> Other user might get a choice to whether they want to participate, and you might not like that
Well, you can hardly ask the corrupt official whether he wants his payments to be traceable, or the fraudster whether he wants his assets to be seizable. Like any other law which does not impede a human right, these things are decided through democratic processes, and applied to everyone.
We also can't ask the corrupt official whether he wants his communication to be traceable and seizable, yet cryptography enables him.
There were very smart people trying to limit the use cryptography in the 1990s and they failed, and recently there were governments trying to sabotage the development of cryptographic standards, and they also failed, probably because they know what happens when individuals can communicate securely.
The cat is out of the bag. Bitcoin is just another application of cryptography.
> We also can't ask the corrupt official whether he wants his communication to be traceable and seizable, yet cryptography enables him.
I take the point, but communications privacy is much more of a cultural norm than an individual choosing whether or not to pay tax. We could live in a world of communications privacy far more easily than a world without government.
Also, from a technical point of view, communications are pure data (with an origin and a destination), a currency is much, much more. The ability to hide data is not enough to make a currency functional.
People having more power over their wealth does not necessarily mean the end of government. It increases the incentive for government to convince people to pay voluntarily.
I also agree that cryptography alone is not enough to eliminate the distinction between data and currency, but the consensus mechanism of Bitcoin could have been the missing piece of the puzzle.
Well, you can hardly ask the corrupt official whether he wants his payments to be traceable, or the fraudster whether he wants his assets to be seizable. Like any other law which does not impede a human right, these things are decided through democratic processes, and applied to everyone.