and yet, most gov't that want to ban it has done so. So is it really outside their control?
If enforcement isn't possible, can it be considered controlled?
China has 'banned' Bitcoin n times. That in itself tells me how well, or otherwise, it can be controlled.
Monero is crypto-non-grata in many countries. That just means obtaining it requires visiting slightly dirtier and slightly darker alleyways.
Some countries block exchanges within their jurisdiction from offering Monero, for example, but it can still get obtained via other means. Peer to peer, offshore exchanges, decentralised exchanges.
Owning it isn't a crime.
Not sure if you meant "in general". Whatever the government decides is a crime, is a crime.
Slavery is banned. You can't own people. For some crimes countries like having extraterritorial jurisdiction, too. E.g. FGM "tourism" and child sexual exploitation. It's not just warcrimes that are extraterritorial.
I'm not equating these, certainly not morally. I'm saying that saying "outside the control of government" and "can't be banned" is either false, or applies to any other crime too.
And if it applies to all laws, then that's basically the sovereign citizen theory of laws; people getting the legal consequences for their actions all while saying "you can't do this", where "they" demonstrably can.
It's the "services" based on cryptocurrency and blockchain that I'm talking about, that are claimed to be clever but actually just reinvented illegal stuff. Not sure why you think a semantic debate is the best attack against me.
> Cryptocurrency is / was 'new and clever'
I said "cryptocurrency people invented something new and clever", not the invention of cryptocurrency itself.
Cryptocurrency is a neat idea, that has yet to have a legal application where it's better than the alternative. But I'm talking about all the other nonsense. The worst being "land registry on the blockchain".
> Something "new" about cryptocurrency is that it's a currency that lies outside the control of any government.
It's not. It's outside the control of monetary policy, sure, but the government can definitely throw you in jail for whatever arbitrary laws they make. So anything and everything can be controlled by the government.
Madoff got away with with it his ponzi scheme for a long time. The government didn't find out. And yet ponzi schemes are not outside the control of governments.
If cryptocurrency were made illegal world wide tomorrow, then it would join stuff like CSAM and drunk driving. Control is not an all or nothing deal.
Off-topic:
Cryptocurrency is / was 'new and clever' in that it combined a bunch of existing technologies into something that previously did not exist.
Something "new" about cryptocurrency is that it's a currency that lies outside the control of any government. No commentary on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but in my mind it's undoubtedly 'new and clever' (in full knowledge that most of the world would rate that as arguable).