The crypto-unit bitcoin2 holds out the prospect of something revolutionary: money created in the free market, money the production and use of which the state has no access to. The transactions carried out with it are anonymous; outsiders do not know who paid and who received the payment. It would be money that cannot be multiplied at will, whose quantity is finite, that knows no national borders, and that can be used unhindered worldwide. This is possible because the bitcoin is based on a special form of electronic data processing and storage: blockchain technology (a "distributed ledger technology," DLT), which can also be described as a decentralized account book.

Think through the consequences if such a "denationalized" form of money should actually prevail in practice. The state can no longer tax its citizens as before. It lacks information on the labor and capital incomes of citizens and enterprises and their total wealth. The only option left to the state is to tax the assets in the "real world"—such as houses, land, works of art, etc. But this is costly and expensive. It could try to levy a "poll tax": a tax in which everyone pays the same absolute tax amount—regardless of the personal circumstances of the taxpayers, such as income, wealth, ability, to achieve and so on. But would that be practicable? Could it be enforced? This is doubtful.