They could seize assets of miners big enough to need specialised energy deals, which would get rid of 90% of mining in the USA.
They could crack down on exchanges banking in USD, which would get rid of 90% of mining worldwide.
Stopping a single person running an algorithm on a single ASIC in a home environment is the impossible tail-end. I don't know if they even care about those, I'm not too worried about them.
Once PoW is illegal wheels will start turning and it'll become impossible for larger miners. If that tamps down the energy usage enough the gov probably won't bother chasing down smaller players.
Or KYC controls could make it impractical to use PoW coins outside black markets.
Why wouldn't it be?
This makes it much harder for companies to get proper electric contracts, you can snitch on companies, you can audit them etc.
It might not be able to ban small setups but for sure makes a big dent in crypto companies. Official ones.
You are kidding, right? The United States has a outstanding history of banning things. Alcohol. Drugs. /s
[fixed weird typo]
Also, and I thought this was obvious, alcohol and drugs are either more fun and popular or more fun and addicting. That combination of wide and deep makes them insidious and sympathetic. Bitcoin is neither.
Most drugs aren’t paid for with crypto for the same reason most of anything isn’t paid for with crypto. For the religious, there’s PoS.
This is also true of gummy worms and sea snails. Nobody argues against its possibility. Simply that for drugs, people will find a way. There isn’t a similar widely-held motivation for crypto.
...but we seem to be talking past each other somehow.
Everything traded is worth money. Just because something can be exchanged for money doesn’t make it as desirable as drugs.