Isn't the real issue here one of incentives? BTC is of obvious criminal use in regards to laundering money and trading in blackmarket goods and services, but clearly there is a much broader appeal to more mainstream use as well. Activists, journalists, dissidents all need to have lines of cash and stores of value that cannot be taken down with one phone call to Chase bank.
For someone in a relatively free Western country, BTC looks like a ridiculous waste of energy. However, from the perspective of people hiding from political and state oppression BTC is a godsend. Refugees can safely and securely liquidate their assets before fleeing a country as one example. This gives them more freedom to choose where they want to re-locate to and allows them to use some saved wealth to get up and running faster once they find a new place to live.
On HN I get that this view on the matter will not be popular, but I think BTC and Proof of Work generally have attached something very much like a market price to the cost of state overreach. If governments had acted better, BTC would never have reach the height it is at today. It would still be a hobbyist curiosity with a substantial but fringe criminal interest.
Trillions of dollars get printed diluting your wealth and you have a problem with the hardest form of wealth known to man. I boldly predict that you or your progeny (depending on your age) will realize in 10 years that you should have bought BTC. I encourage you to research why non money launderers like Jack Dorsey, Elon etc. are buying BTC.
For someone in a relatively free Western country, BTC looks like a ridiculous waste of energy. However, from the perspective of people hiding from political and state oppression BTC is a godsend. Refugees can safely and securely liquidate their assets before fleeing a country as one example. This gives them more freedom to choose where they want to re-locate to and allows them to use some saved wealth to get up and running faster once they find a new place to live.
On HN I get that this view on the matter will not be popular, but I think BTC and Proof of Work generally have attached something very much like a market price to the cost of state overreach. If governments had acted better, BTC would never have reach the height it is at today. It would still be a hobbyist curiosity with a substantial but fringe criminal interest.