[2014-12-16] Washington Post: Bitcoin’s financial network is doomed

[panju1]

Bitcoin’s financial network is doomed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/12/16/bitcoins-financial-network-is-doomed/

Up to this point, regulators have largely tolerated Bitcoin as a curiosity and experiment. While Bitcoin allows consumers to buy illegal drugs on Tor Hidden Services sites like Agora and Evolution, they don’t do so on a sufficiently large scale to really cause enormous alarm. Regulators still don’t know quite what to do with Bitcoin. But if Bitcoin were ever to threaten to become a truly decentralized payments network, owned by no one, and with no one e.g. capable of implementing Know Your Customer rules, regulators would know very well what to do with it. They’d introduce regulatory guidances and pass laws to freeze it off from the regular financial system

[1714972679]

1714972679

[lihuajkl]

Seems OP has made assumption that Bitcoin is doomed. Not really. The US gov benefits from allowing it existing and developing around us by taxing and created new jobs by crypto startups. And for them it is not really anonymous. The gov agency is still very capable to track down every transaction for the good or the bad means.

[Bit_Happy]

No one said the revolution would be easy. Bitcoin is already too big to be completely stopped, so the battle should get really interesting.

[NarC]

No one said the revolution would be easy. Bitcoin is already too big to be completely stopped, so the battle should get really interesting.

Agreed

[noobtrader]

we are just lab mice.... this is experiment

[DooMAD]

Aww bless, the professor thinks the US is going to be both a superpower and the world police for the rest of forever.   

[Lethn]

If such a network ever showed signs of really becoming established (rather than being a relatively small-scale thought experiment, and money suck for libertarians with more ideology than good sense), the U.S. would ruthlessly act to isolate it from the international financial system.

LOLLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

I love Imperial loyalists in denial about their dying empires, how exactly are they going to stop us? Arrest everyone? Then who are they going to tax?

[elinehaarbollen]

Thats why Ripple is booming.

[panju1]

Aww bless, the professor thinks the US is going to be both a superpower and the world police for the rest of forever.   

If Bitcoin really becomes big, a lot of other countries would be interested in limiting its reach.
The US will not be alone in its efforts to shut down Bitcoin.

[Undermood]

Bitcoin is so popular now and many ppl are holding some amount of it. The infrastructure and ecosystem of it is building up. Many millions of VC are injecting to the related projects or startups. Not any single country are able stop the way of its development. 

[gmx95]

If everybody would follow all the regulations, then bitcoin would not be bitcoin. They can regulate it as much as they want, people will still find the way.

[LiteCoinGuy]

please also ban the internet. 

countries have to use crypto or they will lose the race.

[botany]

Thats why Ripple is booming.

If the article's logic is valid, all cryptocurrencies are doomed, not just Bitcoin.
So that is no reason why Ripple is booming.

[5970]

Henry Farrell is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

An interesting place.

[DooMAD]

Aww bless, the professor thinks the US is going to be both a superpower and the world police for the rest of forever.  

If Bitcoin really becomes big, a lot of other countries would be interested in limiting its reach.
The US will not be alone in its efforts to shut down Bitcoin.

The US aren't alone in many things, but it doesn't mean they always get what they want.  People still get involved with Bitcoin in places where there are already restrictions.  The protocol is now an established part of the internet.  It's not going anywhere.  And even if they did, by some miraculous fluke, manage to stop it, we'd just change the protocol and carry on where we left off.  If they shut down the internet, we'd build a new one of those too, on our own terms.  The inevitability of it all is undeniable.

[bitbouillion]

Henry Farrell, PhD, political scientist, Bitcoin amateur

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

Paul Krugman, PhD, economist, Internet amateur

[TraderTimm]

Just look at the author: Henry Farrell

"Henry Farrell is associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University."

He's an academic who has a sheltered existence as a professor with a comfortable wage. He is vested in the current system, so anything new is scary and threatening to him. Its painfully obvious.