The Dude has been thinking about what else to write on—so many topics, but so little time. Some idle musings. One thing he’s found interesting lately is the cryptocurrency space—not the wild-eyed libertarian “Kill the banks! Kill the government” stuff. That’s not his jam. In fact, he is actively and aggressively opposed to that point of view, as it’s largely designed to be a self-serving, get-rich, “I got mine, screw you and yours” mentality, with a healthy dose of FOMO and intentionally obtuse “in-group” language thrown in to pull others into the Ponzi scheme without sociopathic tendencies. Are folks making tons of money? Sure. Some are. Is it an economic bubble that will leave a bunch of innocents holding the bag? Absolutely. Are most of the 10,000+ existing cryptocurrencies more speculative commodities than actual currencies? Abso-FREAKING-lutely. Caveat emptor and all that.

But some of the basic concepts of implementing a system of digital money that is easier for average folks to use and could be common across multiple countries is pretty cool—something like a dollar in its “reserve currency” sense. Of course, being in control of a reserve currency is a big deal economically and politically, which is also why many current crypto coins are both reprehensible (who wants to enable more tech bro douchebags?) and unrealistic because they refuse to recognize the world as it is and the need for incremental, responsible financial system change.

As Mao famously said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” and governments—collections of people largely divided along geographic lines—are absolutely the holders of those guns (unless you’re one of those Americans who think everyone should have a rocket launcher at home for “self-defense”). Economics (resources) are what wars are fought over—nothing motivates someone to impose their will on another more than the recognition that if they don’t, they and theirs won’t be eating. The Dude doesn’t think something like science fiction’s ubiquitous “credit” is anywhere near happening—or if it does, it’s currently the US dollar.

Which brings us to the point—a successful digital currency will interface with, and largely be agnostic to, existing sociopolitical structures. It will enable taxation. In itself, it won’t favor one government over another. It will support regulation aligned with existing world banking rules (such as they are) to minimize fraud, terrorism, or other activities governments want stopped. Anything that doesn’t meet these simple goals will be an edge case, and/or stomped on once it becomes noticeable to those in power so it can meet those requirements.

So-called “privacy coins,” for example, aim to conceal the origin and destination of transactions (or even account balances in some cases). This makes them very attractive to money launderers but also useful to those living under authoritarian regimes or trying to avoid paying taxes. To be clear, Bitcoin is NOT a privacy coin. There are technical means available for the average person to follow transactions in great detail. Privacy coins are examples of some of the ten thousand other cryptocurrencies that have arisen in the last decade.

Privacy coins have already been outlawed in many countries for these reasons—they often violate international AML (anti-money laundering) laws. The US, being more open to experimentation, is taking the approach of developing tools to remove privacy rather than outlawing them outright, echoing the Clipper Chip controversies of the late ’90s. The premise is that sure, you can keep your transactions and balance secret from the general public, but not from law enforcement, intelligence agencies, or tax authorities of sufficiently powerful governments (assuming breaking the privacy veil requires significant, expensive resources). This stance is interesting because it forces supporters to show their hand—are they honestly trying to evade Uncle Sam? The IRS viewing cryptocurrencies as taxable, despite tech bro protests, is another example of this healthy friction. It forces extreme positions to recognize that their fairy tale stories aren’t reality, and there are more variables at play than they can control—their “libertarian utopia” (aka Ayn Rand’s dystopian hell as explained in this article) is not necessarily in the cards, even if some of the technologies they’ve developed are leveraged (or co-opted) by the general population.

In any case, The Dude encourages you to keep an eye on this space because a lot of effort is being expended there, which means something interesting is coming. What exactly it is remains hard to see—if you want to participate or contribute, go ahead. If you’re simply looking to get rich, just keep your head on straight.