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I think we've hit the crux; you just don't care about the money laundering problem that 95% of the rest of the population cares about a lot. I don't think there's anything more to say here other than, "Just try to convince enough voters to repeal anti-ML laws and see if you're smarter than all of history."
If it's an empirical question, please provide some empirical data. Or at least a made-up estimate. What percentage of ransomware payment flows do you think is crypto vs. non-crypto?
Proof? I'm going to bet that a frighteningly large portion of the population doesn't even know what the literal phrase "money laundering" means at all. In any case as a someone who is not a (small d) democrat this means very little to me.
I have no idea but the answer is mostly irrelevant. If I pointed out that 95% of people currently use highway A over highway B, that still wouldn't be a justification to say that 95% of highway travel would disappear without highway A; the hypothetical carrying capacity of highway B (including any expansions that might inevitably be made to it in a world without highway A) in that case is the real determinant, not what it carries now versus highway A.
I think without crypto you probably wouldn't see big money heists targeting governments and corporations as you mentioned, but then again these are all entities that deserve the most to be targeted and I would much rather see WokeCorp lose 500 billion over a week due to a targeted ransomware attack than any granny lose her family's baby photos. So I guess crypto existing proves itself to be a good thing again.
The obscene quantities of hard and soft geopolitical power spent to build international coalitions to rein in the problem. Whether or not you're a small d democrat, this effort has been led by small d democratic nations, because the vast majority of those populations oppose corruption, criminal activities, and money laundering. So I guess you have two options: 1) Convince enough folks to just knock it off with the whole anti-ML thing, or 2) Build the power of your authoritarian country enough that you can flaunt the international anti-ML order. No wiz-bang required.
We've pretty much known the carrying capacity of gift cards, prepaid cards, etc., because these things have been used in money laundering efforts for decades. That large international coalition I mentioned went to a lot of work to massively restrict the carrying capacity of these methods. Let's put a number estimate on it again. Suppose all of crypto died tomorrow. By what factor do you think these other methods would increase in scope? 2X? 10X?
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The boo in this section makes a bit of my soul die, despite how much as tales of corporate malfeasance disgust me, and despite how much megacorps believe they should oppose me in the Culture War.
Feeding criminal enterprises gives them resources to commit more crimes. Crime does pay like drugs do make you feel good.
Then target the actual crime instead of targeting privacy, freedom, etc. (all of which are superior to and more valuable than all existing crime fighting efforts in the world) because you think they may help facilitate some ancillary incidental crime to what you're actually worried about.
These are no purely digital criminal entities hiding in Tornado Cash or any other privacy-enhancing technology like fugitives. They are merely tools. If you disagree with what the tools are being used for, then find the people using the tools for those purposes and attack them directly. Lazy police work is not an excuse for the constant erosion of personal freedom via the incessant targeting of conduct more and more remote from what was actually criminalized by reasonable median concern in the first place.
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