I agree. There's nothing preventing the argument that it has become even more so as we move to a cashless society. LN has a much more legitimate use case. 

Exactly. If cash didn't exist until now and somebody would propose introducing it, the proposal would be brutally shot down on ML grounds.

This reminds me of a second amendment discussion-guns don't kill, people do. 
Just because a network can be used illegally doesn't make it a money laundering network. Every time the US mint produces a dollar bill, are they engaging in money laundering through their physical dollar network? 



siggy47

bitcoin

The Network Access Exception To The Money Transmitter Rule

OK, that's a different question but I'll try to answer it as well.

Despite its name money laundering covers not just money but any valuable. A better name would be value laundering. If ML charges could be avoided by shifting value into, say, gold, then somebody would make a gold payment network a long time ago.