Air Guitars and Bitcoin Regulation →
Bitcoin was designed from the outset to route around centralized, authoritarian interference. Bitcoin’s designer(s) anticipated regulatory termination and asset confiscation because bitcoin itself is a direct challenge to the privileged money monopoly of the sovereign. The issue is not whether bitcoin as a digital currency embodies libertarian political and economic beliefs – it was simply designed to survive. However, it is supremely naive and daft to think that a government will not soon erect laws and regulations to prevent anonymous and untraceable transactions. Additionally, government tends to tax that which it regulates and a sanctioned bitcoin will soon be transformed into an ‘approved’ and useless digital currency.
Bitcoin exchanges are constantly under attack in various parts around the globe and even with partially-regulated exchanges, laws can always be modified to accomplish the aims of the State. The solution is to create decentralized exchanges and to promote business models and closed-loop paradigms that make fitting into the current institutional structure irrelevant. It is a perpetually losing battle to seek minor legal victories within the confines of an arbitrary, subjective court system.
