Is Bitcoin Actually Legal If Governments Can't Control it

[Veloxcrypt]

Lately, with all the volatility in the crypto market and the increasing regulatory frameworks being introduced by different countries, especially the United States. One question keeps coming to my mind.
I’ve been genuinely curious about this, and I feel this is the right place to ask and hear different perspectives.
Is Bitcoin actually legal if governments can’t control it?
In many countries, Bitcoin isn’t explicitly illegal, yet it also isn’t fully controlled or issued by any government. This makes me wonder whether legality depends on regulation and control, or simply on permission to exist and be used.
Can something be considered legal if no central authority can fully regulate or enforce rules around it? Or does Bitcoin operate in a grey area where it’s tolerated rather than formally accepted?
I’d really like to hear different opinions on this, especially from people with legal, regulatory, or long-term Bitcoin experience.

[zasad@]

Lately, with all the volatility in the crypto market and the increasing regulatory frameworks being introduced by different countries, especially the United States. One question keeps coming to my mind.
I’ve been genuinely curious about this, and I feel this is the right place to ask and hear different perspectives.
Is Bitcoin actually legal if governments can’t control it?
In many countries, Bitcoin isn’t explicitly illegal, yet it also isn’t fully controlled or issued by any government. This makes me wonder whether legality depends on regulation and control, or simply on permission to exist and be used.
Can something be considered legal if no central authority can fully regulate or enforce rules around it? Or does Bitcoin operate in a grey area where it’s tolerated rather than formally accepted?
I’d really like to hear different opinions on this, especially from people with legal, regulatory, or long-term Bitcoin experience.

Let's get to the facts:
I tried to do some research on this topic
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5487893
and discovered that we still don't know who owns half of all bitcoins

Some famous millionaires believe Bitcoin will reach zero, but they're not saying when that will be. Bitcoin could initially reach new ATX levels of $200,000 or more. But the most interesting thing is that there will be no one to complain to.

[zeuner]

Governments can make rules for entities who operate with Bitcoin publicly, as much as they can make rules for entities that do something else publicly, e.g. trading with gold.

Technically, they can't do so for activities which happen peer-to-peer, like transactions between non-custodial wallets. They can't do so for things their citizens do with gold behind closed doors.

Whether this affects the legality of the one or the other depends on how freedom-centric the country is. This is going to be interesting, especially in current times where more and more governments _do_ start to consider that they should have control over what people do privately.

[Yamane_Keto]

Governments do not need to control Bitcoin to make it legal. The high transparency of all transactions enables governments to track them, prevent money laundering or tax evasion. That is why governments fight privacy services and Monero because they make tracking transactions more difficult.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Of course it is legal (in most countries).
Something is illegal in any given country ONLY if that country says it is illegal there. Just because no government can 'control it' is irrelevant to it being legal elsewhere.

[rat03gopoh]

Is Bitcoin actually legal if governments can’t control it?
In many countries, Bitcoin isn’t explicitly illegal, yet it also isn’t fully controlled or issued by any government. This makes me wonder whether legality depends on regulation and control, or simply on permission to exist and be used.

I'm reminded of a quote from a local government cabinet member: "Everything is legal or permissible until a regulation prohibits it." This makes sense to me. This means that regulations are only created when an entity or activity becomes a trend or even mainstream. Otherwise, there will be no explicit regulations issued forever. The emergence of new laws is passive, following social change and development.