The US government really does not like the Crypto... but the Americans DO

Lately I have seen quite a few comments and articles about the USA not liking Crypto currencies and I guess mostly by people in government who just do not understand how it works.

I am by no means an expert but the way I see it is that this  starts with a false premise about the technology.  Government officials claiming Bitcoin is anonymous are clearly misinformed and is reacting to stuff they read "online" and  then shouting that : “bitcoin is bad because it’s being used in crime and contraband trade!”.  The blockchain is pseudonymous so all transactions are visible on the public ledger and can be traced so long everything stays in the crypto environment.

Individuals in the government love bitcoin because it gives them something to try to regulate. Fortunately, other people in government see that this gives them something to do, which is to try hold those regulators with an overdeveloped sense of order in check. 

This completely ignores the fact that bitcoin and cryptocurrency were designed to not submit to regulation in the first place. (Well, not governmental regulation, it is heavily regulated – but only by its source code.)

Since it is hard to regulate and crack down on something that is decentralized the US government is changing the current legal framework around cryptocurrencies.  And the way to go about that is to regulate the interfaces with 'real' cash and, therefore, compliant with KYC (Know Your Customer), thus turning pseudonymity into traceability (if criminals ever want to realize their gains is the reason used for this).  This way they try to circumvent the the impossible step of banning a peer-to-peer technology  (no ban of this sort has ever worked and no ban like this will ever work in the future).

There are some practical steps any government can and should take to deter cyber-criminals: properly fund cyber-security in state-run services, defund those state actors who create vulnerabilities in existing systems, and abandon plans for vendors to insert backdoors into their products. These steps would allow the regular dabbler in cryptocurrencies to dabble in peace.

The technology has moved and evolved with leaps and bounds in the last couple of years and the momentum suggests that we will continue to see real things deployed with a growing pace (perhaps without anyone realizing that a blockchain is involved at all). 

Now the cryptocurrencies will do to banks what e-mail did to the postal service and they seem to be realizing this and are jumping on board as fast as they can to mitigate the damage (Ripple being an example).  They will do the same for governments but by the time the most reluctant to grasp the situation realize it I guess it will be way to late.

Governments, and individual people in government, have no idea about this bigger picture. They’re far to wrapped up in things-as-usual to notice. They won’t see it coming until it’s already happened

On the other hand:

the USA has the highest concentration of bitcoin nodes, the biggest amount of bitcoin ATMs and a big part of the crypto trading is done in USD with several ICOs located in Silicon Valley.  The biggest user group on STEEMIT is also from the US so where does that leave the average american where it comes to the future of crypto curencies in their country

I guess only time will tell but I do fear for them...

sources and reason for the blog:

https://news.bitcoin.com/us-congressman-digital-currencies-are-not-compliant/#comment-45201

https://news.bitcoin.com/fedcoin-u-s-issue-e-currency/

https://www.coindesk.com/forfeit-bitcoin-congressional-bill-draws-fire-border-check-rules/

https://www.coindesk.com/senators-call-digital-currency-oversight-anti-money-laundering-bill/

and in turn the crypto economy and the world is reacting by banning the americans and other governments are embracing the technology

https://news.bitcoin.com/some-icos-now-ban-americans-who-should-expect-more-ostracism/

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-russia-legalized-cryptocurrencies-2017-5?IR=T

https://cointelegraph.com/news/china-to-use-blockchain-technology-in-tax-collection-and-electronic-invoice-issuance

cartoon from :

http://jonikcartoons.blogspot.de/

Any insights on this blog will be happily accepted and opposite views will be read with interest

if you liked please upvote, reply, resteem or follow