Why are some government scared of Bitcoin?

[jokers10]

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People can use bitcoin to avoid taxes if they don't report the transactions to the gov, and that's why most countries don't want to make it a legal trend.
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People can use cash (national currency) to avoid taxes as well, but governments usually don't stop minting it. Many countries treat citizens like honest people and ask them to pay taxes from cryptocurrencies operating and I haven't heard they are dissatisfied with that. So I guess it is the problem with the government if it bases on idea that citizens don't believe it will spend money wise and that they don't trust it.

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[dezoel]

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People can use bitcoin to avoid taxes if they don't report the transactions to the gov, and that's why most countries don't want to make it a legal trend.
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People can use cash (national currency) to avoid taxes as well, but governments usually don't stop minting it. Many countries treat citizens like honest people and ask them to pay taxes from cryptocurrencies operating and I haven't heard they are dissatisfied with that. So I guess it is the problem with the government if it bases on idea that citizens don't believe it will spend money wise and that they don't trust it.

I would guess that cash would be limited because in most places you can't really get cash directly, like almost no workers would get cash, in my nation it is even illegal to pay salaries in cash, you have to put it in the bank.

It means that cash is a limited thing to get, it's a ton on excel sheets, if you look at it we have a lot of cash, but how much cash a regular person carries? All of that is just in the vaults of some banks and that's it. I am guessing that the point of the current situation is to make sure people do not hide their wealth, and not the wealthy, they just take their wealth to another nation, and hide their wealth, they do it for all of us that do not have that chance.

[panganib999]

Making Bitcoin a legal tender means when a person goes to purchase a commodity, instead of paying with dollar or whatever currency is being used, they pay with BTC.

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Recently, El Salvador and Central African Republic announced that they have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Because it is decentralized, meaning it can freely do whatever it wants without the prying eyes of the government, side effect of this is the fact that is untaxable, meaning you until you convert your bitcoins into fiat, the government will not have the means and the abilities to tax you no matter how they push for it. At the end of the day, global adoption doesn't necessarily have to involve your national government lifting any promoting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for that matter. Global adoption just means that cryptocurrency is so beginner-friendly, less hostile, and easily accessible that virtually everyone could have and would have it alongside their fiat if fiat is still around by that time, so the case for whether it would be wise for countries to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender is a little on the nose and irrelevant at the same time when you take these factors in consideration.

[jokers10]

I would guess that cash would be limited because in most places you can't really get cash directly, like almost no workers would get cash, in my nation it is even illegal to pay salaries in cash, you have to put it in the bank.

It means that cash is a limited thing to get, it's a ton on excel sheets, if you look at it we have a lot of cash, but how much cash a regular person carries? All of that is just in the vaults of some banks and that's it. I am guessing that the point of the current situation is to make sure people do not hide their wealth, and not the wealthy, they just take their wealth to another nation, and hide their wealth, they do it for all of us that do not have that chance.

There are multiple ways to control monetary and commodity flows in the country government can use. As for salary the employers can be made to report exact transaction hashes when they are paying in cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's blockchain is transparent so it is even easier to control transactions inside it than to control paper money movements. So governments can be worried about something, but in fact this will say that they are just not aware about how things are running.

[adzino]

Making Bitcoin a legal tender means when a person goes to purchase a commodity, instead of paying with dollar or whatever currency is being used, they pay with BTC.

If bitcoin is legal in your country, you can still use bitcoin to make transactions and purchase commodity legally. It doesn't have to be a legal tender for merchants to accept bitcoin but they can also decline if you pay them with bitcoin. But if it becomes a legal tender, than a merchant must accept bitcoin when it is offered as a form of payment.

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Bitcoin is unstable, but much more stable compared to other altcoins. But you are wrong here if you think bitcoin is untraceable in nature. Bitcoin isn't anonymous. It is pseudonymous and can always be traced back to you.

Recently, El Salvador and Central African Republic announced that they have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

They already did. El Savador was the first country to make bitcoin a legal tender.

[worle1bm]

Government control the monetary system of the nation and if you have other alternative on which they don't have control and you are provided with complete financial freedom would they not fear it? This is why they put ban on bitcoin usage and put forward all fasle claims on btc so that people also fear it and don't use it and they have control in their hands.

[Mauser]

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender in a country is one, relying on it as your main currency to function your economy is something completely different. At the moment Bitcoin is not ready to function as the world reserve currency where everybody could trade with each other without many limitations. On paper it would be a big step forward to make international money transfers more efficient, but the Bitcoin price is too volatile at the moment. I can also understand why governments are so reluctant to adopt Bitcoins as their new legal tender. Having Bitcoin as the new currency in a country means to give up a lot of freedom for it's financial and monetary policies. Politicians all live in the moment and only worry about the next election. For them it is important to have full control over the money supply. Whenever politicians need money they can print more of it and increase the debt of the country. With bitcoins this is not going to be as easy, politicians will have to be more responsible with their budget and can't spend as much as they like. It doesn't seem realistic that politicians would vote to change the system in such a way.

[Kakmakr]

In many countries ... governments determine the "value" of local Fiat currencies. They manipulate the data to calculate the buying power of the currencies, dependent on what their agenda is. They do that by for example printing more or less Fiat currencies or even loading the inflation basket.

The agenda might be to lower inflation to boost their political power or to straighten their Fiat currency against other Fiat currencies for imports and exports.

So they want full "control" over the manipulation of their local currencies, because it gives them power. They do not have that power over Bitcoin, because the price is determined by global Supply & Demand. 

[Lida93]

Making Bitcoin a legal tender means when a person goes to purchase a commodity, instead of paying with dollar or whatever currency is being used, they pay with BTC.

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Recently, El Salvador and Central African Republic announced that they have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Every government  be it military or democratic enjoys monopoly of control of both economic and political affairs in their territory and they feel threatened when any system comes in that takes them out of control and regulations keeping them oblivious of it's operations.  Apart from that even countries that have it in mind to adopt cryptocurrency as a legal tender finds it difficult to do so due to the volatility of the currency and unlike paper money there might be incongruent match in the price of commodities with the value of the cryptocurrency.

For example, we all aware that within a split seconds the value of a coin can fall very low and in the next minutes rise and fall below average, now how do the average market woman across the street manage to align this together. No doubt cryptocurrency is a great way out of so much interference by the government into private financial life of people and adopting it won't be a bad idea but there are issues that need be attended to in adopting it.

[GreatArkansas]

Government control the monetary system of the nation and if you have other alternative on which they don't have control and you are provided with complete financial freedom would they not fear it? This is why they put ban on bitcoin usage and put forward all fasle claims on btc so that people also fear it and don't use it and they have control in their hands.

It's just sad that these governments can't control Bitcoin, it's not how Bitcoin was created. I believe soon these banks will just fully embrace Bitcoin. It's like, "if you can't beat them, join them".
Bitcoin was also created because of the current problem we have with traditional finance. Because you can have your own bank just in your pocket. And banks or governments hate it.

Another thing why the government is scared of Bitcoin is because there are a lot of people using Bitcoin for scams, fraud, or any criminal activities.

[AicecreaME]

Corrupt government are the one's who are scared in Bitcoin, since they want control in anything to steal money as much as possible to satisfy their greed. Until now, they still don't know how they will put a tax on it, that's why Bitcoin is hot on their radar. The other factor I think that makes them afraid of it is the volatility, imagine them investing so much fiat on it on an ATH price range then suddenly it dumps up to 70%, that'll make them insane thinking they already lost their "money".

[Hypnosis00]

Corrupt government are the one's who are scared in Bitcoin, since they want control in anything to steal money as much as possible to satisfy their greed. Until now, they still don't know how they will put a tax on it, that's why Bitcoin is hot on their radar. The other factor I think that makes them afraid of it is the volatility, imagine them investing so much fiat on it on an ATH price range then suddenly it dumps up to 70%, that'll make them insane thinking they already lost their "money".

Good thing that Bitcoin is designed like that otherwise, these corrupt leaders are now giving headache to us.
That is why they are implementing strict regulations to discourage people from using this and making their way back to using fiat again. It was really disappointing how they respond to the needs of the people, yet they are still prioritizing their own and despite the global economic crisis, corruption and stealing are still on their minds.

Corruption was now considered as an untreatable disease...even at a young age has already idea because that is what they see around them.

[ven7net]

Making Bitcoin a legal tender means when a person goes to purchase a commodity, instead of paying with dollar or whatever currency is being used, they pay with BTC.

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Recently, El Salvador and Central African Republic announced that they have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

I would not say that countries are afraid of Bitcoin, on the contrary, I believe that in the current situation that has developed in the world, the use of Bitcoin as a means of payment could facilitate the possibility of trade between countries. However, there are some concerns, for example, that the price of Bitcoin is too volatile, which means that if this nuance is resolved, then many countries will use Bitcoin.

[YOSHIE]

Countries are not afraid of Bitcoin, it's just that every country has rules of the game regarding currency issues that they apply to buying/selling transactions, the government owns the people, of course they need accountability for all forms of income and expenses publicly so that their people know that the government is honest and fair to its people.

You know Bitcoin does not have legal owners, managers and physical, not the same as fiat money in general, Bitcoin has a high value when making transactions, what if the country adopts Bitcoin as a whole and applies it as the main transaction.
I mean, if the state treats users using Bitcoin to buy a bunch of vegetables, of course this will be a hassle, Bitcoin transaction fees are more expensive than the price of the vegetables you want to buy.

For this reason the government is not afraid of Bitcoin, it's just that Bitcoin cannot be used 100% in daily shopping needs, Bitcoin is very efficient to use as a digital currency which is based on investing, mining and trading in the crypto market.

[isaac_clarke22]

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Not sure what you really meant in the title, but making it a legal tender does not mean that government are afraid of Bitcoin. Every single government entity out there would have just banned crypto straight away if they were indeed scared of it.
Adopting it as a legal tender is just a means of them to at least get something out of the people that are using it. Imposing strict KYC laws to many crypto apps like the ones I have been using here in my country so that they would trace me anytime is one example.
I know my example was not about "adopting it as legal tender", but you get the idea.

[Oneandpure]

Not sure what you really meant in the title, but making it a legal tender does not mean that government are afraid of Bitcoin. Every single government entity out there would have just banned crypto straight away if they were indeed scared of it.
Adopting it as a legal tender is just a means of them to at least get something out of the people that are using it. Imposing strict KYC laws to many crypto apps like the ones I have been using here in my country so that they would trace me anytime is one example.
I know my example was not about "adopting it as legal tender", but you get the idea.

Some countries still checking with how capacity and advantage getting before make bitcoin as legal tender, I don't think with any scared problem face by several countries want to make bitcoin as legal currency payment transaction. Need to see with positive and negative side when Bitcoin have adopted as legal tender for the future. Some countries still scared with Bitcoin price fluactive and unpredictable when going down drastically give impact with their citizen losing investment assets in Bitcoin.

All cryptocurrency exchange nowadays should applied with KYC procedure and many countries have make this decision needed for all domestic exchange market, maybe this way how keep away with money laundering.

[Renampun]

Making Bitcoin a legal tender means when a person goes to purchase a commodity, instead of paying with dollar or whatever currency is being used, they pay with BTC.

Given the unstable nature of cryptocurrencies, and the untraceable nature, would you suggest it wise for countries to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender?

Recently, El Salvador and Central African Republic announced that they have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

I live in a country that considers bitcoins to be part of an investment commodity and cannot be used as a means of payment, for me bitcoin is used as a legal payment or made into an investment commodity it's a good move, as long as the government doesn't impose high tax rates and tracks all transactions its citizens who use bitcoin and crypto through exchanges.

countries that are afraid to recognize bitcoin in their countries are countries that still have high levels of corruption or they don't want their citizens to use currencies or investments that they have no control over (like china).

[Woodie]

I don't think scared is the right term, We must understand that the government usually loves to be in control of these things and if users go astray they would want to shut a service/product down as punishment but unfortunately bitcoin is a product without a kill switch and is decentralized in nature which means they can't bring it under their control hence being the enemy of the government.

Corrupt government are the one's who are scared in Bitcoin, since they want control in anything to steal money as much as possible to satisfy their greed.

Totally agree, with bitcoins transparent nature.. these guys will fight it tooth and nail as as btc works against there agenda which makes it the unlikely fiat alternative.

[Leviathan.007]

The reason is very much clear to me, governments usually want to take control over everything, and especially they want to take control of the people's money and their transactions for example they are standing against bitcoin any decentralized currency because they think people hide their money without of paying tax to the governments and we all know the governments are using tax to survive and in the other hand since most of the governments are trying fight against the criminal activities and money laundry they have to fight against any decentralized currency.

[EarnOnVictor]

Any reasonable and responsible government would be scared of Bitcoin, but the approaches that many of them are using in dealing with the situation are wrong. It's a known fact that the Bitcoin operation is not within the reach of governments (decentralization), hence the reason for being sacred. They fear it might cause unaccountability in the economy since they would not know the financial inflow and outflow, and believe it would aid illegal money flows, which is true as a result of its anonymity in most cases.