[Growling_owl]

Nobody, not even Biden has the political goodwill to make Bitcoin illegal and enrage so many constituents (aka lost votes)

The only ones who maybe can do it are Xi and Putin, and the latter seems more pro than against because everything which goes against the dollar is Putin's friend.

Xi is also on and off again with Bitcoin but every day which goes by in which he is not decisive is a day in favor of Bitcoin.

You are left with the Warren, Sanders, Corbyn types as well as this Dutch guy who have only one style of messaging: modern day Robinhoods (or Pocahontas) trying to take money away from people who work and make sacrifices to get ahead in life and redistribute it to themselves

[imtringued]

I doubt that making Bitcoin illegal will achieve anything. I think "crippling" Bitcoin and making it very inconvenient to use is a better approach.

[emn13]

Even if the people you label modern day robinhoods (but that take money away from people who work and make sacrifices to get ahead in life and redistribute it to themselves, which is not quite the typical robinhood version) really are as self-serving as you suggest - do you really think that making bitcoint would enrage so many constituents? How many people do you think actually hold bitcoin?

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/how-many-bitcoin-users/ estimates there are around 15.3 million people in north america, and of those how many actually care deeply about this issue? Additionally, realize that how much this hurts dramatically depends on how such a ban were to come into force.

I mean - I don't think there's a chance in hell Biden will ban bitcoins, but rather because it's just not a priority, not because this is electoral suicide.

[Growling_owl]

1) Elections in America are always close, every race, every candidate is not safe. That's the nature of the 2 party system, hence every vote counts

2) You are getting your data from the wrong source, Coinbase alone has 56 million verified users. And unlike FB those are real , not bot, as every user have to be KYC'eed for AML purposes. That's just one exchange.

3) Also with regards to those millions of users, the situation is peculiar because it's for sure one person per family (the millennial or the college kid). So you enrage one person, but that person then would badmouth you with all the people in their close family who were otherwise neutral to the BTC ban, but now that you hurt their son finances, they just aren't anymore.

[emn13]

Elections are only close in some states, and its hard to predict which issues voters will care about, especially since nobody has proposed exactly what a "bitcoin ban" would look like. The linked article also mentioned that coinbase number, but it's a little hard to interpret: not everybody having an account will be in the US, nor will they necessarily own any bitcoin, nor, if they own bitcoin, will it necessarily be more than a tiny amount; it might just be a bit of a game - i.e. hard to say what people's opinion on the matter is just by having a coinbase account.

[Growling_owl]

Okay, let's do the reverse.

If you are somebody who wants to win an election, whose vote are you winning by proposing and/or signing a bitcoin ban?

It's not like Bitcoin has a CEO that you can point at in the Forbes billionaires list and claim that you are going against him.

You have to explain and present to people the coins per wallet distribution statistics and convert it to dollars to get to the topic of inequality, then from there trying to equate Wall Street to Bitcoin.

It's not easy, even for a socially competent person, you lose the room and people's attention quite easily. It's far easier to attack Bezos

[emn13]

I think we're in agreement, this isn't going to happen. I'd just frame it differently.

If a politician were to try and ban this, I'm sure compentent spin doctors would think of better lines of attacks than bitcoin == rich people == evil. They might throw a line in the direction of nationalism (chinese control, dangerous!), or note its environmental impact, or note the risks due to instability (so we'll compensate you small fry, but not <xyz>), or claim a connection to organized crime, or note the issues of tax evasion...

I mean, it's not hard to come up with a list, and I firmly believe - not just because it's crypto, but just in general - that people just dont care about this kind of technicality. To be clear: they would need to buy out at least the vast majority of current holders or some such scheme to at least take out the sting for most people - but then, that's something that's attractive to a few special interests too, so that could well fly.

But why would they bother? It's just not going to happen.