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What is really happening? I'm genuinely interested in your answer to this seemingly simple question.

People are trading assets (ie., resources with market value). That's all that matters here. The form of those assets is irrelevant to the government.

Even if that form is speech?

Yes. People who try to get clever usually find that the courts don't have much patience for those games.

I'm not saying I would try it in court; I'm simply saying the argument could be made that bitcoin is actually the first form of money that is pure speech. Thanks for indulging me though.

Well, we were talking about the government and its regulations.

On a philosophical take, I'd say that informal "favor currencies" that people in small places use are an earlier form of money as speech, though admittedly, it's a less precise form of money.

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