you might be able to start legal proceeding to get your money back, but even then, nothing you can do will force them to return whatever coin they have. If they die, game over, the coin is lost forever and the best you can hope for is their estate has enough value in it to recover the loss.

An error on the side of the bank gives you a clear target for legal action to recover funds, and barring you having more wealth stolen than the bank has value (unlikely), you'll get your money back.

The security of the block chain is both a boon and a curse. It allows the blockchain to operate without a central controller, but it also, by design, makes transactions irreversible.

It's a pretty large downside. The only upside I've heard is that you could avoid oppression or government theft. However, I'd contend that a government that would directly rob your bank account isn't exactly going to stop at just that.

Only if you live in a democratic country with fair courts.

I get the feeling that 99% of blockchain users/proponents aren't in that circumstance.

Consider also the scale: what percentage of cryptocurrency users live in regimes like that versus the percentage who have functioning courts but are one exploit/phish away from irrecoverably losing all of their cryptocurrency?

You assume that from the blockchain kidnappers can find out who I am. I don't think they can, unless I exchange crypto with them.

>Consider also the scale: what percentage of cryptocurrency users live in regimes like that versus the percentage who have functioning courts but are one exploit/phish away from irrecoverably losing all of their cryptocurrency?

People always make mistakes. Do you suggest to prohibit every possible action which might lead to bad consequences? Do you suggest to damage people in need in order to save those living with good conditions?

Sure, if you live like a monk and never talk about it, you can probably avoid attention but there are plenty of people who thought they could do that successfully up until they didn’t. Again, it’s not a problem with a technical fix.

I have more trust in the correctness of encryption than the reliability of the justice system.

HOWEVER, that's not what's at issue with crypto. The issue of crypto is that it's irreversible. It absolutely does exactly what you tell it to do, and no more. But, at the same time, that means that when non-algorithm mistakes or exploits (ransom, cons, etc) happen you have 0 recourse to fix it.

There's a reason crypto is the preferred method of wealth transmission for scam artists, hackers, and ransomware.

Federal and international regulations require sophisticated bookkeeping and auditing. Banks and fintechs spend billions of dollars on fraud detection and security. Not only is it a matter of protecting their own self interests, but laws and reputation demand it.

> The point is that blockchains can have value, I don’t know anyone reasonable who doesn’t believe this. Git is technically a blockchain.

Git history doesn't have monetary value. It has practical, functional value.

For Git, I don’t see how that’s relevant. If things that don’t have monetary value can be secure at the protocol level why shouldn’t money be just as secure.

What if the state decides the money in the bank isn't really yours (e.g. civil forfeiture, political dissident, capital controls, etc)

In this world, unless you live in the wilderness without tools and supplies, everyone depends on others to some degree.

Crypto is an attempt to greedily cut others out and play god. The more plebs you convince of your world view, the more powerful you become.

Meanwhile you do nothing of value for society. Just waste brilliant minds and power.

Many in the world don't have access to a financial system. If they have internet, now they do (assuming they can find some way to onboard). Beyond that, plenty of financial tools only were accessible to the ultra-rich/institutions. Many of those are now accessible to everyone.

May be worth taking a step back to see why brilliant minds are intrigued.

If anyone has access to the internet, they have access to banking services. I mean, there are internet banking services being offered in Burundi and Mozambique, two of the poorest countries in the world.