Bitcoin Forum

As Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continue to grow in popularity, governments and regulatory bodies are increasingly taking notice. Some argue that regulation is necessary to protect consumers and prevent illicit activities, while others believe it could stifle innovation and limit the potential of decentralized technologies.

Where do you stand on Bitcoin regulation?

Some points to consider:

- How can regulation balance consumer protection with innovation and growth?
- Will overly restrictive regulations drive innovation offshore?
- Can self-regulation and industry standards suffice, or is government oversight necessary?

Share your thoughts and let's explore the implications of Bitcoin regulation!"

Can you name any regulatory financial institution that has not been involved directly or indirectly in illicit activities?
I cannot, and if regulatory bodies have failed for such a long time now to offer protection or security, they will not be of any benefit to Bitcoin. This is besides the fact that Bitcoin was originally designed to be decentralized in its protocol, discussing how we can introduce regulations undermines how it was designed to be used.

Bitcoin has survived for this long on a consensus based system, this shows that it can suffice. The talk of regulation about Bitcoin is all about control and not security of users.

What exactly regulation is protecting the consumers?

If I have fake cloud mining sites and there are many people send their coins, let's say that the cops caught me and confiscate my coins, do you think they will refund back the money to every consumers? nah, you should know that SEC own a lot Bitcoin by confiscate it.

Regulation doesn't prevent illicit activities because many illicit activities can be done through fiat and banks.

my view of regulations is that regulations SHOULD be about checking on businesses acting honourably/morally/legally to protect consumers.. not the other way round. regulators should stick to policing the businesses that take custody of their customers assets

however current regulations allow businesses to continue to process a transfer of assets as long as they report on the customer who requested the transfer if the transfer is suspicious. thus it doesnt stop transfers(if illegal/suspicious) it however later on helps capture/punish the person after the crime. thus is not even preventing crime nor prevents the criminal transfer by the service

so current regulations dont even do anything effective to their proposed purpose

In reality no government can regulate Bitcoin network. What they can regulate are the transactions that are happening through centralised exchanges. That's why they are trying to build legal frameworks and using enforcement agencies to destroy the decentralized exchange ecosystem.

If for debate, government is finally able to regulate Bitcoin network, Bitcoin will be gone for good. Governments do not care about consumer protection. This is one of their ways to cover their actual intention. Governments want to destroy Bitcoin.

bitcoin network has no eyes, ears or brain. so the network cant be directly compelled by government because laws are made in a language bitcoin does not understand. however people can be compelled, so government can only create laws for the people associated with bitcoin, this includes businesses, services, users and devs (should they choose)
most regulations are designed to delegate that businesses are made to police their customers, but are not trying to push that software developers need to force bitcoin protocol changes

There of course can't be direct regulation of bitcoin itself, because Bitcoin is decentralized with no governing body so the govt can't appeal or force Bitcoin to do something.

But the Bitcoin/Crypto ecosystem, made up of people and companies and products, of course needs to be regulated. Regulation of products like stablecoins and exchanges are absolutely needed to make the space safer for people. But those regulations should naturally be done in concert with crypto organizations precisely because the crypto organizations are going to be a lot more knowledgeable on the issues and potential fixes than politicians and regulators will be.

I'd backtrack a bit and argue that no such protection is needed. People don't buy a stock here, they don't get an IOU. What they get is an asset, like one of the common precious metals, or a painting. What the customer should focus on is that he's getting genuine bitcoin, not a promise or something of that sort. It's equally important to educate consumers about self custody. They need to make sure they can keep their coins safe. The government should focus on people who offer custodial services, on exchanges and wallet providers to make sure they're punished if they try to cheat their customers. Bitcoin itself needs no regulation and customers don't need to be protected from it.

Regulations are made to ensure that everything runs according to written supervision. For example, regulations for the fiat currency system and regulations for official financial bodies or institutions to prevent actions that are detrimental or contrary to business. With Bitcoin's transparency, should Bitcoin have regulations as intended by the definition of regulation itself?

Bitcoin does not belong to the government or any party. In the white paper it is explained clearly from the beginning to the conclusion.

Anyone who owns Bitcoin, freedom is with the owner. If Bitcoin has to have regulations, it is a joke that makes no sense because Bitcoin does not belong to the government which must be monitored because Bitcoin is not an object that can carry out its own actions like humans whose actions should be suspected.

In a natural flow of Bitcoin adoption, regulation is not necessarily needed.  Regulations are implemented by the authorities to feed their ego and to impose the government's influence and control over the subject.  

Although regulation is not needed in the Bitcoin system, positive government regulation helps Bitcoin to increase the rate of gaining the trust of the masses.   The government acknowledging Bitcoin and setting regulations helps companies that are interested in integrating Bitcoin into their system but are hesitant due to regulatory issues clear their doubt.  After all, the company should abide on the government-set laws.

Bitcoin may not need regulations but the outside factors like companies and individuals who are into Bitcoin needs a proper guidelines whether Bitcoin is legal to use or not as to not ending behind bars being accused of money laundering if the government sees Bitcoin as illegal.  Knowing the regulatory stance of the government about Bitcoin may protect its citizen from unwanted circumstances after all each one of us is subject to the government law and regulations.

for me regulation is very necessary to the society I don't see when Bitcoin will be regulated and curse harm to government or to people, regulations it's necessary because when Bitcoin get regulated then it can be Centralized and it'll also help the people to be more easier to transact in Bitcoin in the world. Self-regulation can't opstic the standards or suffice the government, just that I don't really know why the government should be holding more urge against Bitcoin whatsoever the government are saying isn't right. We all know that if Bitcoin can get regulated it'll help us out in so many ways in the future.

It depends on the regulation! It's just too broad and the approach by each government may be very different or the approach at different times can be different. In short as long as regulations end up with consumer protection, they can be good.

But the problem is that so far what we've seen from regulations has meant only one thing: government seeking control.
For example they enforce KYC through centralized exchanges so that they can monitor people's finances and tax people more. They never provide people with any kind of protection for cases like the CEX running away with your money!

Seeing a thread on bitcoin/crypto regulation after some time now.

In my opinion, regulation is a necessary evil. There are projects based on crypto known as ICO which allowed people to buy a token on ETH ERC-20 blockchain and the holders would have some rights. Almost all the projects failed and the investors were angry. This does not mean that innovation was there, most of them if innovative enough, would have gone for the mainstream tech market, which they did not.

See how cunning they were? They knew that the crypto users were gullible enough to fool like that and thus stayed away from mainstream/legally protected markets. Sadly legal approaches did not work much for ICOs for the same reason or paperwork related difficulty.

That is why it is necessary, and I feel that the "evil" part will get removed, because those who are in charge of this, will make sure to allow innovation just like any other industry.

From necessary of regulation to consequence of regulation is centralized, and expand centralized to make it more easier for transactions of Bitcoin globally. Do you actually understand what you write in your post?

Bitcoin is decentralized from developments to Proof of Work network to find blocks and confirm transactions. It's helpful for security and privacy of Bitcoin users and their funds. But they can make transactions smoothly with centralized blockchains like altcoins with some risk like blockchain pause, reversibility/ rollback, lack of privacy.

https://howmanyconfs.com/

Can you please mention one thing that could help more people if Bitcoin could be regulated by the government? I don't think there is any benefit if Bitcoin can be regulated by the government because that is very incompatible with Bitcoin and in the Bitcoin white paper it is also not stated that this is a good thing. So I need to know what things can be beneficial for all of society if Bitcoin can be regulated by the government because the government itself is a human being who is no different from other humans who also need money and need more wealth.

I'm neither for nor against this so-called "regulation" because truly how could you "regulate" something at its core level like Bitcoin? Anyone can build on top of it because of its permissionlessness, anyone can mine it whether it's profitable or not for them, anyone can enter the network's validation by running a full node and leave if they want anytime, and anyone could send or HODL their Bitcoin without government intervention.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The cabal that believe that they're regulating Bitcoin, is under the illusion that they could control it. Like the invention of the printing-press, the telephone, and the internet - The cat is out of the bag.

Regulations will be necessary in some situation like cloud mining, centralized exchanges and new project launch. Aside some cases that can be controlled by the government, any other attempt will only deter the progress of bitcoins since bitcoins is not under any central control. With that been said, we know bitcoins and some other coins has proven longevity with good track record since inception which means few areas needed government intervention to keep the crypto space safe for users.
We won't blame the government that really want the best for her citizens if this is genuine.

Maybe a little assurance that they won't ban bitcoin if they regulate it and put tax to people who's using this coin. But aside from that I don't see anything good since maybe we will just put in radar and government might just control each movement we do especially on our earnings or activities made in this space.

But we can't do anything if government would really like to happen since at least we can still use bitcoin then continue to earn rather than spitting bad on it then declare as bitcoin is illegal then for sure that everyone of us will suffer due to that bad decisions they drop since our movement will became limited especially if we want to cashout our earnings coming from bitcoin.

Any statements by government officials are “sweet lies” to cover up the “bitter truth” - to obtain taxes on the turnover of currencies and to regulate these financial assets so that prohibited goods are not purchased with it.

Any restrictions slow down progress.

Like something inevitable.

It is better to leave it to the authorities to find the answer to this question.

And thanks to this regulation, the country will lag behind in the development of this industry from those that encourage the progress of crypto.

The market itself could put everything in its place without outside interference.

You're talking about regulating scams here. Cloud mining was a way to steal from people. Only 1 out of 10 cloud mining sites really did some mining and even that 1 site was unprofitable for the investor. An industry that focuses on scamming people should receive warnings and lawsuits, not regulation.


I'm yet to see a government that only wants what's best for its citizens. Most politicians want to stay in power and wish themselves all the best, while you work like a slave for their wages.

The government can not regulate bitcoin but instead what their should focus on regulating is bitcoin services, such as excahges and other payment gateways, because it through those channels that all the illicit activities take place, e.g the FTX Sega it happened on exchange, and other money laundering through bitcoin are all done on excahges because their provides the gateway between the fiat and bitcoin.


Just like banks, that have been involved in all illicit transactions and even fiat paper money are all tools for illegal money movements, this is what we should take note of before talking about bitcoin regulations so as not to lose focus on the areas that the government can regulate to achieve great success to give consumer satisfaction and protection against the bad actors.

We cant be certain that governments are serious about the regulatory acception of Bitcoin, because these days due to the additional pressure of the elections, most of the time what we hear about Bitcoin and crypto from their mouths is a pro-crypto narrative, as I said due to elections so there's no certainty there can be mood swings,

As for BTC as far as the community is concerned whether the government supports Bitcoin or not it will continue to achieve its targets, slowly but steadily, there's no doubt that regulatory developments work as the boosting catalyst for Bitcoin.

We will only know if they are serious on this matter if they start passing their bills related to crypto market. Otherwise, it will all be pure talk as regulation needs actual bill to refer to. As crypto market is going mainstream, it is understandable that regulation is necessary for the consumers to abide by.

And if that politician will stop mentioning crypto-related discussions once elected, it means, he was not really serious about his crypto ambitions. Some are just using this market to attract voters from this community. But when it comes to reality, they don't even know how to start drafting a bill in favour of crypto industry.

Regulations on Bitcoin were created only because the government wanted to control our activities on Bitcoin. Whether they dress it up with various consumer protection considerations or something else, in fact the bottom line is they still want to limit Bitcoin and our involvement remains under control by the government.

Government is the center of centralization. And Bitcoin is something that should be decentralized. However, the government certainly doesn't want something they can't control, right? So, when they can't control Bitcoin directly, they make various complicated rules regarding our activities as citizens that must be obeyed. And it worked. At least, some countries must comply with regulations regarding crypto, exchanges, and so on. This is annoying, plus, and their goal is still there, they still get taxes from it all.

I'm in the other side of the debate. Censorship, bans, and their need for absolute authority are what actually could be catalysts to start using Bitcoin. I'm not speaking merely from the perspective of the individual. It also works socio-politically as well. Rumors from Iran that because the sanctions of the United States against Iran made it hard to export Crude Oil has made them mine Bitcoin using their Oil as the source of fuel to power their mining farms to "export" Bitcoin - something censorship-resistant, instead of Oil.

Yeah, I’ve come to notice this (it’s all about control). Government is not happy when there’s something profitable in circulation which they’re not able to control or monitor. They want to be involved in all things, or have a  part of the cake. I think Government is no respecter of privacy which is why they want to be in the midst of things and try to convince us it’s for our own good.

there are some strong arguments why the majority of crypto/bitcoin holders don't agree with regulation...
 - to keep the value of privacy
 - freedom, decentralization
Besides, we don't need strict regulation but what we need is support from the government to legalize bitcoin in order to grow adoption.

But for some reason also why the government pushed to have strict regulations...
 - due to increasing scams, fraud, and money laundering - innocent people lose their money at the hands of scammers.

Both parties have their positive and negative insights about this but for me, it is better to stay the way it is - decentralized. Bitcoin has gained popularity because if this feature changes it will have an absolute impact which I believe we don't want it to happen.

Bitcoin was created to be a decentralized technology and I don't agree that it needs any government regulation it to function. If the government really wants to protect consumers interest in the technology, they can just make public guidance announcement, advising the society to be careful while investing in Bitcoin, letting them to know that Bitcoin is a volatile asset. Bitcoin may be used by some scammers for money laundering or other illegal activities but if we look closely, the most cases of money laundering is not even carried out with Bitcoin but with traditional money.

Lack of proper regulation = FTX = Bitcoin drops by 95% in value.

It's really as simple as that. Although we can (and should) all debate the proper regulations of the market, a market that has no regulations absolutely invites criminals, and those criminals--and their criminal activity--chases away the average consumer investor, which is what gives Bitcoin the market value it currently enjoys.

Bitcoin went up 500% under president Biden.

Why? Because under his administration, criminals like SBF were put in prison where they belong. This signals to the average investor that they can safely invest.

Do you want "Libertarian Coin"? The absolute "wild west" where there's no regulation? That's how Bitcoin started off--back when the price of Bitcoin was 10 cents.

You can gripe about this regulation or that, and no doubt some of them can be really stupid (it's government after all), but there's an absolute need for a regulated market for Bitcoin and other cryptos.

I completely agree with you. I will support regulations if they guarantee me that my cryptocurrencies will be safe in hands of the platform where I have them deposited, for example on exchanges. Regulations should monitor exchanges, the way they secure cryptocurrencies and crypto or fiat reserves. There should be implemented mechanisms that will protect customers from financial loss and offer them a legit service.

At the moment regulations allow businesses to do whatever they want. They can ask anyone to submit KYC and other identity documents or even freeze funds if they feel that way. At the moment, customers aren't protected when they use crypto services. Regulations don't ask businesses to be more transparent and customer-oriented. They let them open businesses in off-shores and nothing happens when they scam. 1xBit scams thousands of people and no one got arrested for that, there are many other examples too.

Regulations should help, but in the case of Bitcoin they do any thing but help it out.  In fact, I really do believe the Regulations we saw so far were meant to damage Bitcoin and not help it.  They do not like Bitcoin so why would they help when they can just find ways to make things much harder for us.

Nonsense.  During the Presidency of Trump, Bitcoin went up by over 6 TIMES more than during the Presidency of Biden.  During the Presidency of Trump, it saw an increase of around or over 3500 percent.  And second of all, Bitcoin is not a United States asset.  It is a World wide asset.  While many of the decisions taken in the United States, including Elections influence the price of Bitcoin, it did not go up by 500 percent due to the actions taken by Biden.

I didn't mean to imply it was, only that the supposedly burdensome regulations that were added under Biden (including throwing SBF in prison) obviously did not negatively affect the price of Bitcoin.

Centralized exchanges are regulated by the government and they comply to government policies, but they still get hacked and people still lose their money when they store it there. Anyone who needs an institution to protect their funds for them, should use fiat; in BTC, you protect your money yourself, because you are responsible for its security. Take note as well that a decentralized network does not need a centralized government to grow, the community is responsible for the growth of BTC.

This has been a liberal talking point for business as well, if we let business owners liberal, as in let them take care of the business themselves without regulations with the hopes that "market will find the right way" then we would still have 8 year olds working for 25 cents per hour right now, thankfully there are regulations and we do not end up working kids anymore because there are regulations. I believe that while some regulations could be too much and we may end up seeing some slowing down on innovation, it also doesn't mean that we should not end up with any regulations at all, we should probably keep on seeing it.

This is our personal life we are talking about and if we let crypto be fully free, then there could also be bad people taking advantage of that situation. Have some small regulations so that we could end up with some good results and could do something much better on the long run, it will benefit them and could do a lot better.

When somebody come down and read what you compose it is contradictory to understand the exact point you are trying to make or to convince people to understand you, as you are lamenting or emphasizing on regulation and protection of Bitcoin I don't know the exact point you are figuring out I don't know if really you are of the opinion of regulating Bitcoin from scammers or you are indirectly channel your point for regulation of investors so that is why we need to be convinced whenever we are making a point that being related to cryptocurrency mostly in Bitcoin and the its regulations, it is obvious that regulation of Bitcoin can come from any angle based on the price and otherwise

The biggest crash we've had in bitcoin IIRC was 80% and it was because the tip was a bubble aka an unrealistic price that needed to pop and price needed to come down.

Crashes caused by some shitty centralized service can never be big and I don't think any of them were bigger than 30%.

On top of that, regulations are not going to prevent such things from happening. They will get hacked, scam their users, run away, etc. and they can cause crashes with or without regulations.
As I said before, so far regulations have not been for user protection but for government control and surveillance.