Bitcoin Forum

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2014, called Bitcoin a “terrible” store of value that was also being used for illicit purposes. In 2017 he called it a fraud and more recently he declared it “worthless.” Few years ago, Bank of America’s chief executive, Brian Moynihan, debarred the company’s wealth managers from putting any customer money into cryptocurrency-related business. When regulators in New York were investigating methods of checkmating Bitcoin transactions, executives at Wall Street’s biggest banks bothered that regulating cryptocurrencies would also legitimize them and that could be a threat to the finance industry. So they tried to sow doubt.

Today, digital currencies are now the new rave. People and businesses including big banks around the world are embracing digital currencies at a rapid pace. Even governments are getting involved. A system that allows individuals bypass banks in money transfers, credit cards, loans, sales and business collections by connecting people instantly without an intermediary cannot be overlooked. There are now more than 75 million users of Bitcoin, up from around three million seven years ago, and the number of digital currencies has exploded threatening to take away that central role banks play. According to a report by Crypto.com, 220 million people transact business in the $2 trillion crypto-market globally.

Now the banking industry knows its problem. Regulators have not acted quickly enough and their inaction is costing banks valuable time in their mission to compete with other institutions that earlier embraced the crypto-space. It’s now hard for US banks to compete in this new world and profit from it.

Too late, just yesterday the US Justice Department set up the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which will serve as the focal point for efforts to identify and dismantle the misuse of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. US government is now speeding up to determine how to police the cypto-space claiming that it has become a new frontier for criminals and rogue nations to steal and launder billions of dollars. The US government claim that if they could recover almost all the Bitcoin ransom paid to the perpetrators of a cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline Co. and equally trace and seize Bitcoin valued at about $3.6 billion that was stolen during a 2016 hack, then they have the ability and capacity to regulate the crypto-market.

Do you think the US government acted late or early?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/business/banks-crypto-bitcoin.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/2/17/us-justice-department-taps-new-cryptocurrency-czar

I can't understand why the author think that it's too late. Like almost all powerful financial institutions, US authorities tried to limit the usefulness of the digital currencies in their early days. Then by time goes by, they realized that they can't stop the wave just by diabolisation.

The fact about articles are, that they shows the idea, the whole notion that a person is himself adamant about, it might not even portray facts, most of the times it's just simple words. Therefore I do not think that you have to think that hard and fast about this. These are his thoughts and initially the government did everything, what they could to make things more safe for them, for their point of view. The misuse of digital currencies is a big thing and it has been happening for a really long time I do think that even if they set it up right now they still would be able to help the people in the past since the data always stays there, it never really disappears.

What I understand from the above article is US is doing what any other country shall be doing to clean the mess from their land. It’s very simple they are just working on their different agenda so that crypto currencies do not become weed in the coming days. What I mean by this is real simple: they want the crypto to survive but they just want it more regularised, more under control rather than too free for criminals, robbers etc.

I don’t think they gonna go very hard on the crypto as the time will pass on. It’s just about the time period when crypto gonna go bloom in the USA. It’s IT hub, the least we could expect from them.

The way things are already going, if strict measures are not put in place could be very dangerous, people will pay a high price for that, the government as the sole protector of Its citizens must take the necessary decisions required,
Many scams already taking advantage of decentralization and free to everyone to carry out crimes, if the government doesn't carry out its executive responsibilities now in a few years things will really get ugly in this space.

What exactly are you trying to say?
Do you say that we have to pray to the all mighty US government to save us from the crypto scammers,or the crypto industry will sink into the ocean of cryptocurrency scams in the next few years?
I don't believe that the crypto industry is totally dominated by scams.The majority of the crypto exchange platforms and crypto casinos are legit.I'm not going to discuss all the crypto startups,ICOs,IEOs,DeFi,NFTs,because most of them are scams,but you could see from a mile that they are a scam,so only naive and gullible people would put their money there.

yhup when it come decentralized they should know how to prevent some bad activities before implementing it as a legal within the country because it's not possible to happen to be honest as it's so easy to used to any crimes and etc, and yes bitcoin is very common when it comes to such reason even before so it's their consideration to fix what will be the results.

The world has experienced different categories of currencies from the creation. Even the Barter trade phase, the West (Europe) was using currency for their transactions.

The 22 century has introduced theirs which is Crypto-Currency

They are just trying to rewrite history, the US government has been aware of bitcoin for a very long time, way before a great deal of the members of this forum were aware of it, and since then they have been trying to find ways to hinder bitcoin or if possible to destroy it, this is nothing new and it is something that is going to continue for a very long time, can the US government reach their goal? I doubt it, but they are going to invest all their resources to try to do so.

Exactly. Expecting the US government to suddenly minimize crypto related issues through various regulations is completely silly and stupid since BTC and other cryptocurrencies were developed to shift some power away from the government into the hands of common citizens.

There are way more scams associated with FIAT when compared to crypto too.

Doesn't matter if the US government has acted late, what matters is that crypto is here to stay and no one can stop it not even US.

And we've seen regulations all over the world, some of them are in place already and yet the market seems to thrive even inside this regulations. Scams are everywhere though, maybe this regulations will give this criminals time to think, but not sure how it will stop them from their tracks. They are always one step of the game.

Just in time. As before, they're just ignoring it because it seems powerless to the government and as well as financial institutions. Now that it's raking millions of transactions and dollars, they cannot ignore it anymore and they have to protect the citizens that have been victimized by the scams. The positive side of what they've done is that they've tracked the suspects and responsible for the losses of many people. This is good if they're going to regulate it on that side for the protection of the victims but they also have a campaign to educate everyone on what to avoid and how to protect themselves from scammers and hackers.

Neither late nor early, it has always been vigilant in some way, it has always been present regulating and controlling.

As for the point of the institutionalists talking about what is convenient for them, it is already a "broke speech" they say what is convenient for them according to their convenience...

I think what has happened is the following..

During the Trump rule, Bitcoin was classified as a "Commodity" and I think the US Government was not too worried about it, because it pose a low threat to the US financial economy. (It was also not a threat to the US Dollar)

Now, the Biden administration has taken over and they (with the help of Butthurt Yellen) has elevated the supposed threat status of Crypto currencies to a higher level. (She is still angry about the Bitcoin guy issue)

So, we will definitely see an aggressive clampdown on the financial freedom that Crypto currencies are giving people. (Strict penalties for people that use Crypto currencies pseudo anonymously and also taxes and regulations that are equal to other financial instruments)   

For now we cannot say any good at it since by looking at this maybe they are just watching how the whole scene runs, maybe if we can settle up and see its natural potential we can see those US regulators will create a law towards its adoption.  But we shouldn't expect it will happen anytime soon since for sure there are so many things it may go thru before our thought's will happen.

Not really late or early? I mean there's nothing late or early at this stage, most of the adoption right now is what's beginning the intro of crypto towards the bigger stage. It also brings the idea that the government finally realizes that banning them isn't really going to do anything, regulating them would be the much better option in the long run, especially with how prominent crypto is (which is only going to get bigger imo). Still, nothing new with them trying to restrict it though, adding more KYC and stuff like that. It is the government we are talking abouta fter all.

Be it late or early, i guess the US government does not care about it as long as they can take advantage on bitcoin and obtain the profits from regulating bitcoin instead of banning it. And its also known that a lot of residents in US are already into bitcoin trading or mining so legalizing bitcoin and regulating it can bring more income to their own economy, and it can also attract foreign investments which will contribute much to regain their down economy. So bitcoin has a lot of advantages that any country could benefit, i'm glad US government has finally realized it.

Bitcoin doesn't need any governments' approval to survive. As long as it remains decentralized and censorship-resistant, it can live on its own independent from any governments' actions. The US government is considering to further open its arms towards crypto/Blockchain tech not just because it brings huge taxation benefits but because several other countries are doing the same. Countries like El Salvador, Ukraine, and Russia announced their support towards Bitcoin, leaving the US with no choice but to fully embrace the revolution. Otherwise, it'll be left out of the game as other countries gain advantage.

Consider how innovation stifled in China due to the government's decision to ban crypto completely within the country. It lost a huge taxation opportunity that would've led China towards long-term prosperity. The more countries join the Bitcoin/Blockchain bandwagon, the faster we'll be heading towards "hyperbitcoinization". Who knows if we're seeing the end of centralized Fiat's dominance over the global economy? Just my thoughts ;D

US has been very hostile to the idea of legalizing bitcoin ever since. But since this technology has been inevitable lately, just like other countries, so they want to take advantage and make benefits with bitcoin. Well, i cannot say they are literally late from this, as they also went through a process from banning bitcoin until they realized that banning won't stop bitcoin at all, so maybe its a good thing that they will start to regulate in instead. So let's see how well this turned out, and if they're open for accepting bitcoin as an alternative to US dollar in the future.

It would be a dumb idea to "reject" Bitcoin when other countries are opening up their arms to it. The US doesn't want to be left behind in the dust, so it will have no choice but to fully embrace "the revolution". My guess is that the US government will continue to introduce new regulations that will help legitimize the space within the country even further. But too much regulations will do more harm than good to the growth of Bitcoin within the region.

How friendly the US will be towards Bitcoin will greatly depend whenever people use it responsibly or all the other way around. The more people use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies legitimately, the less opposition from the government will be. Who knows if Bitcoin gets to live alongside the "Digital Dollar" in the future? Just my thoughts ;D

As simple as that, the US does not like bitcoin as it is a threat to the hegemony of the US dollar and as such they would like for it to disappear, however other countries will adopt it and if they do not then those countries will have a competitive edge over the US and as such they cannot accept it, this is similar to what happened with the 2008 crisis, the US said they were not going to rescue banks from their bad investments but then when they saw the UK will do so they had to do it as well, otherwise the UK would have an advantage over them and they could not allow that.

It's typical of the US government. When it sees other countries adopting a new technology, the government is forced to do the same in order to avoid being left behind in the dust. It's called "survival of the fittest". I don't care which country adopts or rejects Bitcoin, as long as the same remains decentralized and censorship-resistant.

Regardless of mainstream regulations, Bitcoin can be used by freely used by anyone thanks to the way it was designed. If it was centralized, then it would've been easy to enforce regulations on it. We need as much people into Bitcoin as possible, so the more countries join the Bitcoin/Blockchain bandwagon, the higher its success will be. Considering that most countries are beginning to adopt Bitcoin, it's very likely Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will live alongside "digitized Fiat" (CBDCs) for generations. I'd be wise to grow your stack of Bitcoins before it's too late. Just my thoughts ;D

In my opinion, the United States government has seen Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as some economists have pointed out as a bubble, that idea was sold and that is the reason why they are acting late. A conservative thought and faithful to their currency, the dollar, has not made them take a step forward to innovation.

Fortunately, there are important sectors of the nation that are Pro Bitcoin such as Texas, the Mayor of Miami, the Governor of New York among others and better yet, the pro Bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis is now part of the US Banking Committee.

Why would the U.S. want to embrace Bitcoin when their currency is turning more into dirt with every passing hour? Inflation for USD is at something like a 40 year high because of the gross negligence of politicians and their federal reserve. Hardly any regulation on Bitcoin is done in good faith, they want to stomp out its usage in order to save a dying currency. The U.S. financial sector does not need Bitcoin, though they would greatly benefit, so they don't mind being left behind in the dust.  U.S. would much rather take early action and regulate Bitcoin severely before it has any chance at becoming a competitor of USD.

They didn't know that the more they want bitcoin to disappear, the more the bitcoin gets stronger because every now and then, there are countries that continue to legalize bitcoin. I think some countries have also acted like that before, same with what USA acted where they also worry that bitcoin can affect their local currency but they didn't ban bitcoin up until now.

Maybe they realize that they are wrong about what they think with bitcoin and the real truth is that bitcoin cant really bring any damage whatsoever. The acceptance of bitcoin by other country did also take some time to happen. We can expect the same thing for USA.

Most governments not only in the US but all over the world are late in Bitcoin, there should have adopted bitcoin as an alternative currency, but realizing now is still ok instead of attacking Bitcoin just like China it is better to remain flexible with the law as it has to do with digital currency and the blockchain technology and how it works. Trump administration was flexible on that but did not make any attempt to make any positive development in the bitcoin

Not really necessary to be adopting it as a currency, because you would hardly see any country that would do that, except very few like El Salvador has done. What the government should have done is to declare it legal and look for ways that they can make it benefit the country and foster growth in their economy level. There are so many ways that the government in any country could have gotten involved in cryptocurrency, and it would definitely benefit them.

The problem is that most of them were blinded from seeing the benefits of cryptocurrency, rather they kept thinking that it was some kind of currency that would only be used for illicit activities. Now they have seen that they can’t defeat cryptocurrency, so they want to be part of it.

It’s quite possible that they can capture that are involved in the cases that you have mentioned. They can decide to follow the cases closely and keep tracing it. It’s not like this is the first time that the government has gone about capturing cryptocurrency criminals, they have done that quite a lot of times, so this wouldn’t be anything different, and I as well don’t think that it is late for them to do that.
 
As for the rejections that Bitcoin has suffered in the hands of banks, it’s a normal thing when something new comes into the market, it is bound to face challenges, but whatever would stay will always stay no matter the level of challenge thrown its way. The banks will have to learn to adapt to the new changes there is now.

The problem with it is that as long as the underlying reason of why people are adopting bitcoin keeps existing then the usage of bitcoin will keep growing, is it any surprise that the price of bitcoin reached historic levels and more people that ever are using bitcoin when the US decided to print more money than ever before? Not really, as long as they keep abusing their power then bitcoin will become even stronger to the point we could reach the time in which even if they were to ban it people will not obey the law and will defy it if they have to.

Good point. The US government doesn't want to lose control over people's finances, so regulating Bitcoin severely would be the best path to take. With fierce regulations in play, Bitcoin's growth will stifle within the country. President Biden already signed an executive order meant to regulate the crypto industry, so we're going to have to see how everything will play out within the next 1-2 years. Once the US Digital Dollar starts rolling in, you can say goodbye to Bitcoin in the country for good (at least it won't die because of its decentralized design). This will probably be the outcome of other countries after they launch digital currencies of their own. I wouldn't worry about that as long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and censorship-resistant. Just my opinion :)