US prosecutors move to cash in on $8.5M in seized Bitcoin

For illegal drugs, the government is a negative influence because of their propensity to cause massive actual harm to supposedly "correct" small problems (e.g. an addict's third strike resulting in forcing them into a life of crime).

For legal drugs, the government is enforcing the pricing power, and even the price differentiating power (same exact product, different pricing in US vs CA or EU or India, or ...), of the pharma industry, even in cases where it's ludicrous (which is mostly the US being 10x as expensive as somewhere else).

Funny how the government is always in favor of globalism, except where it would actually benefit the lower and middle classes. Having the ability to ship medicine across borders ... there is no more clear-cut case of globalism helping people. Yet the government is fighting hard to make it impossible in that case.

In the case where it's destroying the middle and lower classes, steel imports for example, or subsidized solar panels, the government is fighting to make it continue, and protecting foreign companies and people from the consequences of their cheating (e.g. government intervention preventing Chinese firms from getting sued for fraud after falsifying steel products, essentially selling low grade steel as high grade steel, even in cases where it compromises personal safety. Apparently now the same thing is happening with Japanese firms).

Though apparently no one is using it if you listen to the internet.

There's a massive dichotomy between the cryptographically provable transactions and commentary. Someone is obviously using bitcoin. It's at max capacity.

If a government were to really try to shut it down, there would be an immediate drop in crypto-currency value, but if the government was ultimately unsuccessful, the value would rocket up to even higher levels.

Every bitcoin "investor"/gambler makes these tradoffs.

In goes tainted coins, out comes cleam coins