Technology

That’s not how money works. Fiat currency is just IOU’s, literally, which are discharged when the promissory note returns to its originator (in the case of dollars, the US treasury). Check out Debt the First 5000 Years for an anthropological look at the origins of money.

Whereas I would prefer to live in a moneyless (i.e., debtless) post-scarcity anarchist society, which is how small tribes and communities were organized for tens of thousands of years before the rise of nations, fiat currencies are used to maintain the modern (unimaginably huge) marketplace, whose ostensible purpose is to allocate scarce resources.

1. Personal debt is risky. If I issue an IOU, I might die before I can fulfill that promise. Governments are more permanent, which removes the speculative aspect of currency (at least for most purposes, though Forex trading is a thing).
2. A central bank can balance inflation and employment numbers to ameliorate the natural volatility of the market (with good regulation lol).
3. Fiat currency can be synchronized with economic productivity, avoiding the deflationary pressure that is anathema to any currency.

Dollars represent faith in the power of the US government to extract taxes from its population. Crypto represents nothing. It stands for nothing. “Coins” come and go, and if you’re the last one standing in the zero-sum game of musical chairs, you lose your savings. For that to happen with dollars, the US government would have to implode, which is unlikely.

Crypto is, quite possibly, the purest form of speculative trading (gambling) we have ever concocted. The only reason I don’t think it should be illegal is that I have no interest in saving people from their own cupidity and greed.