Snip

crypto can’t really be a true currency replacement

Its been increasingly popular among the unbanked, as it grants a lot of the functions of the modern financial system at a marginally lower cost than check cashing companies and payday lenders without requiring the participant to be considered “credit worthy” by the transacting institution.

You can have a digital wallet and make digital transactions and you don’t need to carry a giant wade of cash on you all the time, even if a traditional financial institution wouldn’t touch you. That’s a boon for crooks, sure. Its also a boon for people working in the gray market - migrant laborers sending money home to family, state-legal pot/mushroom dealers who don’t have federal sanction and can’t use normal banks, gig workers and other contractors, international workers and businesses needing a universal currency to trade against. And its a boon for the working poor, particularly folks who don’t have a physical bank nearby.

Because the currency has material benefits for the unbanked (and therefore legally vulnerable) population, it becomes a popular place to ply scams and grifts and other dirty financial tricks precisely because you know the people you’re fleecing will have no legal recourse after the fact. But that’s the parasitic nature of second class citizenship.

You’re not vulnerable because you’re using crypto nearly so much as you’re vulnerable because you’re denied access to traditional banks and courts.