Why doesn't the US and other governments ban Bitcoin?
FWIW, I wouldn't put it past the US govt to ban cryptocurrencies. It just would be extremely hypocritical. Something the US is pretty familiar with.
[1]: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/07/15/vladimir-putin-ba...
[2]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/09/24/china-s-makes-all-c...
Nope. They either don't care or actually like it.
Also, "banning" things in America is close to impossible due to the populace intense distrust of the government. You can't even ban AR-15s, imagine thinking its possible to ban a piece of software running on a raspberry-pi.
Things are banned all the time in the US, including pieces of software. See Tornado Cash for an extremely recent example.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...
You can then use a lawful nft sale on opensea to your “dirty” wallet to make the money look legitimate. With your defense being you merely sold the nft. You don’t know who the buyer is.
So perhaps it is time to accept and admit that some cryptocurrencies are here to stay and reject the delusion that is repeated here that all of them are going to be totally banned 100% entirely.
And since there is no physical product or evidence it's actually much easier, my friend from Amsterdam will have a lot of trouble bringing me weed, he will have zero difficulty sending $100 worth of BTC to an address I give him.
The idea that you can just ban things and they will go away should have died with alcohol prohibitions. I guess at least no one will get killed in a war on crypto...
And even if it doesn't, your friendly local drug dealer, who may already be trading crypto to purchase product, will presumably offer exchange services. No one needs an exchange they can just charge a spread between people wanting to buy and those wanting to sell. That's how money change already works after all...
And you're right about Monero!
US has tried the ban hammer both for alcohol and then for drugs, how has that worked out for them?
That would just create a massive underground black market, this time even more pernicious because it's international, with state-level actors.
Some say it's by design, but I think it's just because of how our global economy and the Internet itself works. It's fine to hate Bitcoin, but it's got this viral quality to it that it is not to be underestimated in the macroeconomic and political scale.
Surely something, but probably not $23k a coin and forget $60k a few months ago.
If Iran can use Bitcoin to transfer wealth across borders, and can't convert it to (i.e. buy) USD, but can convert it to (i.e buy) EUR, the next decade in geopolitics will be very interesting.
That affects every organization in the world that wants to do business in the united states, including shell corps, which is basically every major financial player that matters.
The next decade will be interesting but not for this.
The current price of btc is supported by large institutions. These disappear, so does the price.
Does the American regulatory hammer have worldwide jurisdiction? US might convince the EU to follow suit, but what if China says "sure Iran, we'll gladly buy your BTC and sell you RMB", what then? These worldwide regulatory hammers that pretty much everybody (not just in the Western world) respects are called embargoes. Good luck embargoing China.
Unless by regulatory hammer you mean the US military, then yes, there's a chance they could do something, but it won't be pretty for anybody. If it's just lawyers arguing, I'm telling you it's easier not to ban Bitcoin but embracing it (and extinguishing it) without weakening the US position in the world stage.
> The current price of btc is supported by large institutions.
This is just plain wrong.
It has worldwide jurisdiction for any company that wants to do business with the US.
China already actively trades with Iran so this would be largely irrelevant. And yet the CFO of Huawei was still arrested a few years back for violating sanctions.
> This is just plain wrong.
You're right, there's also crime and sanctions avoiders
But kill the on ramps to clean western currency and this all falls apart.
There's still an economy. You can use decentralized exchanges like Bisq, Robosats, etc to buy and sell Bitcoin, even if they banned every centralized exchange. You can also directly transact Bitcoin for goods and services in the underground market.