But we all know how much was bitcoin when it was used only for illegal purposes and not for speculation like today. I would like to hear your opinion on what will happen with bitcoin if it will be illegal to run a bitcoin exchange? Of course TOR-based exchanges could appear, but big money would be gone.
First and foremost, a global ban is unlikely. The most likely scenario is that there would be countries where it would still be legal to run exchanges. And "big money" knows how "offshore banking" works - especially is this "big money" comes from dubious sources. I bet you know that there is a lot of "big money" (or better, HUGE money) in counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs, prostitution, illegal weapons traffic, drugs, etc.
Secondly, Dread Pirate Roberts (SR operator) is a visionary. But new generations of "criminals" will join the pack as soon as they understand BTC. If BTC is banned, they would be even more attracted by it. "Criminal activity" (or black market) is a 1,829
billion per year market. If only a small % of that economic activity goes to BTC the price will skyrocket, and as I said earlier: everything illegal comes with a premium.
Bitcoin has the potential to be HUGE regardless of the official position of Governements.
I always thought that bright future of Bitcoin that we look forward to is not being a currency used by criminal big money, and when somebody mentions big money they mean investors, not human trafficing and weapons.
But yeah, I'm fine with that as long as price goes up.