What if the Taliban downloads and starts using your browser? Do you want to keep their ledgers and start processing payments for them using your centralized DB?

The use of crypto here has the same reason as use of crypto almost anywhere else, to sidestep regulations and liabilities. Doesn't matter whether those regulations are there for very good reason.

If the Taliban trades on a public blockchain, aren't their ledgers being kept and their payments being processed by every miner? I don't see how that sidesteps liability at all; it just externalizes it.

It's just regulatory arbitrage. I am not a lawyer, but until there are clear laws about it, why can't you just claim that this is just funny money with no real world value, and it has no more seriousness than an in game gold/xp?

> why can't you just claim that this is just funny money with no real world value, and it has no more seriousness than an in game gold/xp?

That might work in a jurisdiction where the trade in cryptocurrency is illegal but its possession is allowed, but I can't imagine a US or European court would take that argument seriously when crypto has a demonstrable market value. The court would almost certainly treat crypto like a commodity in that case. Wheat doesn't have KYC requirements, but if you knowingly and demonstrably facilitate wheat trades on behalf of a sanctioned entity, you can expect some legal trouble.

Eich has been heavily criticised by the cryptcoin ultras for taking KYC regulations seriously.

Cf. e.g., from 2018, https://thenextweb.com/news/brave-blockchain-cryptocurrency-...

It could be done via a centralised database. However, Brendan Eich is a cryptocoin enthusiast. He thinks that BAT is more valuable because it can leverage DeFi infrastructure. It also drastically reduces worries about that database's availability, making the job the Brave team has to do easier.