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Hiring a hitman should be illegal.
Buying slaves should be illegal.
Bribing the court system should be illegal.
This is not to say that every restrictions is justified, but taking the stance that no restrictions are justified is advocating anarchy.
Cryptocurrency has unwilling victims as well, but the linkage between cryptocurrency buyers and ransomware sellers is much less direct
If you want a closer analogy, gambling is also something that happens between willing participants and is almost universally either regulated or outlawed.
There are some good arguments that we need clearer, better regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges and a lower barrier of entry for low income/asset investors into securities.
However, some level of regulation of cryptocurrency is clearly required and is not out of step how we handle other parts of the economy.
The corrupt judge and barrister are very much willing. The negative effect is borne by a third party. Same with crypto. The buyer and seller are happy as can be. Then the rest of us have to pay to investigate, extradite, charge and liquidate Bankman-Fried and FTX.
In which case, sure. Hence why the government regulates transactions.
Selling a slave should be illegal.
Accepting a bribery should be illegal.
Chop the trunk, not the branches.
Thus you agree that there are things that consenting adults should not be allowed to do with their money.
Edit: There are good points about how much freedom it is worth giving away to make it easy to catch this crime, but I have a hard time seeing an argument for it not being illegal.
You don't see any reason why hiring a hitman should also be illegal?
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/30/business/north-korea-cryp...
You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.
> Stop moving the goalposts.
Ditto.
> You do not have the right to other people’s money
If you say so. I guess we won't have roads or a government then.
Nearly all services the government currently provides apart from courts, military and police could be paid for by its consumers proportional to their consumption. Of course, people like you oppose that model because it forces you to pay your fair share instead of offloading the cost of the services you use to others.
For the third time, it isn't. Whose consequences are being redistributed?
> you should have no problem banning encryption
Why should I support ineffective policy?
> Without double standards you would have no standards at all.
My standard is effective policy. Nothing of value is lost by regulating cryptocurrencies, and starving DPRK and Russia of one source of ill-gotten gains is gained.
> Nearly all services the government currently provides apart from courts, military and police could be paid for by its consumers proportional to their consumption.
Let's leave almost everyone be completely uneducated then. That's the way to run a successful democracy. /s
Are you going to continue to steal to fund the courts and military?
> You are the only one moving goalposts here.
Nobody is moving goalposts here. You simply don't understand what moving goalposts means.
“Why should I support ineffective policy” is precisely the moving of goalposts. Your original comment only said Russians using something is enough justification to ban it, you are now adding more conditions after the fact. You also conveniently ignored the point I made about constructing a scenario where your new goalposts are satisfied and just reposing the question. If banning encryption were an effective means of preventing Russian communication, you would support it right?
I don’t care if it doesn’t benefit you to pay your fair share. Yes, the military and courts have to be paid with theft, but you believe in those things too. Remember how I mentioned honesty and consistency? I’m honest where I’m not consistent, and since there are less instances of theft I believe are justified than you, at a baseline I’m always more consistent than you.
Wrong. Your willingness to accept stolen goods from Russia and DPRK is what makes them valuable. Making it illegal for you to buy them is not redistribution of consequences. Allowing people who have had their property stolen the ability to get their property back from other parties in the same jurisdiction is also not redistribution of consequences.
> Your original comment only said Russians using something is enough justification to ban it,
Your problem is not that you don't understand what moving goalposts means but that you don't understand plain English sentences. Status quo allows Russians to steal from the rest of the world. I never once said we should ban cryptocurrencies (which is as impossible as banning them from using secure messaging), only to regulate them to prevent Russians from deriving value from stolen goods.
> Did I send money to Russians? If not, and you still wish to ban me from using crypto
Once again, where did I say I want to ban you from using crypto? I merely want them regulated as much as any other money transfer services. PayPal could allow transfer to Russia and DPRK without recourse for lower cost than cryptocurrencies, but they do not because they are regulated.
> You also conveniently ignored the point I made about constructing a scenario where your new goalposts are satisfied and just reposing the question.
You are unable to construct a scenario where my original goalposts are satisfied, so you imagine a world where you could. You're simply imagining a world where you win the argument without actually presenting the arguments to win it.
> Yes, the military and courts have to be paid with theft, but you believe in those things too
So you understand that your policies are unworkable. Once you admit that it is reasonable for people in societies to band together and collect taxes to spend on the public good, it's just a question of how much and for how much public benefit. Feel free to move to Somalia if you find this concept disgusting.
In an imaginary world where it is possible to ban Russia from using encryption without causing other harms that outweigh that benefit, I would support that. Such an imaginary world is too nonsensical to exist though, so it is useless to even consider.