When “Control” Isn’t About Safety
Earlier today, Anndy Lian posted a simple but loaded question: “Why crypto needs control?”
It’s the kind of question that sits right at the heart of the entire space. How you answer it reveals what you think crypto is actually for, and what you believe it should never be allowed to become.
In the replies, an account named C.M.M.R offered a perspective that comes up often and is reasonable on the surface. The idea was that regulation usually arises not from bad intent, but from systems appearing unstable and causing real harm. That view resonates with many people trying to balance decentralisation with real-world consequences.
I agree with parts of that framing. But I also think it misses something important.
This is where the idea of “code is law” really exposes what is and isn’t tolerated.
If you look closely, systems that genuinely reduce control at the base layer tend to be marginalised, restricted, or framed as dangerous. Systems that appear decentralised or private, but retain governance levers, opt-in controls, or regulated edges, are far more acceptable.
Privacy is a clear example.
Take Zcash. It’s often held up as a privacy coin, but the reality is far more constrained. Privacy is optional, not default. Governance, voting power, and influence are highly concentrated. And crucially, the entire perimeter of the ecosystem is wrapped in KYC. Privacy exists in the middle, but the edges are fully exposed. Entry and exit remain permissioned.
That design choice matters.
It creates a form of privacy that institutions and regulators can live with. Privacy that can be managed, monitored indirectly, and controlled at the choke points. It’s privacy that never truly gets out of hand.
Veritya Thalassa
Now contrast that with chains where privacy is enforced at the base layer. Systems like Monero or PirateChain don’t offer optional privacy. They are private by design. There are no clean edges to regulate without attacking the protocol itself. Unsurprisingly, those systems are the ones consistently framed as illicit, dangerous, or unacceptable.
That contradiction tells you everything.
If the concern were genuinely about safety or misuse, the focus would be on behaviour, not architecture. Instead, what’s being filtered for is controllability. Privacy that can be toggled, governed, or fenced in is tolerated. Privacy that removes oversight entirely is not.
The same logic applies to stablecoins.
Fiat-backed stablecoins are embraced because they are the primary choke point in crypto. They are reversible, censorable, and easy to pressure. They keep the ecosystem tethered to banks, regulators, and political authority.
A decentralised stablecoin backed by crypto and enforced purely by code removes that leverage. There’s no issuing company to lean on, no bank relationship to pressure, and no discretionary mechanism to step in and override the system. Once it’s live, it simply runs according to its rules. That isn’t a technical problem, it’s a control problem.
This pattern shows up in people as well as protocols.
As influence grows, so does proximity to power. Capital concentration, institutional alignment, regulatory friendliness, and “acceptable” narratives tend to follow. What starts as opposition often becomes managed opposition, not necessarily through malice, but through incentives. The closer you get to power, the more your role shifts from challenging the system to shaping outcomes within its boundaries.
None of this requires secret coordination to be true.
It’s how systems preserve themselves.
What’s allowed to flourish is not what is most decentralised, most trustless, or most resilient. It’s what can be absorbed, steered, or shut down if needed.
Veritya Thalassa
So when people say there’s no bad intent, that depends on how intent is defined. If intent means preventing anything from becoming genuinely uncontrollable, the pattern is remarkably consistent.
Crypto isn’t being shaped around freedom at the edges. It’s being shaped around control at the boundaries.
And the closer a system gets to code truly being law, the more pressure appears to make sure it never fully gets there.
~Veritya Thalassa
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