Original Title: The contradictory anti-crypto argument: "Nobody is gonna use crypto because it's useless and doesn't work....but at the same time it's great for criminals because it's cheap and easy for them to transfer money around the world without a bank or anything blocking their transactions".
I never understood these anti-crypto narratives, and they seem just as contradictory, as they seem a little out of touch.
They say it's too expensive, too hard, and to slow to use for transactions.
Yet, here I was last week ordering another batch of porn online, and in just 4 clicks using my XLM that went through in about a second, with a $0.00005 fee. And they gave me a little discount for not using a credit card, which was more money back than a credit card's cashback.
There's many cryptos that do cheap and fast transactions now. I think SOL still being the fastest, and NANO being completely free.
And then, in the next sentence they'll tell you it's a currency that criminals love to use.
They'll say it's too easy for criminals to use crypto now, it doesn't cost them much, and they can quickly get a drug deal executed, or transfer money around the world without having any bank or government in between that can stop the transaction.
And the person on the other side can be sure they got paid with the money in their hands, because it's a direct P2P payment, without any switcheroo, block, or reversed transaction.
And they would be right about that.
But while criminals can easily move money without that money being stopped, if they use a chain like Bitcoin, it can still somewhat be tracked. Especially if they're not smart about it.
It's still a transparent ledger, so while they can't stop the transaction, and the person on the other side will definitely get their money, the government can see it (if they know what to look for in the first place), and potentially track it if there is some sort of known in the equation.
Conclusion:
Yes, crypto has become increasingly easier to use, has been getting cheaper and faster, that it's become a nice tool for everyone, including criminals, to transfer money around the world in a more direct and more pseudo-anonymous way, without any bank or institution in between.
But many of these chains are still transparent, so criminals aren't gonna be immune from being tracked by governments that have enough advanced tools and can subpoena exchanges and businesses to divulge the key information to figure out what transaction might belong to them.
It can still be somewhat useful to criminals in some cases, and makes their transaction direct and untouchable, but doesn't always make the criminals themselves untouchable or untraceable.
