It seems to me that the average person wants anonymity for their own payments because they are not crooks. On the other hand, the average person (not to mention the average policeman) doesn’t want anonymity for other people’s payments in case they are terrorists, lobbyists or fraudsters. This is what I think of as the ‘payments privacy paradox’, and cryptocurrency brings it into sharp relief.

The Bank of England’s fintech director, Tom Mutton, said in a speech that privacy was “a non-negotiable