GP added the "by the justice system" where OP only said "can be taken away". Both digital and fiat currency can be taken away from you through courts, legislation, trickery, or coercion.

Crypto is surrounded by vast amounts of misinformation, misdirection, or misunderstanding. So you get these myths and generalization propagated through lack of education. "I heard crypto is completely anonymous", "I heard crypto can't be taken away from you". Then someone gets tricked out of their crypto, or uses BTC to commit some crime and gets a quick reality check.

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mothballed 6 hours ago | parent [-]

If you toss a bag of cash in a hole buried under a grave in Timbuktu, or toss a bitcoin seed phrase in there. Cover it up, leave Timbuktu back to your western country. Then vow to die before giving up the location (you can claim torture or whatever works, but many people in history have decided to be tortured to death without giving up the information). You can be essentially 100% assured it will never be taken. Possible with both fiat and crypto, though you'll be digging a bigger hole to bury an upward amount of dollars, yet crypto is infinitely scalable with the same size hole.

From a black and white viewpoint the possibilities are the same but the practicality is a bit different (then realize with crypto the hole might only exist in your mind). Maybe the government has control over your body but there is some victory in not letting them have your assets even if they take your life and without having to destroy the underlying value.

Personally I think a cleaner distinction is bearer assets vs titled assets. Both can be taken but bearer assets can be made impractically difficult to seize, especially against the masses at once, whereas titled assets (like bank accounts and deeds) can be taken by the government trivially (ex: in US, IRS can freeze without even a warrant) and at mass scale quickly.

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leoedin 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you're being detained for the rest of your life while your money languishes in a hole in Timbuktu, it has been taken from you. Money is only valuable because it has utility. If you can't use it, it's not yours.

	▲	mothballed 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Then you've already yielded the difference in practicality. Executing or detaining a person for life is less practical for the government to do in western countries (and even most shitholes, as ungovernable militia back regions would resist such violence) than seizing your titled or banked assets. The mere fact you've delayed the use of money doesn't mean the value is gone. I can't do dick with my money until I've at least logged into amazon or driven to the local walmart, yet it's value remains, of course the longer I have to wait to spend it the worse it is. The time value of money means its less valuable to me if I'm locked up for decades before I can get it, but even in jail indefinitely I could secretly reveal it to a friend who could share the money to get some nice ramen packets or cigarettes.

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close04 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> You can be essentially 100% assured it will never be taken.

If we take the creative approach, then according to the equivalence of inertial reference frames in the principle of relativity, taking you away from the money is exactly the same as taking the money away from you. Taking the money from you don't imply someone else must have it, just that you don't. Someone could take your HW crypto wallet even if they can't access the money, happens a lot with wallets confiscated by the government.

But ok, the original goalposts were set at the difference between stablecoins and fiat with regards to how easily they can be taken away from you. There is no difference for all practical purposes in any non-hyperbolic situation.

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mothballed 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>If we take the creative approach, then according to the equivalence of inertial reference frames in the principle of relativity, taking you away from the money is exactly the same as taking the money away from you. Taking the money from you don't imply someone else must have it, just that you don't. Someone could take your HW crypto wallet even if they can't access the money, happens a lot with wallets confiscated by the government.

It's not the same. That's why governments and the FATF at great cost and effort spent decades snuffing out anonymous bank accounts and bearer assets, they didn't do it for the lolz. If you take the person away from the money then any surviving persons can escape and reclaim the money. The person in jail can utter the code/location to a comrade, maybe even before they go to jail. In a western country, the person might even be released from contempt after a time (decades+ contempt sentences are so rare they make headlines) and if criminally charged they will often be out on bond where they can utter the location/codes to others. It's a completely different animal than the government seizing the actual asset and putting it in its vault guarded by armies of police or military as non-human seizure.

>There is no difference for all practical purposes

Only if you ignore the practical differences.

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close04 an hour ago | parent [-]

> Only if you ignore the practical differences.

You'd think that it would be easier to just name a few but here we are discussing burying a bitcoin seed under a grave in Timbuktu.

	▲	mothballed an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I used that because it was charitable to the fiat argument because you could put both the fiat and crypto into the hidden hole in a way that would make seizing fiat money as difficult as seizing the crypto. If you don't like that, you can simply memorize a seed phrase in your head, it will accomplish essentially the same thing in a far more practical and more commonly practiced manner. If you insist on the realistic case it's far more charitable to crypto than fiat but I stretched it to be kind to your argument -- clearly a mistake since you only took it as an opportunity for hostility.