The difference with cash is that the criminal (or an accomplice) has to physically pick it up, drastically increasing the risk of getting identified and/or caught. Even if they send an unwitting person, there will be a witness and evidence.
The idea that an email asking for a blockchain currency is somehow more difficult than a dead drop of physical currency is absurd. While there are some merits, this type of value exchange is a dangerous vehicle for facilitating human exploitation. We need to start talking about that fact more, instead of the fever dreams that those of us in the free world somehow live in some faux-totalitarian state, simply because you can't legally purchase MDMA or cocaine.
you kind of proved my point. kidnappers already use cash, and changing that to different mechanism isn't going to increase or decrease the amount of crime. You haven't explained any reason why digital anonymous currency will increase crime or make it harder to catch them.
Evil people use neutral tools for evil purposes. They have been since the beginning of tools.
So stop trying to slow the advance of technology just because some evil people can use it too.
I'm not against blockchain technology. I'm against creating a systematically anonymous blockchain. Identity and reputation in value exchanges matter in society, both legally and philosophically.
Monero seems much better suited as a weapon against real totalitarian regimes. If it is illegal in both a free and unfree society, then it will only have a practical purpose in the unfree society, whereas the free society will have plentiful alternatives.
If I have $10k in the bank and I want to turn it into cash, were do I get it without having the bills pass through a machine that scans their serial numbers?
And if you receive that $10k in cash, how do you deposit it without the same risk?
Monero is light years easier for law enforcement to find kidnappers (exchanges, honeypots, network access) than cold hard cash.
Was there a plague of kidnappers when the world used 'absurdly dangerous means of value exchange' like paper currency and gold?
edit: my reply was before you edited to discuss physical currency. $1M in $100 bills is 22lbs. Hardly a deterrent.