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Comment by anovikov | Hacker News Reader

So what? It exists, and it's decentralised, and it solves many people's needs (and yes, these needs are usually criminal in nature, so they are not even supposed to be in the interest of civilization). Outlaw it and this is all they want - because it means unchecked existence.

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Read an interesting article that stated that crypto is not private enough to enable good money transfer for criminals. Cash is still the best. In general it stated that crypto currencies are rather useless.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/04/why-cryptocurrency-is...

And a couple notes about blockchain https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solu...

Personally I have not dig deeper into the pros and cons of crypto but my gut feeling is that it’s pretty useless.

Would be better to improve existing structures.

You should dig a little deeper, so that you get an actual understanding instead of a gut feeling about something you don't know anything about. Read about the technology, learn how it works, read what proponents like about it and what opponents dislike about it. That way you can form a proper opinion.

This seems like a poorly researched article though. They didn't even mention any privacy coins that do offer privacy or at least plausible deniability like Monero.

I admittedly just skimmed it, but I also didn't see them refute Bitcoin as a store of value.

Ok, so you can't get any privacy when using Bitcoin, let's say you use Monero instead.

So you kidnap someone, demand a payment in Monero and the family pays it. So now you have X Monero. Now what? In order to use it for something, either you need to purchase it with Monero (meaning you can only buy things like drugs and other illicit things, no popular stores offers Monero as payment), or you trade Monero for Y-coin and lose your privacy again or you sell Monero on a exchange for Z, again losing your privacy.

Replace Monero with any other "privacy" coin and you have the same problem.

Cryptocurrencies with public ledgers, "privacy" focused on not are simply not a good solution for crimes and preventing people from finding you. The best tool for that job is still cash.

> you trade Monero for Y-coin and lose your privacy again

This seems to work fine, though. If Y coin is Bitcoin, all anyone can tell is you traded Monero for Bitcoin. They can't go and track where the Monero came from as they could with Bitcoin. It gives plausible deniability.

How are you performing this "Monero for Bitcoin" trade without loosing your privacy to at least the person/entity you're trading with? You can't.

So the IRS asking questions as to how you got all that monero is not an issue?

I felt that article was well written with an outsider point of view and asking very interesting questions.

Most cryptos as they are now are useless. Yes. The tech is not great and from a developer or entrepreneur standpoint it’s ... messy and hard to build on.

But what’s emerging now is faster, lighter, better documented, and you would not believe it but it’s true: some even serve a true purpose around the “trust-less” idea.

It’s around, deploying as we speak.

What examples do you have in mind?

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