It definitely played a role, but so what? The ability to transfer money outside the control of the state is a good thing, and the fact that some people abuse that doesn't make it bad. Same as gun ownership.
Considering the billions(?) of dollars of damage that it has inflicted so far and the sheer number of lives it has ruined in the process... and the fact that probably >99.99% of people in the world would not attribute their "liberty" to anything related to Bitcoin... and that neither the regulation of money nor "liberty" were invented in 2009... yeah, it very much is...
Bitcoin absolutely has legitimate uses, as I'm sure you know, but that's not really pertinent to the issue that the government doesn't get to tell free men what they may or may not do because someone else committed a crime. "Freedom creates opportunities for bad guys" is not an argument against freedom.
What world you live in?! In the one I know, the government absolutely does tell and has told people what they may or may not do with all sorts of things, including with financial instruments.
> You're arguing that it harms too many people, but I really don't care; it could have harmed ten thousand times the number of people and that wouldn't matter.
Wow!
Generally people at least pretend to care about other people and get a little concerned when it looks like their ideologies might burn the world to the ground, but I suppose it's quite... admirable(?) that you're absolutely brutally honest that you don't care about others...
Projects like bitcoin are not a negative thing for regular citizens, the benefits outweighs the cons. You proposed earlier to make it illegal however, which means you're not okay with some persons having the option to control their currency in the digital space. Such opinions are the reason why bitcoin appeared in the first place, and why cryptography will probably be for a long time a beneficial tool to protect people, along with governments.
I didn't say I don't care about others. I do value liberty higher than life, however. I don't think a cryptocurrency will "burn the world to the ground"...
Governments are allowed to stop people from harming each other - enforce pollution controls, chase down criminals, etc. They aren't allowed to tell someone he can't use bitcoin because too many bad guys use it too.