Maybe after the mobster losers in the white House finally get kicked out we can just ban this thing forever. How can we abide this crypto stuff?

“Insurance”

Bitcoin does make the transaction publicly traceable. Either they have not realised that, seems unlikely, or they prefer it that way.

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so)

The baffling part of this is that nearly everyone was aware that Iran could close the straight if pressed hard enough. The fact that this outcome is surprising represents a very loud and public failure on the administration's part.

I guess I'm just surprised they even bother trying to mask an obvious shake down under the euphemism "insurance" when it's such a trope. Obligatory Sopranos clip of old school mobsters trying to sell "protective insurance" to a Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA

Iran could easily have garnered a lot of international sympathy and support. Instead, they attacked their neighbors, impacted the world economy, and now are basically asking for blackmail money: "nice ship you have there...".

Maybe Trump should bomb them some more?

More of a "Bitcoin-Backed Protection Racket", presumably?

There's no insurance scheme the IRGC can concoct that protects against the US navy hitting your rudder with a 20mm gun.

I had fairly deep knowledge about the bitcoin code base 7 years ago and I got a weird vibe from it as I've seen government code before. When I learned that Tor was funded by the Navy something clicked. Just as it makes sense to have a large onion network to allow spies abroad to surf the web anonymously, it would make sense to also have a currency you can use to fund agents or groups abroad that lived outside the banking system. Bitcoin makes sense for that purpose. If you have a large border-less digital currency with many people on it, even if it is traceable, it's still less risky then using cash which you would have to launder.

The fact that many states are now using it for funding purposes to get around the banking system further adds proof to bitcoin's potential origin.

Also, it doesn't help that Satoshi Nakamoto means basically central intelligence in Japanese...