You're right that the city can sue the coder, though the odds of success are greatly reduced relative to suing a company that runs a ridesharing service on its own servers, given the coder is not running a server, but they can't sue to have the Dapp taken down. And if the municipalities get too aggressive, the coders can go anonymous.
>>The point where actual money is converted is similarly exposed, and attempts at obfuscation run into existing money laundering laws.
This is vastly more difficult than a court order to freeze a bank account. Maybe in the future it will get easier, but maybe not. As it is, a Dapp has far betters odds of both surviving censorship and profiting its maker in the face of municipal opposition than a centrally managed server.
>>Finally, a blockchain protocol which cannot comply with legal requirements can be banned entirely
Censoring a blockchain is much harder to do than sue a company in Silicon Valley to stop operating their service in a city.
It's something not even within the legal powers of municipalities, so right there the blockchain is far harder to stop than a traditional company.
I doubt the US wants to become a country that prosecutes people for running software, or imposes a national internet firewall. Countries will have to choose between having an open internet and having the power to restrict commerce. Hopefully most will choose the former.
>>since they require public access, non-trivial data volumes, and regular updates blockchains are less resistant to filtering attempts.
No, it requires much more than what you imply to ban a blockchain. Users can use lightweight verification, which needs very little data, and rely on full nodes outside of the country. A government would have to ban TOR and VPS, and really any encrypted communication into/out-of the country to have any hope of stopping the blockchain.
>>The point where actual money is converted is similarly exposed, and attempts at obfuscation run into existing money laundering laws.
This is vastly more difficult than a court order to freeze a bank account. Maybe in the future it will get easier, but maybe not. As it is, a Dapp has far betters odds of both surviving censorship and profiting its maker in the face of municipal opposition than a centrally managed server.
>>Finally, a blockchain protocol which cannot comply with legal requirements can be banned entirely
Censoring a blockchain is much harder to do than sue a company in Silicon Valley to stop operating their service in a city.
It's something not even within the legal powers of municipalities, so right there the blockchain is far harder to stop than a traditional company.
I doubt the US wants to become a country that prosecutes people for running software, or imposes a national internet firewall. Countries will have to choose between having an open internet and having the power to restrict commerce. Hopefully most will choose the former.
>>since they require public access, non-trivial data volumes, and regular updates blockchains are less resistant to filtering attempts.
No, it requires much more than what you imply to ban a blockchain. Users can use lightweight verification, which needs very little data, and rely on full nodes outside of the country. A government would have to ban TOR and VPS, and really any encrypted communication into/out-of the country to have any hope of stopping the blockchain.