Forbes: "USA Is Worried About Bitcoin And It’s Finally Doing Something About It"

[the_poet]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

[AjithBtc]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

It is good to brief the information provided in the article and tag the link as the reference source. Anyhow there is more and more adoption of bitcoin all around the world. When it comes to USA, the growth level is high and now a supportive news has come out stating that the USA government is planning to provide tax free investment with bitcoin. To what extent this is gonna be true need to be analysed.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

"There are many advantages for U.S. national security to have the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency," the job post, which has a deadline of the February 28, read, pointing to the combat of financial crimes, the prevention of terrorism and the development of weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the U.S. to sanction other countries, cause financial instability in global markets.

That's all well and good, but bitcoin isn't going to threaten the US dollar.  It's been more of an investment than a currency since its inception; it's global; and the US dollar is waaay too dominant to be replaced by bitcoin.  This is a bunch of propaganda BS, nothing more.  The US government should be ashamed of itself for a lot of things, but it really irritates me when politicians and bureaucrats spout nonsense like this.

OP, even though I hate what was said in that article, thanks for posting the link to it.

[AGD]

Soon they'll find out what even newbies in this forum already know: that a decentralized structure is very hard to fight. 

[stompix]

Looks like things are getting serious...

Serious? What's that "serious"?

U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in a job listing earlier this month, calling for two researchers to evaluate the impact of the U.S. dollar losing its status as the world reserve currency.
https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/ICPD-2020-02

They've asked for two researchers to write a paper on :

Evaluating the Impact of U.S. Dollar Losing its Status as World Reserve Currency

And it means they are getting "serious" ?

Here is one from 4 years ago:

The technologies offer great benefits yet pose potential security problems or unintended ethical consequences.  A large number of these emerging technologies are potentially open to compromise or attack by outside entities, which may lead to unplanned results if acquired by persons with nefarious intent.  The goal of this effort is to determine what vulnerabilities exist within emerging technologies, and how the technology user can guard against these or other vulnerabilities.  Tools and techniques may also be developed to examine vulnerabilities.

Various emerging technologies of interest include, but are not limited to:
Cryptocurrencies

Another one 2017:
https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/IC-17-09

There are hundreds of those studies, nobody is getting "serious"!
The only one with a "serious" problem is Tom Bombadil Billy Bambrough who as a contributor must write an article every day for Forbes to get his paycheck, no matter how stupid the theme is
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/#c281b796a896

[gentlemand]

Much of the world would love to get rid of American influence. It hasn't exactly benefited many other countries.

They should be looking at attempts to unseat them with other fiat currencies and if they can't figure out that driving Bitcoin out into other countries could wind up nailing them up the botty too then they're even stupider than they look.

[bittraffic]

Now, the U.S. has admitted bitcoin and cryptocurrency could undermine the dollar's status as the world’s reserve currency—and it wants to find out exactly how bad for the country, its economy, and security that could be.

BTC can be a world reserve currency too.

Its best to just let BTC alone though after all its just made out of thin air as Trump said.  There isn't really much things are to be done with BTC because its borderless. Countries had banned it years ago but had still made it to their country. So whats there to be serious is to accept BTC after all they had already started collecting taxes from its investors and holders.

[squatter]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

Keep in mind, this is not a real Forbes article. It's part of their "contributor" network and comes with a disclaimer:

Opinions expressed by Forbes contributors are their own.

As stompix pointed out, it's just a clickbait title. Not only is this small research project about the US Dollar's reserve currency status -- not Bitcoin -- but if you look at the listing, this is the only mention of either "bitcoin" or "cryptocurrency":

Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts predict that either a global cryptocurrency or a national digital currency could undermine the U.S. dollar.

That doesn't imply anything about what the US government thinks, just cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

[Maebeo2017]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

It is good to brief the information provided in the article and tag the link as the reference source. Anyhow there is more and more adoption of bitcoin all around the world. When it comes to USA, the growth level is high and now a supportive news has come out stating that the USA government is planning to provide tax free investment with bitcoin. To what extent this is gonna be true need to be analysed.

I don't think the USA is ever going to come out to support BTC with all their chest. it threatens one of their biggest streams of income which is TAX. really don't know how they are going to manage their investment appetite over there but bitcoin mining or investments won't be allowed for a very long time

[palle11]

Soon they'll find out what even newbies in this forum already know: that a decentralized structure is very hard to fight. 

I wonder how that can be possible. The structure of bitcoin makes it difficult to be made rule on whether universal or unilateral. We are expecting some outcome but seriously, I think regulating exchanges will do more good.

[coincruncher1982]

Soon they'll find out what even newbies in this forum already know: that a decentralized structure is very hard to fight. 

haha exactly. The best part about bitcoin is the US government or any other government can't steal it from you via civil forfeiture like they can with a bank account as long as you are the only holder of the private key.

[20kevin20]

Soon they'll find out what even newbies in this forum already know: that a decentralized structure is very hard to fight. 

They're gonna fight it through regulation. Pretty easy to introduce some new highly unfavorable regulations for crypto and make a ton of people leave the markets. We already are in a fight against them.

I fear the same thing happening to Gold regulation in Europe is going to happen to Bitcoin too. Right now you cannot buy gold worth over €10k in some countries without your name popping up on the AML suspects list. And the limits are only decreasing.

Moreover, I'm not sure if this is the case for all stores, but some of them have noticed their customers that if the accumulated sum of all your orders exceeds €10k, they'll have to notice the authorities.

That's just outrageous. I expect, however, similar regulations to happen to Bitcoin sooner than expected.

[pooya87]

i seriously doubt it is anything serious

it seems to me that it is just US government being more and more afraid every day that US dollar is getting farther and farther away from being world reserve currency. and their concerns have very little to do with bitcoin since there are dozens of other serious issues that US dollar is facing which is decreasing its power all around the globe.

[davis196]

The Bitcoin price is a little bit above 10K USD and the "FUD Army" has been awaken again.I was expecting this  to happen again.The same old "bitcoin is bad because it helps money laundering and terrorism funding,bla bla.." type of BS.The USA is an empire and the US dollar is the main tool to sustain that imperial domination.Bitcoin isn't even close to be a threat for the US dollar and some people even promote the conspiracy theory that NSA/CIA have created Bitcoin.The author of this article is delusional.

[Mulann2]

Looking for a way to yet bring the market down, as far as usa is concern, everything is a threat to their economy or national security, how is btc that is hardly use for any serious transaction a threat to dollar, i guess they must be speaking against what could happen in the far future,
if they are doing something to erase btc from the surface of the earth, i can't wait to what that is it must suck to be losing control

[buwaytress]

That's all well and good, but bitcoin isn't going to threaten the US dollar.  It's been more of an investment than a currency since its inception; it's global; and the US dollar is waaay too dominant to be replaced by bitcoin.  This is a bunch of propaganda BS, nothing more.  The US government should be ashamed of itself for a lot of things, but it really irritates me when politicians and bureaucrats spout nonsense like this.

OP, even though I hate what was said in that article, thanks for posting the link to it.

It's almost the same argument people use that I disagree with. They say fiat and economies will crumble, and Bitcoin will be supreme. But for as long as people still need to live and eat in relatively low tech worlds, Bitcoin won't displace fiat, it will rely on each other for a while to come.

It's definitely more of an investment we don't even need to look at hard numbers. Circumstantial and observational evidence points this all out if we care to pay attention and even use our own activities as yardsticks!

[dothebeats]

It's quite crazy to think that we live in a world wherein the ones who run the rules are the ones who knew nothing--or very little--with the very rules they are imposing. We all know the hype about bitcoin, and even the laymen know what it is, so it's just hard to comprehend that even people with high government positions are cramming to get a 'solution' or an 'answer' to bitcoin's growing audience.

The two roles, looking for a postdoc Ph.D. graduate and a U.S. university or government laboratory employee research assistant..

And they even want to hire people with such credentials that may not even know the impact of bitcoin in the world's economy! These people are trained on classical economics, not so much about the contemporaries and disruptive Fintechs like bitcoin, so why the hell are they looking to deep on the said matter? ^{For formality and good use of taxpayer's money, I know but..}

It's almost the same argument people use that I disagree with. They say fiat and economies will crumble, and Bitcoin will be supreme. But for as long as people still need to live and eat in relatively low tech worlds, Bitcoin won't displace fiat, it will rely on each other for a while to come.

They are disregarding the fact that there are still countries that are relatively poor and does not have the technological capabilities you can see on developing and first world countries. They are pretty much just being swayed solely by the statistics without looking at it on a minute scale.

It seems like most of them skipped a class or two of microeconomics and focused solely on the larger sense of things, which is the first step towards oversight and failed planning.

That's all well and good, but bitcoin isn't going to threaten the US dollar.  It's been more of an investment than a currency since its inception; it's global; and the US dollar is waaay too dominant to be replaced by bitcoin.

If currency giants such as the EU and CNY cannot deal with the power of the USD for decades, how capable is bitcoin in overtaking perhaps the most important currency there is currently (just because everyone and their mothers is using it)?

[articul33t]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

good news specially for this complicated field which is carrying a lot of secrets and I think that the professional investors are looking for a good deal of bitcoin in USA and this is pretty cool chances for them.

I think that bitcoin is supported by such high investors. Businessmens or any "richy" people... It's main investors for btc.

[kryptqnick]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

Keep in mind, this is not a real Forbes article. It's part of their "contributor" network and comes with a disclaimer:

Opinions expressed by Forbes contributors are their own.

As stompix pointed out, it's just a clickbait title. Not only is this small research project about the US Dollar's reserve currency status -- not Bitcoin -- but if you look at the listing, this is the only mention of either "bitcoin" or "cryptocurrency":

Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts predict that either a global cryptocurrency or a national digital currency could undermine the U.S. dollar.

That doesn't imply anything about what the US government thinks, just cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Thanks for mentioning, I did not notice that at first. So it's an opinion article, the one that does not reflect the official opinion of Forbes. Moreover, it's just based on a job listing, nothing big. Would not it be irresponsible to put the fate of something very important in the hands of two researchers? As the US is not the country that tends to make risky decisions, especially when it comes to money, it probably means that this research, even if it finds that cryptos possess a serious threat to the dollar's dominance, it would not be decisive when it comes to policy-making. At least, that's what I hope for.

[South Park]

Soon they'll find out what even newbies in this forum already know: that a decentralized structure is very hard to fight. 

I wonder how that can be possible. The structure of bitcoin makes it difficult to be made rule on whether universal or unilateral. We are expecting some outcome but seriously, I think regulating exchanges will do more good.

Governments realized long time ago they need to control their side of the equation, that is why you need to go through KYC if you want to convert your BTC to fiat in all centralized exchanges, this has slowed down bitcoin, but what are they going to do when the adoption of bitcoin gets to the point people begin to accept bitcoin directly? That is when bitcoin will be unstoppable, at that point most likely they will try to regulate every single business and how they accept bitcoin payments but I do not think it is going to be a very effective measure.

[BTCjokes]

if they are doing something to erase btc from the surface of the earth, i can't wait to what that is

''White House Earmarks New Money for A.I. and Quantum Computing''
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/technology/white-house-earmarks-new-money-for-ai-and-quantum-computing.html
''Quantum computing could end encryption within five years, says Google boss''
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/01/22/googles-sundar-pichai-quantum-computing-could-end-encryption/
 

[fiulpro]

Funny thing we just had articles telling how it is the US who made the bitcoins , the US intelligence tried to infiltrate the government of different countries and the name Satoshi Nakamoto is actually what that group used .
Now I do think we can safely say that they didn't do that , because it is completely contradicting so , I think at least this makes some things clear .
At the same time I do not think that it would actually affect the Relationship of US with bitcoins because the people who are already in it , they will try to use bitcoins one way or the other which would be even more problematic.
It's just Minor norms that's completely fine.

Or..

They actually created it and now they are doing their plan ✓B , where they are supposed to implement KYC and get the identity of people for themselves , who knows?

Governments are Weird.

[Rengga Jati]

-snip- bitcoin isn't going to threaten the US dollar.  It's been more of an investment than a currency since its inception; it's global; and the US dollar is waaay too dominant to be replaced by bitcoin. -snip-

I agree with you, sir. So far, Bitcoin stays as a digital investment and not be a global currency. So, it doesn't make sense if Bitcoin can replace the US dollar in the near future. US government shouldn't worry about this because they know that the US dollar still becomes the world's global currency and seems hard to replace. If they spread the news "worry about Bitcoin", we can suspect that they want to make people think about the disadvantage of Bitcoin. And finally, hate the existence of Bitcoin.   

[Hydrogen]

Bitcoin provides competition to the US dollar.

This in turn provides incentive for central banks and legislators to do a better job managing budgets, debt and money.

Bitcoin is a WIN/WIN scenario for everyone!

What the US dollar does not need is protectionism and isolationism from new ideas and progress that cryptocurrencies to some degree, represent.

Also it should be mentioned that both china and russia have adopted powerful de-dollarization monetary strategies over the last few years which greatly threaten the "dominance" of the US dollar, with virtually zero concern over those developments from either politicians or the media. So why should they be concerned now. It makes no sense.

Their job as creators of monetary policy is to normalize the capital welfare and stability of the people they serve. Said public benefits from having greater financial and economic options, like bitcoin. Thus favortism towards those things is what they should support and pursue.

[hatshepsut93]

I've read the whole article and still have no idea "what" exactly the US is planning to do about Bitcoin. So I guess there's nothing significant actually happening, and this is yet another case of smoke without fire. And people who think that Bitcoin or national stablecoin will undermine the US dollar don't understand economics - the US dollar is a dominant currency because the US' economy is huge. So either US economy has to crash, or its competitors have to grow to the same level in order to replace the dollar.

[Swordsoffreedom]

I've read the whole article and still have no idea "what" exactly the US is planning to do about Bitcoin. So I guess there's nothing significant actually happening, and this is yet another case of smoke without fire. And people who think that Bitcoin or national stablecoin will undermine the US dollar don't understand economics - the US dollar is a dominant currency because the US' economy is huge. So either US economy has to crash, or its competitors have to grow to the same level in order to replace the dollar.

I think that many of the countries want to get rid of the American influence on the economy of the world. They might be afraid of the fact that bitcoins might replace dollars as the reserve currency of the world, which in reality has a chance of being the actual truth. But if most of the countries of the world start to support bitcoins, this prominent role of America won't last long.

[Abiky]

I don't think that the US would be worried about Bitcoin that much, since Bitcoin is not as stable as the United States Dollar is. I believe this is just an excuse from the government to begin cracking down on Bitcoin and crypto as we know them. After all, they're convinced that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used for money laundering and tax evasion. While we all know that criminals use Fiat more thoroughly for this than Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, the US government doesn't care. All it wants is to have supremacy over the world with the United States Dollar as its reserve currency. The US is a "little afraid" that Bitcoin could take down on the existent financial system as we know it.

The truth is that Fiat is (and will always be) in the lead of our economic system because it's backed by the full faith and credit of the government. Since Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies don't rely on a central authority, they're "less trusted" among everyday people. The USD will continue to reign supreme until another Fiat currency takes its place sometime in the future (which I doubt it will ever happen). The recent popularity of crypto and Blockchain technology will pave the way for government-issued digital currencies within the mainstream world. The US and other countries will have no choice but to transition from physical cash to digital cash in the future, in order to prevent crypto from "replacing" the world's economic system as we know it.

In the end, I believe that the US will launch its digital version of the USD while other countries will follow. Bitcoin will still remain alive as an alternative to Fiat, but its prominence will not be that much within the mainstream world because of the emergence of government-issued digital currencies. At least, people will still have a decentralized financial system to use. But in no way, decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum will replace government-issued currencies. The US and other countries might try to shut down Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but they'll be unable to do so because of their decentralization/censorship-resistance. Both digital Fiat and crypto will live in harmony for many generations. Just my thoughts

[BlackFor3st]

Looks like things are getting serious...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/02/18/the-us-is-very-worried-about-bitcoinand-its-finally-doing-something-about-it/

Let's just hope that this move will not affect that much to the bitcoin and to the market as a whole so we can still focus in making bitcoin popular by advertising it more.

Even if US will create a rules to either prevent or totally banned bitcoin in their country, I am sure that there will be more countries to adapt bitcoin or crypto currencies in the future. And the most important, let's just hope that their action will be delayed so there will be no hurdles for bull to show up this year 2020.