The idea was that it would be immune to nation states playing fiscal games, but the digital currencies seem to be following the stock markets behavior more closely than things like gold, which seems to imply that isn't the case?
Anonymous currencies for purchasing things that are illegal in the jurisdiction of the seller and/or buyer certainly have a value, but more as a service than a currency, so I wouldn't expect to make money sitting on coins. Instead I'd expect the payoff to be for buying them from the illegal sellers to sell to the illegal buyers. Essentially, being a launderer with possibly lower risk and less effort than in the past.
I'm not sure that enabling illegal things is a positive value though. Sure, there might be some things that are banned for dumb reasons (cannabis comes to mind), but if you enable any and all commerce, you end up also enabling stuff like assassinations and child abuse.
Imo a currency that makes those possible has negative value.
Regarding the "fiscal games" by nation states part - in democratic societies those "games" are policy decisions, voted for by the people. I find trying to circumvent the will of the people as expressed in a democratic vote morally questionable, and think that enabling antidemocratic behavior, too, is negative value. (Not to mention that it doesn't work anyways, as you noted).
>Imo a currency that makes those possible has negative value.
'Regular' currency has been used for all sorts of nefarious things since the dawn of currency, including assassinations and child trafficking and such. Nothing about USD/EUR/CAD/etc. inherently makes it impossible to purchase or participate in illegal goods/activities.
I'm not in favor of cryptocurrency, but the argument that cryptocurrency is the thing enables bad things to be bought/sold is a really tired argument and seems to forget all of human history prior to the last 10 years.
If this were true then cryptocurrency would not replace regular currency for drugs, assassinations, and dark market activities generally.
I believe KYC, banking regulations, and traceability all reduce the utility of conventional money for bad things. You can't easily transfer large amounts of money without leaving a trail that investigators may find in the conventional system. Bitcoin solves this!
I was talking about economic or market value, not societal or moral value. While I agree that that enabling child abuse or trafficking in people is a societal negative value, that sadly does not mean there isn't a positive market value for doing so.
When you live in a nation whose bank's decisions don't influence the world economy, you don't get a vote when those nations decide to raise or lower interest rates, or to suppress the value of their currencies, or have trade wars with each other. The idea of insulating yourself from those decisions that you did not vote on is attractive, but it now seems like more traditional assets are likely a better approach.
You can use ordinary USD (or any other fiat currencies) to "enable" stuff like assassinations and child abuse. All anonymous cash allows that to happen. That's why there are regulations and reporting of large cash transactions.
There's nothing special about cryptocurrency there, except that regulators have not regulated KYC/AML enough yet.
There's very little "value" in cryptocurrency, there is some value in the concept of blockchains, with proof-of-stake, replacing titles offices and other regulatory registers. NFTs are essentially that, but don't have any legal or regulatory power behind enforcing the "ownership" that the NFT records.
Anonymous currencies for purchasing things that are illegal in the jurisdiction of the seller and/or buyer certainly have a value, but more as a service than a currency, so I wouldn't expect to make money sitting on coins. Instead I'd expect the payoff to be for buying them from the illegal sellers to sell to the illegal buyers. Essentially, being a launderer with possibly lower risk and less effort than in the past.