Bitcoin Forum

They are regulating or simply shut down existing infrastructure and set up their own controllers.

China and South Korea have banned initial coin offerings, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for regulation of the sector.

Now the crypto currency in connection with the strengthening of its influence on the economy of almost every country enters the phase of its regulation by the states. On the one hand, without such regulation and recognition of the crypto currency as a legitimate means of payment, the crypto currency can not be widely introduced into the lives of citizens. On the other hand, such regulation would mean a significant limitation of anonymity in the conduct of transactions. In any case, the state will establish a tax on income from operations with crypto currency and when exchanging crypto currency for fiat it will establish rules of identification of a person with a view to levying this tax. This will mainly consist of state regulation of the crypto currency.

The authorities can only regulate the transactions by their citizens as regarding crypto currency but not regulating crypto currency in general.

Of course they can. They can always come up with laws restricting the usage or the operations of exchanges, however, there will always be a way to trade, it's just a matter of badassery.  ;D

Bitcoin is not so different from amphetamines, the government can always regulate but the trade can happen with them unaware. Law of supply and demand, dude.

I heard that there will be some news in Japan recently. I hope it is just a ban on ICO, and I don't want it to be bad news for the bitcoin market. I've invested 80% bitcoins in all my property. God bless me :-[

I think so. Governments can do that if they wish to. It is very easy for them because the reins of power in their country are in their own hands. Especially in the case of Chinese government and Russian government, which are basically authoritarian in its function, they can easily close and lock out and ban anything they want even if these are only found online. Even social media and blogging sites can be banned.

They can try, like as there were attempts to regulate and tax barter exchanges, but good luck.

no acturally!

Regulation simply means you have to follow the rules or face charges. It doesn't mean that the government has direct control and can do whatever they want - so they can actually create laws to regulate anything. The real question is whether those regulations would be successfully enforced to strongly discourage any unregulated use - and this is a very valid question for cryptocurrencies. To rephrase it - how many Bitcoin users would pay taxes, use licensed exchanges, follow any additional rules like providing their transactions logs, declaring cryptocurrency ownership when they cross borders and so on. Because it's very possible to avoid doing all this and still using Bitcoin just as those who comply with regulations.

Of course, they can regulate but not the whole crypto. Because they can say it and enforce it. You see, but what's inside is not as good as regulating what they can do. So they can not stop the crypto. Crypto revolutions will occur.

They can only regulate its use. They can't touch it otherwise. That's the beauty of decentralization. In a sense, it could be said that the government can control its citizens' actions to some degree using the law, but they can't control cryptocurrencies at all.

That being said, regulations can still affect cryptocurrencies significantly, given the fact that their value only really stems from demand. Overly restrictive regulations can dissuade, or even penalize citizens from getting into cryptocurrency, and lax regulations could make it attractive for them to invest. That means the bottom line is, they could regulate it to some degree, even with decentralization in play

Yes they can and it must be regulated in order to lessen the criminal and scamming activities done by this anonymous unlawful makers. The anonymous feature of the bitcoin is a great feature however it can abused by someone with bad intent and the countries must respond to this type of law violation in order to make the crypto transaction safe and sound. Regulatory measure to btc is different from total control to this currency.

Each country that offers to regulate cryptocurrencies exchange has their own right in their country to control it with their citizens and that's only that, they can't force people to use what they want as most of your said countries have a democratic kind of government so they are not really controlling their citizens just like what North Korea is implementing to its people. The only thing that this government can do to Bitcoin is to regulate and they can't totally destroy it even if they put a nuclear bomb to its developers.

It can't be helped. Icos are very risky since there are almost more scams than legitimate ones and china and russia are thinking about security. Studies definitely will be made and its likely that regulations will be implemented but they can't contain crypto usage i think

This guy gets it. You can hide your cryptos but you're at risk on exchanges.

They can regulate and the example is the USA , China in terms of ICOs which is good. regulations can eliminate scams, but hope no Government will ban all Crypto related activities

The transaction maybe they can overrule some of the terms there, we all know how the government works, but as for the overall bitcoin they could do something about because bitcoin is decentralized transactions meaning there is no ruler here in which they will find it difficult to find to find and control because our bitcoin is being by everyone who owns one.

Cryptocurrencies in general will be so broad in their application that attempts to regulate them as a whole will be overly broad, and hurt the countries that attempt it.

More specific regulations will not be seen as effective or beneficial because those will simply single out and impose losses on investors in a specific project, leading to them being overtaken by competitors. They also might be countered by a hard fork.

Trying to regulate bitcoin specifically will just lead to hard forks because the policy on the protocol is not flexible to be tampered with by governments.

Governments will be creating fiat on private permissioned blockchains (main ones not sidechains) and trying to sell them to you as cryptocurrency. They may not be able to fool you and me but they will fool the vast majority of people. Their objective will be to capture as much of the global market share as they can and stop the flight of money into true cryptocurrency.

The best thing we can do is to teach people about the threat of cyber warfare and how diversity of cryptocurrency and decentralization provides far greater safety than any government can.

Of course governments can regulate cryptocurrencies. If the government decides to put regulations on crypto coins there is no other way than to yield.
In fact they are already starting doing this. Look at China for example. Or at russia. They started implementing a krypto rubel.
Since the market cap of BTC, ETH, .. is rising constantly there will sooner or later be all regulated (if not made illegal).
I dont think we will pay with cash in the next 5-10 years. Crypto currencies are a good alternative. They have to get regulated.

Maybe sometime in the future when authurities can already figure out as what policies and laws are appropriate to cryptocurrencies. This would be advantegeous to us bitcoiners to prevent fraud and criminalities worldwide.

Highly depends on your definition of regulation. Right now, our own government is not actively interfering with any crypto-related trades and activities but just warned people about fraud and money laundering. Also, certain regulations such as AML and KYC has been ordered by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) to be followed by all crypto exchanges operating within the Philippine soil. It's a good start, and the government doesn't really want to halt all bitcoin-related transactions for now but just want their citizens to be aware of the dangers about using the currency.

I don't agree with you at all. Fraud and criminals will always exist in this world no matter what. What we must do is secure our wallets which will itself decrease theft crimes worldwide. When it comes to regulating the crypto world, many governments tried and failed. No government in this world can regulate bitcoin which is why it is a decentralized currency.

they only can try but they cannot succeed because crypto currencies are built on decentralized anonymity.

Sure they can or at least they can regulate Bitcoin being converted to fiat which I think will be good enough.

Well if its so I think it’s a good idea to make bitcoin regulate because first advantage of it is that the tax will be start and the rest of people who are not still going to join bitcoin and they think that bitcoin is fake or scam so it can give you hope so I think investors and traders can be increase with regularity of bitcoin and I think it will be regulate soon.

Generally speaking they cant regulate or shut down cryptos knowing that it isnt possible for them to control but somehow they do other diversion which they do focus on the things that which those cryptos being used.Like on ICO and Exhchangers,government can really go through it since people would really need to comply on the things which government do ask.This is the only way they can able to regulate but not fully on controlling it.

They are making decisions that prohibit it in their own country because of the unlawful use that makes it difficult for law to control it.

Fraud and criminalities always exist, but government can prevent it by releasing regulations regarding cryptocurrencies, atleast it's better than letting the cryptocurrencies world going wild?.
as for japan, they have already create a regulation regarding digital currency or to be said cryptocurrency. And by that, they already caught a scammer in japan that scamming so many people. So basically, their regulation is not useless.

At this point all that governments can do is shut down currency exchanges or impose their regulations upon which they must work.In this way all users must be verified by ID cards/passport and if governments know who they are then they will have to pay the tax.This way they regulate one part of problem,reducing the criminal activity to the lowest possible level.Also from next year in EU all not verified bitcoin cards will have only 200 EUR liftime limit,so only way to sell/buy bigger amounts BTC without discovering your identity is to to find the buyers / sellers in person.

This is just some moves they made so far,there should not be any doubt that this is not end of regulation regarding cryptocurrency.

I think they can pretty much can as bitcoin runs on the internet it has a network in which cou tries can block or ban or even put regualtions onthis for people to access. WHich might be bad or worse for some but this is for the government to ensure that wverything comes through them first.

Yes, they can regulate it to some extent but they have limitations.
Few already mentioned about these AML & KYC especially for local crypto exchanges.
You can't avoid that at some point when you need to encash your btc or altcoin to your fiat currency.
But, when it comes to investigations - like where do you get your bitcoin? How do you earn it?
Can they tax your earnings from sig/bounty campaigns? Like how do they do that?  ;D

Authorities can't regulate bitcoin (exapt china, i belive they can do somehing with their great firewall) but they are regulating the environment where it works. Imho thats what they do now. China is regulating it to clean some space for the national crypto (thats their typical protectionit behavior) while russia is trying to punish bitcoin users ( I don't belive that they will realy do something positive with btc).

yes it can and we need that because think if they abuse bitcoin like scam or something wrong it can be helpful in bitcoin user i think also in the future if some regulate bitcoin its more good and more trusted here ,if we have like that they can track every mining here to become legit because mining here is more on scam but i think in different country to regulate

What they can do is regulate gateways for cryptocurrency/fiat exchange. The banks are tightly regulated, and high volume P2P traders can be recognized by their online and banking activities. So regulators and 3-letter agencies lean on the exchanges and on Localbitcoin traders and things like that.

They can make it illegal, but how successful would that be? Gold was once banned in the US, but it did not stop people from using it. People hoarded it away, and the rest of the world continued to value it. I don't see why Bitcoin would be any different, barring some fundamental protocol flaw that couldn't be overcome. It'll be interesting to watch how the situation develops in countries where cryptocurrencies get banned. Apparently Algeria is on the verge of banning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, so that might be a situation to watch.

Ico are and always be part of crypto world, and as bitcoin there is no way to stop them, soo when the authorities are willing to legalizing them is to enforce the banks to take action into the transactions happening, not sure how easy is to find wich transaction will came from crypto, but well as China they are working into some way to avoid the dirty fiat money to enter into the ICO and return clean to the account of the investors.

I'm really curious: how you can ban any crypto-currency?
As governor, you will need to ban the whole internet access in the particular territory.
... and you could still buy quietly satelite internet access.....

If you do not going to ban the net, people can use VPN service to overcome the ban.
Wallets could travel on pendrives around the world.
How you can ban crypto?

China and Russia to me is not democratic States. In order to deal with bitcoin, users do not have to adhere to the laws. They can find other excuses to arrest users. I saw in Russia arrested people for what they are trading on the cryptocurrency exchange. They put the blame that they did not have a license and was skimming. Nonsense of course but people in prison.

they can, because they have resource, to legalize all and just need cooperation to do it.

Almost all of the countries might come up with their own version of crypto which will be heavily regulated and centralized with unlimited supply. They are shutting down ICO and bitcoin trading platforms so that they can launch their own centralized bitcoin wallet and trading platform where they can monitor every transaction going in and out of user's wallet as well as they can froze those bitcoin without any issue just like they used to froze bank account in the name of investigation.  

Regulated usage is possible to certain extent, above which the concern authorities can't restrict people in any other way. Because in the past few countries imposed ban on bitcoin, still the users from those countries continue to use it. Same will be happening with other cryptocurrencies.

They will surely do everything to keep their grip on their national economic system, and Bitcoin, by seeing the fact that people are adopting in a very fast manner, is threat for them. So now they have no choice but to regulate it and anything related to it. They will ban exchanges, they will threaten people that if they use if they will be behind the bars, and they will do a lot of such acts to stop people using cryptocurrencies and use fiat instead like the previous times when there was no concept of cryptocurrencies and everything was done using fiat while today we can see a lot of changes around us regarding this.

Yes they can and that is what they are doing and I think its all for the good and we are the ones that called them to the party. When you call an higher authority to the party, you should expect more than what you bargained for and this arises as a result of the several ICOs whose primary motive is to raise money then disappear into thin air. The moment the noise is much, blogs are carrying it, complains were made to the people in authority to do something about the retrieval of funds, you then expect a responsible government to take action because there is no one to make such report to in the crypto world.

The regulation effect is what we are seeing by some ICOs cancelling mid-way, those that are planning to start suspending till further notice, the ones even planning shelving the idea which gives enough time to be concentrated on those that can break the entire barrier into launching. The regulation is real and its cleaning up things.

Authorities are trying very hard to regulate the cryptocurrency but i think if they really can do it, they already did that. It's been almost a decade since the existence of bitcoin but until now it is decentralized and nobody is controling it though there were countries that banned it.They want to regulate cryptocurrencies but they can't find a way how to do it and they will never stop trying to find ways how to regulate it. And if they successfully regulate it I hope it's for the best.

I think, these countries are setting up their own controllers.  They have already has foretaste the value of bitcoins that is why they wanted it to be regulated.  they are passing a law to regulate its use and also imposed tax on transaction made with bitcoins.  So in so far as these countries are concerned, they wanted also to offer their initial coins offering to the public soon...

Of course cryptocurrencies can be regulated if not banned. Right now utility is less in cryptocurrencies. You have to convert them into fiat for any real use. When it get converted, regulations can kick in. You can hide your cryptos from government until it is on web and is hidden using TOR or using mixers. But as soon as you put that into bank which is connected to your account details, regulations can be easily carried out.

Its impossible to regulate bitcoin itself but the government can regulate the companies that resides in their country that uses or process bitcoins to cash or trading. But it will not stop unregulated transactions from happening since there are many ways to connect to the internet and foreign sites that process bitcoins to cash. And trading/using btc is very easy to do even if is are banned in a country you just need to use tor for that matter.

You are right. Countries can of course issue laws but 1st people have to follow them and countries know that. So countries will regulate businesses first. Look at China - they only "banned" certain company actions. The Chinese govt is smart enough to know they can't "ban" Bitcoin or stop peer to peer transactions.

I guess decentralized exchanges will start getting more and more popular soon.

Yes they can. When you say authorities, it refers to the government itself. A government is in charge for anything that concerns the country. When bitcoin is introduced, the use of banks are nearly questioned. In which bitcoin is spreading in the whole country helping the citizens not use banks. It affects the economic status that's is why they are eager to put bitcoin under them.

Authorities can possibly regulate crypto-currencies because most countries are running under by the government. They have the power to control everything they wanted, and when it is already declared; pity people can only do protests. But I don’t like it to happen, we have freedom on how we use and spend our coins.

I think there is a chance for the government to regulate bitcoin if they will pursue control over it but it will need to be supported by other countries because bitcoin is a global currency if it will be regulated it must be world wide and not for a particular country only.

I can see why some of these governments could have a problem with these unregulated ICOs, but a Ban was a bit overkill. In

a proper regulated environment, some ICOs will thrive and bring loads of innovation and new jobs to the market. In a

unregulated environment, we have a mess. {for every 10 legit ICOs, we seem to have 5 Scams at the moment} These

governments have a duty to protect the consumer and their tool to protect them, is to regulate them.  ::)

Authorities have the power to legalized or ban cryptocurrency in their country. They must first learn about cryptocurrency and the effects of it in their economy. They might see that cryptocurrency can help their economy grow and start education on universities about the use of cryptocurrency. They must teach them on how to use them properly and not abuse cryptocurrency. The authorities must also regulate on how to use cryptocurrency and set rules about it.

I don't think authorities can ever fully regulate everything. If you making money with crypto and they conserned about tax this changes nothing. Before Bitcoin there were ways to make money and not pay tax but the government would still legally want that money but it never becomes big enough a problem. For example if you see clothes for people as another source of income you not going to go and declare that, that is the same as the profits with Bitcoin would work.

Crypto is here to stay.  ICO's have been banned in some countries but there are already solutions stepping up to counter that, like the Komodo decentralized ICO platform. I'm sure there will be more like it popping up. 

Authorities can regulate it sure, but how will they do it and how successful will they be at convincing people that understand the tech better than them. You can't slow down a decentralized computer network, sorry.

Of course they can control it but only to a certain extent: they can decide what companies can or can't do legally, they can decide which websites (exchanges, pages of projects, whitepapers etc) are visible on the web and which websites stay out of reach for a person of that nation, they can make sure you pay taxes on your assets. BUT what they can't do is find your secret hidden wallets. I also don't think they can stop someone who really wants to buy any altcoins any time from doing so if the person really knows how to use computers.