Prosecutors are stretching the definition of money laundering in their fight against the future.

On Monday, July 14th, the criminal trial of Roman Storm begins in the Southern District of New York courthouse in lower Manhattan. He is charged, broadly speaking, with making a cryptocurrency network behave more like the dollars printed by the U.S. Treasury, an act for which he faces the possibility of more than 40 years in prison. Which is just one particularly malicious sign that if paper money were invented in 2025, America would outlaw it.

Though issued and overseen by the U.S. central bank, these pieces of paper have almost none of the surveillance and oversight features we’ve come to expect (or just accept) from modern payment and savings tools. You don’t have to give anyone your name, address, or income to hold paper currency, in whatever amount you can get your hands on. The government that issues and backs it has no ability to restrict what you spend those dollars on, or to remotely freeze or seize it if they decide you’re not worthy. Worst of all, when it passes between the hands of a buyer and seller, paper money leaves no record at all – no identities, no amounts.

...read more at therage.co