Haven't watched the live broadcast, but I do feel like pools will bite the dust.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

As Bitcoin goes more and more mainstream, I am sure that the U.S Govt will probably target the larger pools, for instance to make them comply to some law, and who knows, may even make pools force users to verify via AMC/KYC. I don't have anything to back this up, however it makes sense. While a pool is composed of many users, it is the pool owner who controls what happens with the hashing power in the end. And since pools create bitcoins which is essentially like printing money, I can see how they might be dealt a blow.

[Carlton Banks]

This will increase the running costs to US based pools, people will move their mining overseas. If that got targeted (it would be a nightmare to enforce, but for arguments sake...), p2pool would suddenly become more popular. p2pool has already experienced an effect like this, when the big pools experienced mass DOS attacks a month or two ago. People just switched to p2pool so they could keep mining without getting harassed.

[Rez]

This will increase the running costs to US based pools, people will move their mining overseas. If that got targeted (it would be a nightmare to enforce, but for arguments sake...), p2pool would suddenly become more popular. p2pool has already experienced an effect like this, when the big pools experienced mass DOS attacks a month or two ago. People just switched to p2pool so they could keep mining without getting harassed.

And most Americans will increasingly get pushed out/excluded from pooled mining and the slide of the US into increasing technological/financial irrelevance will continue.

[crazy_rabbit]

This will increase the running costs to US based pools, people will move their mining overseas. If that got targeted (it would be a nightmare to enforce, but for arguments sake...), p2pool would suddenly become more popular. p2pool has already experienced an effect like this, when the big pools experienced mass DOS attacks a month or two ago. People just switched to p2pool so they could keep mining without getting harassed.

+1

P2Pool makes targeting the pools irrelevant.