Due to recent events, apparently this guide is still relevant.
Something that we thought could happen only in dystopian realities, or in dictatorships, is actually happening on a western, supposedly civilised democracy.
These short term set backs can be helpful towards focusing all of us on potential issues that have moved beyond potentiality and into actual practice of some govt. entities.
Sure, the strength of seemingly draconian measures could scare some folks away from bitcoin, but I am sure that others are inspired to both develop and attempt to use the kinds of tools and wallets that help to cause difficulties for any third parties, whether governments, financial institutions or potential private actors from abilities to monitor, to freeze or to scare holders from being able to use their funds in ways that they deem appropriate - and for sure there are a large number of instances in which there are going to be differences of opinions regarding whether some kind of activity is legal or illegal or rising to the level of something like terrorism or jeopardizing national security - even if some government might have labeled activities in those kinds of aggressive (and sometimes seemingly desperate) ways.
For sure, I am not personally anti-government because I believe that there are several public interests matters that go beyond mere national security in which having governments is useful - especially since I do not believe that people are going to sufficiently contribute towards such projects on a voluntary basis (even if individuals say they will or even if various theories suggest they will), but history is replete with examples of various govt entities engaging in quite questionable activities that seem to go quite contrary to the public interest and then getting shown for what they were doing and then going after the whistle blower with quite strong vengeance...
Abilities to fund potentially controversial project and abilities to use funds in potentially controversial ways can be threatening.. and we are not always going to agree on those kinds of ways to fund.. .and of course, in the case of bitcoin, many of us are quite skeptical of various governments and status quo financial institutions and maybe even some of the status quo rich (whether individuals or companies) who have already shown a lot of irresponsibilities (and self-interest and narrow interest) in terms of their engaging in various bad practices when it comes to money - and even if we might not concede that individuals should be able to engage in "evil" uses of their money, there money still can be one of those tools that can be used to battle the various evils of status quo rich that is otherwise likely to get worse and worse if gone unchecked.
Maybe some of the recent events with the freezing and blacklisting of accounts/addresses is going to inspire some of us in terms of what measures/actions we take?...
