I think cashless, in the sense of "all money is digital", is probably a net bad thing. Remember, there are governments and organizations today that don't believe in basic freedoms: one could, for example, know if someone gets an abortion by looking at their payments history. The privacy cash provides is important for society as a whole.

On the other hand, I think a lot of this "cashless" debate can be fixed by mandating any merchant of goods or services to accept cash. Parking meters, brick-and-mortar stores, etc. have all been accepting cash for a long time, so it's a solved problem.

The thing about the "I need cash in order to do things the government doesn't want me doing" is that it's just incredibly precarious. Very difficult to use that as an argument to government or its supporters. And it tends to "evaporate" over time as people stop using cash for "legitimate" purposes. So you end up with nonsense like US asset forfeiture, where the police can simply steal your cash.

> mandating any merchant of goods or services to accept cash

The fewer people actually use this option, the more likely the merchant is to be very passive-agressive about refusing it. Like claiming not to have change.

How else are you going to buy drugs tho? Or pay for other basic needs that your government may find unnecessary?

There is XMR (Monero) which solves the transparency issue of bitcoin and seems popular in the dark web.

I highly doubt I would find any dealer on the street taking crypto tho. Alone the transaction times of 10+ minutes don't fit in a real world drug exchange.

I am not in the business, but would it be practical to use bitcoins/*-coins for this?

Hell no, not even close. You are suggesting using an even more public ledger to do things that ostensibly you NEED cash for.

There is little space for PUBLIC and AUDITABLE ledgers of any kind when discussing private payment.

Thanks! As I said I am not in the business.

My impression is that bitcoins contain a lot of dark money. How is this handled then with regards to sanctions or money laundering for example?

As soon as you want to exchange bitcoin to something real world'ish you are telling some company that the sending wallet is yours, which is now attached to bank details or even more verification. All transactions are public.

Actually I'd be even more worried about the transaction cost "Sorry, I HAD to buy 3 kilos, just because of the overhead. It's a bit like mininum amount for free shipping, you know?" :P