The main real-world uses for bitcoin are (1) evasion of currency controls and (2) facilitation of extortion and fraud. That's all illegal, btw. The surprise is FinCEN didn't act until now to align its surveillance of bitcoin with the rest of the financial world. I also would speculate that the short action timeline and comment period have a typically cynical purpose to deploy one of a grab-bag of regulatory actions at precisely the moment the price of bitcoin has again caused a stir.
Bitcoin isn't worth fighting for here, sorry EFF, but it is a useful canary warning about the current state of low financial freedom and privacy (by historical standards) and surprising degrees of unofficial suppression of viable alt-moneys. I would be happily surprised if the FinCEN reg forced unlawful use cases out of the bitcoin ecosystem leaving a vibrant, healthy marketplace....
>>Bitcoin isn't worth fighting for here, sorry EFF, but it is a useful canary warning about the current state of low financial freedom and privacy (by historical standards) and surprising degrees of unofficial suppression of viable alt-moneys. I would be happily surprised if the FinCEN reg forced unlawful use cases out of the bitcoin ecosystem leaving a vibrant, healthy marketplace....
This is a completely incoherent paragraph. In the first half you bemoan the lack of financial privacy and freedom, and in the second cheer on privacy-violating and freedom-suppressing FinCEN regulations.
The bitcoin ecosystem is a cesspool of ransomware payoffs, international money laundering and speculation. Eliminate 2 of those use cases via financial surveillance and I will be happily surprised if the 3d survives, or if any similarly robust marketplace springs up from the ashes. Because the bitcoin ecosystem is such a mess, it's not worth saving, in my opinion. It's a feature, not a bug, and it gives all alt-moneys a bad reputation.
I don't like dragnet-style financial surveillance, in general. If it bothers you when applied to bitcoin for philosophical reasons, it should bother you more when applied to other alt-moneys with less nefarious uses.
Any dragnet surveillance applied to Bitcoin will apply to other alternative digital currencies as well. If you want a future where people have financial privacy/freedom, you should not welcome dragnet surveillance of any digital currency, let alone the current flagbearer of digital currencies.
Bitcoin isn't worth fighting for here, sorry EFF, but it is a useful canary warning about the current state of low financial freedom and privacy (by historical standards) and surprising degrees of unofficial suppression of viable alt-moneys. I would be happily surprised if the FinCEN reg forced unlawful use cases out of the bitcoin ecosystem leaving a vibrant, healthy marketplace....