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Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

Like the drug economy?

Ok, let's go with that. How many of your friends would associate with the drug economy? Would you tell your employer that your are associated with that?

And I'm talking about dealing drugs, not about smoking a joint which is socially acceptable in many places.

Apparently, quite a few.

"The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's World Drug Report 2005 estimates the size of the global illicit drug market at US$321.6 billion in 2003 alone. With a world GDP of US$36 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade?wprov=sfla1

So to a first order approximation, 1% of people are involved in the drug business. Not a huge number.

Marijuana alone is the largest agricultural product by value in most states by a pretty wide margin. And that’s been true for a decade before it was legalized anywhere recreationally.

Cryptocurrencies do not need to be adopted on the same level as state-issued fiat currencies in order to achieve this goal. So long as they provide a means for some people who wish to live outside the state, evade taxes, launder money, and channel resources into actions which harm the state and its ability to enforce laws, it succeeds. As long as there are privacy problems being solved by their use, they will appeal to people who value that privacy over living under the control of state governments.

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