— Hello! Joseph speaking.
— Hey, Joseph! Sarah calling. You know… would you mind if I ask you to stop coming by our house? ’Cause last night, after you left, some silverware has just disappeared.
— Huh?????
— No,no,no… I mean we found it later… but the unpleasant aftertaste and the feeling of resentment are still here.
This old joke comes to my mind whenever I hear the “bitcoin is for criminals” allusion. The inference grew stronger after the recent BTC attack by BCH promoters. I’m alright, but my institutional investment fellows got it all wrong and started the almost forgotten grumbling “We can’t deal with it, it’s shady”, all over again. God only knows how tired I am.
The [costly] misinterpretation is caused, in part, by pro-BTC folks themselves, who have brought the c-word up to the surface, when they kept intentionally posting content on certain related topics. In rehashing it so much, they essentially promoted those three trivial pump-and-dump rascals to the status of international criminals. Ok, they pumped the coin but… come on! The main guy was just selling fireworks on eBay and others did similar stupid, insignificant, and uncreative stuff, but years ago! If they go to jail, honestly? They’re done. Why would anyone try to make heroes out of those dipshits, hah?
So, let me try to clear up the confusion around Bitcoin. Read on to learn about three reasons why BTC is neither meant for nor any good for criminals and, moreover, why it is actually really an anti-criminal thing.
People (criminals being among the general population) are like vehicles and electric engines (that some vehicles might use) are like bitcoins.
1.
The biggest vehicles with the worst footprint on our roads are road trains. They DO NOT use electric engines. It is broadly discussed. Development is ongoing to move towards electric engines, but it probably won’t happen until two-three years from now. At that point in time, it will REALLY change the whole landscape — unlike Tesla cars and other EVs that have been around for years and their influence is really still insignificant.
The biggest criminals on our planet are oil and other natural resource selling dictatorships that pretend to look like nation states, when in reality they are pure old-school mafias. They haven’t reached the happy realization that Bitcoin could save them from panamagates quite yet. There is NO such money in the Bitcoin network yet, or we’d know. But they ARE thinking about it, which we know. Once their money enters the market, everything will change. So, at that point, we can talk again. Maybe you WILL want to join in on the Bitcoin bandwagon, even if you consider it criminal.
2.
The meanest, ugliest vehicles on our roads are pickup trucks and other nasty four-wheel drives. They do not use electric engines and they aren’t even having any plans to use them — at least for now. Why? Cultural reasons, I’d say.
“Normal”, mean, ugly criminals — you know, the ones who steal stuff, rob people, etc — live in a certain ethnomethodological tradition which creates a common worldview of the community: the cultural unity of its members. Bitcoin itself is an ideology-charged phenomenon which just doesn’t fit into the criminal tradition, at least for now. It’s a big topic! If you’re interested (and not a criminal yourself), check out ethnomethodology works by Collins, Arendt or Wieder and compare those worlds to what you know about Bitcoin. I’m sure you won’t find much resemblance.
For ordinary criminals, Bitcoin simply isn’t convenient. It is traceable and inconveniently unusual to handle. Most criminals are not very sophisticated or eager to learn new things, you know.
3.
Consider the opposite perspective — the vehicles that use electric engines the most are not really vehicles; they’re scooters.
And “criminals” who use bitcoins (the payments side of them) the most are not really criminals — they are just pot smokers. It is not their fault governments are engaged in pointless, expensive drug wars. Just saying it like it is.