The State isn't going to take the BitCoin Foundations word that they aren't doing anything wrong, just like they don't take the credit card processors or Treasury departments word that they are doing something wrong. So party A says "They are doing it wrong!" and the state tells party B, "Please stop what you're doing, unless you can show your not doing it wrong." That is how the system evolves its understanding and codification of things.
Sure, its obvious for something things (like murder and mayhem) but when its less obvious or more subtle then its unfair to take one side's view of the matter and declare it correct by fiat. You explore the subtleties and need to decide where to draw the line.
This is a good thing for the Bitcoin folks because it is the start of the process where the government develops a collective understanding of what Bitcoin is. That, if nothing else, validates that Bitcoin is "real" in the sense that the government must "understand" it in order to work with it. People who dislike the notions will argue its evil, and supporters will argue its beneficial and once we've talked through all the legal ramifications then its future will no longer be in doubt.
In these sorts of actions you aren't trying to prove a negative both parties are proving a positive, which is to say both parties are working to create a consensus understanding of the interpretation of the law. In one view what these folks do is legal, in one view it is not.
What generally happens though, and looking at the history of the same sex marriage effort is really a great analog here, is that one view or another comes up short in terms of written law, new law is written with what the consensus is thinking should be rather than perhaps what is.
Using same sex marriage as an analog, we started from "Homosexual activity is illegal" to a place where the consensus view was that you couldn't really legislate something which was innate, to "but marrying is illegal" to "well we recognize that your partnership is in many ways like a marriage" to what I expect tomorrow will be "You know, the state doesn't have any business defining the sex of the two people in a marriage." [1]
In each stage of this "conversation" (and I realize that term is not perfect but I don't have a better term for millions of people going through a process to reach consensus) we explored particular aspects of the problem. Was it the 'sex' that was wrong? Was it the 'people' who were homosexuals that was wrong? Is the definition of 'family' inextricably tied to offspring of mated individuals? Or is is broader than that? Are citizens harmed by this? Helped? How about their children? Other children? People around them? In every case one party says "It's wrong because 'reason'." and the the other party debates that reason or comes up with a different line of reasoning why its right. Jurists listen, they consider what has come before and will come after, and rule. Then we as a people consider whether or not that consensus was what we intended or want and then we create new law and the process continues.
It's slow, its ponderous, but it does converge and it allows things to move with the consensus as the consensus moves. FWIW this is the single most powerful 'feature' of our form of Government.
[1] I'll know tomorrow if I'm wrong I suspect but reading about the coverage at the Supreme Court I'm betting its going to come down on the side of same sex marriages.
Now civil court is another matter, but the state doesn't prosecute that, so it's not really relevant to this discussion.
The court (and particularly the supreme court) is involved in interpreting the law, but they don't get to ask people to prove they haven't broken the law unless they have some kind of evidence that they did in fact already break the law. Simply claiming they "think" someone is in violation of a law based on no evidence at all falls so far short of the legal requirements to bring a case it's laughable. If somehow the government did prosecute based on no evidence at all I'd imagine there's a whole horde of lawyers that would line up to get a chunk of the wrongful prosecution lawsuit that would come of that.
Using underhanded tactics, like publishing defamatory statements (like mchusma related in a separate comment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5928751
) or threatening expense-incurring legal action unless the innovator provides free education, is just as bad even if it's legal.
Actually, it should be.
Not really, The state knows what it needs to know about bitcoins in the sense that it knows it can stop them easily, which seems to be more than bitcoin supporters know.
But this statement demonstrates the ignorance and contradictions within bitcoin boosting; the idea that because bitcoin values have grown that bitcoins are a logical potential currency rather than one more speculative trend in the line with tulip is the most obvious example. There is also the confusion between whether bitcoins will succeed through the very force of encryption to end the state's control of currency or whether bitcoins will succeed because bitcoinists have a moral right create a system to destroy the state's control over its currency. But there's a further confusion - bitcoinists don't get that the dollar's value derives from the state's monopoly of force and violence. Indeed, bitcoinists somehow don't get that the dollar is ipso facto the best currency because people use it even though they want bitcoins to succeed on the same criteria. And there's the part how bitcoinist think the weakness of gold is that it can't be transmitted electronically whereas the fact is that state prevents it from being currency (even if it is still allowed as an investment). And I could on and on...
Really? Because whatever they're doing doesn't seem to be working very well.
BitCoin enthusiasts would be well advised to consider this as a chance to get themselves together and figure out how they're going to respond if it does come to that. You do not know when the last such opportunity will emerge. The BitCoin enthusiast community would find it incredibly ill-advised to think that they are in such a good position that they can be as smug as you sound.
This is the pot calling the kettle black.
Also, you're acting as if the bitcoin community is a single entity that could come so some kind of agreement.. it's not. Just as can be said for the "business community."
Also, the situation is a lot more complicated than you're giving it credit for.
No, it's not. I'm actually quite sympathetic to BitCoin. Skeptical, but sympathetic. I am constitutionally incapable of being "smug" about government power. It is supremely dangerous to think this is the limits of what the government can do. Assuming that I'm "one of them" and using that to discard my warning is also dangerous.
Exactly what you mean by some "complication" in relation to what I said is beyond me. I sure hope you don't think "complication" plays to anyone but the government's advantage.
This is the warning shot. They are coming. Prepare.
> This is the warning shot. They are coming. Prepare.
This is just some incompetent corruptocrats. This is not the warning shot. This is not the crackdown.
But yeah, I fully expect the US government will, more likely than not, try to shut down Bitcoin. I think most people who are not naive teenagers do.[1]
One complication is that the US government only truly controls one country, and there are 200+ countries around the world. Bitcoin is useful, and the cat's already out of the bag.
To be clear, I'm not naively saying that it's going to be a successful currency in the long run; we just don't know.
[1] I expect it to be a legally drawn-out process that does not criminalize bitcoin overnight and may not even fully succeed. Also, it's worth noting that the Feds have been insanely pro-Bitcoin so far. Rather than making it illegal overnight, all they've done so far is to release the most pro-bitcoin regulations conceivable.
Actually, it's completely consistent with the way California behaves and works. Corrupt and anti-freedom.
This is about as disappointing as when I heard that Nevada was first to legalize automated vehicles before us and it took lobbying from Google to push the approval here.