Quote from: BetcoinSports on April 26, 2013, 11:38:19 PM

The government, specifically the US government will get involved with bitcoins at some point and attempt to punish businesses for accepting them instead of adopting the currency and utilizing it to help people around the world advance and live better lives. I hope that I am wrong about this, but either way bitcoin will live forever.

I disagree with this. All the government cares about is the ability to extract tax. As long as they can tax businesses operating with bitcoins, they'll be happy. It's a bit like the 90's when the internet first took off. At first govt was nervous because it was all decentralised. But once they figured out how to tax online businesses like bricks and mortar businesses, they were happy.

Bitcoin isn't really a threat to govt - it's a threat to banks. If bitcoin takes off, it makes the banks obsolete, and the banks are going to fight hard against this. Including shutting down the accounts of exchanges and trying to prevent bitcoin businesses from using their facilities.

Will govt care if the banks become obsolete? - again I don't really think so. They would never have to bail out bitcoin operations, so that's a big plus on the side of bitcoins. I don't think anyone in govt enjoyed the bailouts, they got a lot of fury from the voters for it. They bailed out because the banking system was the only one in existence and they feared meltdown. If there was an alternative in existence at the time of the crunch, there'd have been a different response.

If they could have a system that doesn't need bailout, which means elected representatives can collect their salary without feeling any heat from voters, govt would be very happy indeed! Especially if they've found a way to tax bitcoin business. Once govt sees this, they'll actually start defending bitcoin operations against the actions of the banks - such as preventing them from closing down the accounts of bitcoin exchanges on the grounds that that constitutes anti-competitive behavior.

I know people assume banks and govt are the same thing, but they are completely different with different agendas.