What exactly are the valid use cases that are not already better served with centralized systems?
And so the issue you have is not with Paypal, Visa etc unless you think that those payment companies should tolerate illegal parties transacting money. Because that is a very slippery slope especially given how much wealth in the world comes from the despair of the very poor and helpless.
There are, and should be real-world limits on the ability of the US government to stop things from happening by deeming them illegal.
In the case of Wikileaks, one such limitation is the relatively decentralized nature of the internet. The US government was able to pressure Amazon to refuse to host it, but was unsuccessful in pressuring OVH, so Wikileaks remains online. There is no Great Firewall of America, so it remains accessible within the US.
Another limitation is that while the US government can and did pressure Paypal to refuse service to Wikileaks, there's no equivalent for preventing transfers of cryptocurrencies.
It already exists: the legal system.
> there's no equivalent for preventing transfers of cryptocurrencies
Money laundering, child trafficking, drug profiteering, terrorism etc. they all come with costs.
And doing nothing to stop them is not good for anyone.
What exactly are the valid use cases that are not already better served with centralized systems THAT DOES NOT involve illegal activity?
Of course you could say that Bitcoin is worthless and not proved as store of value, but that's not for me or you to decide, it's what's decided by the market.
So having your own blockchain domain and even using it as a method of login is illegal and centralised now? [0] ENS is a good existing example and concept 'so-far' of a valid use case, even when I disagree with it being implemented on Ethereum.
As for payments, cryptocurrencies that have blockchains like Bitcoin should be dismissed in the long term. Regulated stablecoins seem better for that purpose these days.
Everything else (and yes I’m even referring to ETH) is crap. It’s not truly decentralized, doesn’t have a REAL world use case (get real and be honest please), and don’t have anyone (or entity) “in charge” of it. Those are the major (among other) things that a real crypto is supposed to have by very definition.
Everything else is worthless (a “get rich scam”), and we all know it. And shame on those creating that crap, along with those gullible enough to buy them. Seriously, wake up. It’s just the hard cold truth, and we all know it.
Sorry to break it to most people, but apparently most don’t understand this “common sense” concept that is stupidly obvious in my opinion.
Even in the case of ETH (the undoubted #2 crypto), what would happen if Putin decided to go after Vitalik with all his might and the supper of the entire Russian government? You really think he’d stand a chance (and that’s assuming he’s a saint as well)? Again, wake up everyone. There’s a very good reason BTC has no “admins” or “chair board”, because nobody can corrupt it. Even the creator(s) of BTC were smart enough to not use their real names and lock themselves out of the system, and then disappear. They know what was coming. And now so should you. It’s really not complicated. There’s so many extremely powerful , rich, and ruthless people out there that stand to lose everything if this succeeds. You really Think they aren’t going to put up a fight?!? Get real. But that’s only if they know who to go after….
What happens if Putin decides to go after ASIC producers and some of the biggest mining operators?