this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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I wouldn't say that it's harder to counterfeit so much as that the methodology is radically different due to the untrusted, peer to peer nature of crypto. Because of the way that that works, in order to fake a transaction you need to convince the majority of ledgers that the transaction occurred (even if the wallet that is buying something doesn't have anything in it). Because the ledger is ultimately decided by majority vote. You can trace the transaction, but wallets are often anonymous, so the trail ends at the wallet. Especially since somebody would use a burner wallet to do such a thing. It's basically buying something with a hotel keycard with a stolen RFID on it.

I think governments don't want anything to do with it because its nature causes it to be too unstable in its value. It would be like tying the value of your country's currency to the value of day trade stocks. One day, your money is worthless; a week later, it's skyrocketing in value.

At the end of the day, currencies are a system of abstraction to simplify the process of trade - whether between people or countries. We agree that the magic paper is worth the same amount because it's easier than arguing that the magic rock that gave your wife cancer is worth at least 2 goats, not one. It's always going to be a flawed system in some way. Crypto's flaws just make it an ideal system for black market dealings compared to traditional fiat currency in its current setup, on top of the energy and computing costs.