RE: US companies are banned from accepting bitcoin as payment
I think that would require statutory action - a new law. I don't know what authority regulators would have otherwise.
BTW, it seems overreaching to shut down a payment system because someone does something illegal with it. By that logic, the secret service should go after the U.S. treasury for printing paper bills... because, there's a lot of illegal commerce done using U.S. paper dollars.
Who said the government had to be logical? They aren't going to make computers illegal either just because they are used to pirate music and movies.
Look what happened to Liberty Dollars. They weren't even really breaking any laws but the founder was made out to be a domestic terrorist.
There are already laws on the books that prohibit creating a currency that competes with the dollar. The gov just has to decide that those laws apply to bitcoin.
I think there was a case about a pizza place near the Mexican border that decided to accept pesos instead of dollar and they quickly put a stop to that.
My big fear with bitcoin is that it is pretty much impossible for it to actually be used legally. When you buy that gyft card with bitcoins, do you declare the appreciation of the coins relative to when you bought them to the IRS? I'm willing to bet most people don't, but you are supposed to. And there is no way to enforce because bitcoins are anonymous. The govt is going to become more upset that they aren't getting their cut as bitcoin grows and will start to cause more and more problems for us. I don't see any easy way around it.