@mystik it's also easy to "take away" on a societal level, in that it can be drained of all practical value by government action. kleptocurrencies have only taken off in places like the US where the government has received them warmly or ignored them. in russia crypto already cannot be traded for goods and services and will likely be banned outright, as china has. and when china banned crypto, crypto trading, mining, and transactions almost completely stopped happening in china. the only way people who held any could squeeze any value out of their vestigial wallets would have been by trading them internationally in exchange for real (state-backed) currency -- which also can happen only if the state in question permits it. and that's not even getting into countries like cuba or north korea, who have isolated national intranets with little or no connectivity to the international internet. crypto would be utterly useless in such places, even for doing crimes with

people who think that crypto is Freedom Money® are kidding themselves hardcore. they live a sheltered existence without any awareness of the reality of state power, and will have a very rude awakening if and when their country of residence decides to stop tolerating their energy-wasting hobbies — or when the power fails