""" While we're at it, maybe those same people can defend the Internet, right? Clearly, this experiment in anyone in the world being able to nigh unto anonymously communicate with anyone else was a mistake... at best, every packet should be tracked back to some regulated endpoint that can be tracked in the real world.

The Internet, after all, makes the dark web--and its myriad crimes, including ransomware, drug trafficking, and illegal porn--possible: without the former, the latter cannot thrive. The defenses we usually hear come in the form "prior telephone and postal systems facilitated bad stuff, too," which is a fact, but one that doesn't absolute the Internet, either. :/ """

^ What you sound like to me.

Like, I honestly just don't understand your point: these currencies (minus Bitcoin, due to proof of work being a bit ridiculous) seem like a very useful tool that you couldn't really ban anyway without taking ridiculously draconian measures (a la China and the open Internet, which is only barely working for them anyway) as--and this is kind of the whole point--there isn't any central actor running or maintaining it.