In fact if a single state out of 50 decides not to regulate that could be enough.
Sadly it isn't. BitSimple for example is incorporated in SC however prior legal battles have been fought over the fact that many states statutes indicate that even if your company is NOT in the state (or even in these United States) that if you offer your services to residents of that state you are required to be licensed. One could certainly argue this interferes with interstate commerce but so far the states have won this battle. Are you willing to risk your freedom and net worth on winning that battle? If the state wins, your life is over, if you win the state says "ok" and you are still stuck with the massive legal bill.
This is why the current system is so burdensome.
It isn't getting regulated in one state, it is getting regulated by 50+ regulators in all the states, each of which may change the laws, regulations, and procedures on any particular day. Keeping track of the forms, procedures, requirements, and current statutes of one state is a challenge, now multiply that by fifty.
But it doesn't stop there. The biggest issue is the "unknown". There is a lot of regulatory uncertainty right now. No bitcoin exchange has a money transmitter license in NY, are they breaking the law? On advice of counsel, we have voluntarily chosen to not do business with residents of NY due to the fact that NY could say we are operating an unlicensed money transmission business "in" NY although the company, all its servers, asseets, and employees are hundreds of miles away. However at least NY has spoken out, that provides us some information. Most states are an opaque unknown having not said a single word on the applicability of existing statutes to virtual currency exchangers. Hell the basic definitions of money, currency, and transmission aren't even the same from states to states. Some states don't even define the words. Kinda hard to believe you can have a law about "money transmission" and not define "money" or "transmission". I guess that means the law can be whatever the state wants it to be, whenever they want it to be. Of course you could always fight them in court. A legal team will tell you the costs will run into the six figures pretty quick. So if your company just raised a million dollars you ready to potentially flush a quarter of it down the drain to fight one state in court. Even if you win, what about the other 49?
The following hyperbolic example is to illustrate a point which don't necessarily reflect reality and shouldn't be taken as legal advice. NY may says explicitly you need to be licensed, FL has made no such statements but has arrested suspects for running an unlicensed MSB (even after the arrest there have been no statements), the law in PA might not ever apply to virtual currency even if regulators want it to due to the way it is worded, the same thing could be true in MO, but your company is unaware that right now they have an bill being voted on which will change the regulatory scope, CA issues a cease and desist against the Bitcoin foundation a year ago and then there is no followup (were they right or wrong? I guess you can spend another quarter million and sue them to find out), etc, etc, etc, <insert another 40+ etcs here>.
Starting to see the issue?
The "meta-problem" is regulators often write regulations for large cap companies. Companies which can spend $10M a year on legal and compliance and it amounts to 1% of revenue. In the Senate hearing the regulator even shared a story about a small upstate local town bank which complained they had MORE EMPLOYEES WORKING ON COMPLIANCE than all other employees combined. The shocking thing is although he seemed to share sympathy the regulatory burden hasn't gotten any lighter. So it is almost like the attitude is "wow, that is bad. I have no idea how they can even stay in business. ok lets see what other regulations we can pass today". I mean it is a head asplode disconnect between the needs of small business and the burden being imposed on them.
On edit: Reading this now makes me sound like I think the world is over, it isn't. I am optimistic this will eventually be resolved, or the US will simply fall behind other nations where regulation is at least coherent, and compliance is possible for a company with less than a twenty man compliance & legal team. Bitcoin is the honey badger of money, it doesn't care. If the system is broken it will find a way to route around the damaged parts.
What I'm concerned about is anyone looking to extend regulation to anything other than exchanges which makes no sense.
The good news is AFAIK no regulator anywhere at any level is talking about regulating entities which don't exchange virtual currency for real currency. So far they all seem to see a company accepting Bitcoins is no more a regulated activity than a company accepting credit cards.