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February 11, 2018, 07:05:31 PM |
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Alright. So this topic might be controversial.
It is clear that the philosophy underlying bitcoin of being a currency for P2P transactions without the need for a central authority goes counter to traditional governance mechanism, and thus regulations in general.
However, the criticism put forward against bitcoin (and the crypto universe), of supporting tax evasion, money laundring, and payments for criminal activities are fair and cannot be simply talked away. Indeed, I strongly believe that this "feature" of bitcoin also is it's achilles heel and prevents more serious, mainstream adoption in the real economy.
Whereas nation states think about regulation only from the perspective of their own jurisdictions, and those regulations with regards to bitcoin are mostly black-and-white (allow / don't allow), or force regulation on "exit points" from the bitcoin network (in particular exchanges), I wonder whether it would be possible to introduce another form of "regulation" which is more reasonable and more aligned to the way bitcoin operates.
How could for instance a (system specific) self-regulating mechanism be implemented either on the technology level, or at the process level in order to avoid tax evasion and criminal activities?
Or are there means to combine self-declaration and incentives, similar to gaining bitcoins when solving crypto-puzzles in mining?
Or how about a supra-national, self-governed organization as practiced for instance in open-source projects that in one way or another could address terrorist and criminal financing?
I don't have answer myself, but am wondering what views are out there and whether we, as a community, could come up with something that national regulators fail to solve but want to address.
(If you like my post, just click +Merit on the right. It will be appreciated)
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