If someone makes an "Uber for hitmen", it will still be illegal in spite someone is using an app to hire them and paying them with their altcoins.
I argue the fact Bitcoin and other coins enables crime.
I'll make it really simple for you: would you hire a hitman with a briefcase full of cash, or you'd do a bank wire with subject "for the murder, thanks"?
Think why we don't use bank wires for this.
Now think why anonymous cash transfers are hard internationally.
Now think what Bitcoin is. It's anonymous cash over the Internet.
It's a huge enabler for illegal activities because it's anonymous and decentralized and happens over Internet.
You can spin it any way you wish, but the fact speak if you're a criminal, Bitcoin is automatically the most attractive way for making transactions to you, aside from person to person cash briefcases.
Law is centralized by nature. Because law has to be enforced in a centralized nature. Decentralization and anonymity means you can't apply the law. "Illegal" means therefore NOTHING to Bitcoin.
We agree that hiring a hitman is illegal, and we agree that it will be easier for the police to solve the crimes if encryption is banned and the police can read all the emails/whastapp/whatever of all the people in the city.
- Encryption doesn't stop law enforcement from having backdoors at key servers, and they do.
- Also we're discussing a financial transaction instrument, which REQUIRES MASS for it to make sense (for it to be valuable for transactions).
- While you can roll your own unique encryption and communication channel and authorities won't know a thing.
So no, situation is completely different with encryption.
It doesn't make even pragmatic sense, for ex. how can Apple index and process your photos, if it just sees them as bunch of binary noise? It can't. So it doesn't.
The general sentiment also applies to cash, and the reality is the authorities want to track your every transaction, which is why every opportunity to diminish cash has and will be taken.