downandout

Given that it also has legitimate uses, I think that's a very difficult case to make. Also, with very limited exceptions, nearly all crimes in the US require intent and/or knowing participation. It's a fundamental tenet of our system. There is a reason that they aren't being prosecuted in the US, and those reasons are outlined above. Perhaps Dutch law is different enough to allow a conviction; time will tell.

I'd also point out that Apple's device encryption scheme was specifically designed so that Apple itself cannot unlock devices, which thwarts law enforcement subpoenas for assistance. They can legitimately throw their hands up in the air and say "we have no ability to help you" - and that's by design. It is not illegal to design systems in this way. It just shifts the legal liability for misuse onto the users, where it should be.

I don't know what Dutch law says with regard to intent/knowing participation, but I suspect that any system of laws in a civilized country would generally require it for criminal convictions.

Casinos are used as vehicles for structuring and money laundering every minute of every day - on a much larger scale than anything Tornado Cash could ever have achieved. They don't have the intent to aid in these activities though, which is why they are allowed to operate.

I grew up inland San Diego, and I can tell you that our summer days there routinely topped 100 degrees. I agree that if you are fortunate enough to live very close to the water, you do have some weather advantages over Vegas. For me, it's certainly not enough to warrant putting up with the other, man-made issues in California, even if I had a place right on the beach. But I agree that for some people, the (slightly) nicer weather is worth all of the expense and putting up with the nonsense.

Las Vegas is inordinately hot only 3 months of the year. The rest of the time the weather is relatively mild. That's hardly "actively trying to kill you during most of the year". Many people who visit Las Vegas only do so during the summer, so it seems like it's hot most of the time to them, but this is a myth.

Having grown up in San Diego and currently living in Las Vegas, I'm not sure what special advantages you are implying it has that would enable it to be "advantageous to ordinary economic conduct" vs Las Vegas. It's next to an ocean full of water that you cannot drink (without expensive water treatment). Produce is grown in California (with water that it deprives Las Vegas of), but mostly not near San Diego, so it has to be transported in to support its massive population, just like it has to be to Las Vegas. In fact, the agricultural centers of California are approximately equidistant to both San Diego and Las Vegas, perhaps +/- 100 miles.

Even putting aside the other issues with California - overpopulation, insane politics, high crime rates, absurdly high state income tax, high cost of living, etc. - I don't see any serious advantage that Southern California in general has over Las Vegas, unless you just like the beach (and even then...it's a 3.5 hour drive or 30 minute flight to Southern California). In fact, many Californians are starting to realize this, and are invading us.

You seem to be asking me to defend the merits of crypto, which is beyond the scope of this conversation. But generally speaking, most of the coins people actually buy are tied to protocols that are attempting to do things that interesting to at least some part of the population.

But, the ability to prove the provenance and ownership of any asset, whether physical or digital, has value. The ability to move value across borders instantly, cheaply, and reliably, has value.

In a world where so much has been made of fake news, imagine if you could know with absolute certainty that a given quote you read from someone in an article is authentic and given to the specific outlet you are reading it at, not taken from somewhere else, perhaps out of context. Imagine if Google integrated such information/quote verification into its search results, and could use it to prioritize sites with real quotes or information. SERPs wouldn’t be full of trash, and small sites that manage to scoop large ones could get instant #1 rankings. Authenticity verification has value.

The possibilities are endless.

I agree with you that throwing money at anyone who tells you they can take an unlimited investment and offer compounding returns on it is a recipe for disaster. But in DeFi, intelligence and strategy translate directly to greater yield. Math has proven time and again that those things matter very little in traditional markets.