Taler is just a counterexample to "anonymous or pseudonymous online transactions" inherently requiring a blockchain; the userbase is not relevant for this. I could also question the actual userbase of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies when so much of the transaction volume seems to be rooted in speculation and scams rather than someone buying groceries in BTC.
> You haven’t mentioned any drawbacks [to full decentralization and censorship resistance]?
I don't think the specifics matter so much, it suffices to say that there are some. These properties make it easier to launder money and evade taxes, for example.
The userbase size and transaction volume are both directly relevant to any particular signal being able or unable to be disambiguated from the others. This seems to cut across your point.
> I could also question the actual userbase of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies when so much of the transaction volume seems to be rooted in speculation and scams rather than someone buying groceries in BTC.
This is immaterial in the context of the debate we’re having about anonymous or pseudonymous transactions being good for those that use them.
I wouldn’t expect those who don’t use products or services to somehow confer the benefit of using or having them. That doesn’t make any sense. So obviously the users of cryptocurrencies receive the utility of cryptocurrencies’ existence and functionality.
> I don't think the specifics matter so much, it suffices to say that there are some. These properties make it easier to launder money and evade taxes, for example.
Bad acts don’t make inert implements bad by proxy or association. Folks do bad things to each other and to the environment directly and through externalities. That’s what hypercapitalism, society, geopolitics, resource extraction, and hypernormalisation have wrought.
You can’t lay the costs of doing business at the feet of cryptocurrencies. Crypto didn’t start the fire of capitalism. It’s sharing the fire with the commons, and combining that light and heat to feed the new cryptoculture.
Not sure how we're talking past each other re Taler. You answered the request for "great ideas" related to blockchain with a wikipedia article, which I pointed out is actually unrelated to blockchain tech. We followed with other technical properties, but I pointed out that the ones that might be unique to blockchain tech may not be so desirable. Maybe you're talking about something non-technical, but then I was not and am not following.
> This is immaterial in the context of the debate we’re having about anonymous or pseudonymous transactions being good for those that use them.
There are technologies that allow this without bringing a whole can of worms along, so it's hard to see the drawbacks of blockchain tech as a necessary evil.
> You can’t lay the costs of doing business at the feet of cryptocurrencies.
I can definitely point out where we stand in terms of trade-offs, and 10 years in, the burden is still on blockchain tech to prove it's a net benefit once its drawbacks have been considered.
> You haven’t mentioned any drawbacks [to full decentralization and censorship resistance]?
I don't think the specifics matter so much, it suffices to say that there are some. These properties make it easier to launder money and evade taxes, for example.