I disagree with this:

1. Idea of a digital currency was in the minds of crypto anarchists for a long time before BTC was released. I think digital currencies were mentioned in the "Assassination Politics" essay in 1995, which actually landed the author to jail. So somebody was eventually going to build a digital currency with or without government intervention.

2. The typical Western elite or leader has a background in law or finance, and is generally not very technically savvy. This lack of understanding and interest in digital currencies meant that Bitcoin was largely ignored by them when it first appeared.

3. Large crypto institutions were well aware of the need to engage in lobbying very early. So long as these institutions keep on lobbying, there will be some protection against cryptocurrency bans.

4. Government is not all-powerful, and citizens are often the source of new and innovative ideas. Last time you visited a government service, were you impressed with their capability? Why do you think that those in upper echelons of government are more capable than lower ranks? While government may have an advantage when it comes to projects that require a lot of capital, for software projects this is not the case. Why do you think Google pays huge amounts to their software engineers? It is just to prevent them from creating competing software.

At least officially, Jim Bell (author of the Assassination Politics essay) was not imprisoned for writing that essay, he was sentenced for tax evasion and using fraudulent SSNs. I'm sure they investigated him after publishing the essay, and charged him with what they could, but his 1A rights weren't violated.

In general you're not allowed to advocate for violent overthrow of the US government, but I think decentralized prediction markets are abstract enough a concept (no material actions/threats against individuals) that it'd still be protected speech.

Why would they ban it when they can tax it instead and benefit from it?

"Why would they ban drugs if they could tax them instead and benefit from it?"

Thibgs on practice get much more complex easily.

The USG can print money, more or less, so it has no need of tax revenue from Bitcoin. Federal taxes exist mainly to balance out (most of) the enormous amounts spent by the federal government and, to a lesser extent, to (dis)incentivize various things.

Because it is used to circumvent international trade sanctions, and for illegal activities (drugs, weapons and dark sexual activities)

You can't tax a transaction in cryptocurrency

0.5% of Bitcoin's volume is illegal activity. [1]

11%-12% of the USA's economy is illegal activity. [2]

If you wanted to commit a crime or evade taxes, probably the dumbest thing you could do is record permanent evidence on a public, immutable ledger.

[1]: https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-a...

> Cash—anonymous and liquid—has long served as a tool for criminals. Cryptocurrency, with its similar characteristics, may likewise struggle to ever completely shake its bad reputation, despite illicit transactions making up less than 0.5% of Bitcoin’s yearly volume in 2020.

[2]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big...

> Estimates vary widely, but some put the underground economy at 11% to 12% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

The second link refers to the "black economy", which includes, for example, a housekeeper getting paid in cash without reporting it to tax authorities. The first link also includes "using cryptocurrency to hide financial activity, such as evading taxes or operating an unregistered MSB", but I doubt many housekeepers are using Bitcoin for that. In my opinion, it would be more interesting to compare the statistics on payments for activity that is itself illegal (regardless of whether it's taxed or not).

Tax evasion is no less real of a crime than other financial crimes. And in any case the parent post mentions taxes, so I think the numbers are still relevant without excluding it.

That's a good point indeed, so the illegal activity is not that great of an argument

It still is something that facilitates it

And is the reason why some countries banned the use of cash after a certain amount

Wich again validates my argument about lack of regulation, or lack of actions from governments (ban), if we follow the logic for any other kind of currencies, including local/regional ones, specially the ones that are supposed to be competitive

I'm not aware of where large cash transactions are banned, but if they are surely it's because cash is largely untraceable. Meanwhile bitcoin is easily traceable, and the IRS is not afraid to crawl the blockchain to piece together what you don't tell them[1]. Putting my tinfoil hat on, I wonder if governments are helping spread this myth that crypto is untraceable because it makes it easier to catch criminals.

[1]: https://www.taxlitigator.com/the-irs-confirms-its-great-eye-...

I think most countries that are worried about traceability (of cash) would simply require proof of origin: eg. bank withdrawal even if from 20 years ago; or house sale or... whatever that provides the proof that the cash in question could have originated from a legal, taxed source.

Do people still think it's some kind of magic untraceable money?

Unless all your financial activity completes within crypto transactions, you'll want to convert that to fiat one way or another and there's usually a KYC applied to it.

The narrative that it's untraceable was pushed far and wide within popular culture around it's inception. I would expect lay people, and even HN users who aren't heavily involved in that space, to retain that perception.

I have no real reason to believe this is true but it would be a brilliant honeypot to set up a parallel dark money economy and wait to reveal you had a backdoor all along when enough players have migrated.

Bitcoin is too stupid for a government research project to have devised, and Congress is too stupid to regulate it.

I expect someone at those agencies ask the questions like. So how many users did we actually want? And I think there would be lot more backdoors.

what do you mean about DDG ?

DDG, Signal and others

People choosing to live on donation in the most expensive state doing basically free work

Something sounds off

DuckDuckGo is a for-profit (so no, they don't accept donations) and very profitable since 2014. They sell non-tracking ads and affiliate links related to search queries. They also have various investors.

Most interestingly they donate every year (last round was $1M in 2021) to orgs that work to improve privacy.

DuckDuckGo refused every independent audits

DuckDuckGo android app leaks your identity and websites you visit to them [1], issue they closed with a surprising reply

Issue happened again years later [2]

DuckDuckGo got caught with their shady terms with Microsoft (bing tracker drama)

They estimate 70M-100M users [3], you don't make 100M a year with that amount of users, either Microsoft overpaid them for the tracker, or they are hiding something

It's impossible to find their detailed earning reports, so nobody can confirm their claims, and yet it's being promoted as a privacy focused search by the media all around the world, why? despite these major flaws? i don't know

So who knows what they do else?

[1] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/527

[2] - https://github.com/duckduckgo/Android/issues/2004

[3] - https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/16/on-a-growth-tear-duckduckg...