Hacker News Reader

"the government is after you" is a spectrum. The fact that you're under suspicion for money laundering doesn't mean they'll send seal team six after you. Using crypto raises the barrier for seizing your money, just like having cash on hand means that you can still pay for necessities when your accounts are "caught up in a government mandated anti money laundering investigation".

View on HN

In the US at least, the method for seizing crypto is the same as for seizing money in a bank account. The only difference is that the warrant is served on the person who owns the crypto wallet instead of a bank.

That’s what I meant when I said the cost to seize your money goes up if you’re willing to defy a warrant.

However, if using crypto as a currency becomes mainstream, governments will crack down.

Crypto might be decentralized, but governments could easily require registering wallets, and force businesses to only transact with people who are registered.

Mainstream crypto money does not negate non-mainstream means of owning and securing your funds, similarly to how centralised chat platforms do not negate p2p or federated chats that use gateways to interact with the mainstream world if necessary, but are totally independent otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com