Hi!
I'm a cryptocurrency newbie and have very basic/dumb questions about regulation. Here goes..
First of all, welcome to the forum.
1) What does regulation mean in practice? Is it like they want to register people who invest or something? Is it all about taxes?
Yep, Anti Money Laundering/ Know Your Customer(AML/KYC) is now being implemented. Most of exchanges now are regulated by the government. So we don't have much choice but to comply. You have to give your identity in able for you to use their platform. That's all.
2) Why does governments want to regulate crypto?
Because it could be a way to do illegal practices like money laundering and evading your taxes. That's why it should be regulated by the government.
4) What are the drawbacks (& advantages?) for an investor who discovers his/her crypto investment is to be regulated?
Regulated crypto means they are more safer from other crypto that are not regulated. There's a lot of scam ICOs out there. The only way to make sure that they are not going to scam you, is to check if the ICO is in compliance with the regulations.