[dcolkitt]

Cryptocurrency is extremely resilient to government action. Regardless of what happens with this legislation, I can virtually guarantee you that crypto will still exist in a decade. Obviously the market agrees, as the major coins and tokens have reached 3 month highs while this legislation was unfolding.

The reason I oppose hamfisted laws in crypto is the same reason I oppose the War on Drugs. Is the government even remotely competent to eliminate illicit drugs or even reduce the supply of illicit drugs? Not even close. But is the government capable of finding a few poor bastards and ruin their lives to make publicity stunts? Absolutely.

Just like with drug laws, the primary victims are going to be the disadvantaged and disconnected. Just like with drugs, the elites will be able to insulate themselves from the rules. Two out of three of our past presidents suffered no consequences from their admitted illicit drug use, while millions of poor minorities were locked up.

I’m a professional crypto dev, and I’m not sweating this at all. Our venture funded startup can easily afford high powered lawyers to make sure we’re compliant. Now what about the 17 year old hacker who quickly uploads a smart contract that he thinks does something cool, and all of a sudden is looking at two decades in federal prison because Elizabeth Warren wants to nail a sacrificial “shadowy super coder” to the wall.

[frankbreetz]

Drug laws caused the average person to be terrified of drugs. If the average person becomes as scared of crypto as they are of drugs, crypto may exist, it won't be a mainstream product.

There are no vc funded cocaine or heroine companies.

[dcolkitt]

Except crypto is global, and even easier to move across borders than drugs. Despite the government's sincerest hopes, American laws don't extend to foreign countries.

So, yes there will still be tons of VC funded crypto startups, they'll just be based in Malta or Israel or Singapore. And even in the most draconian enforcement regime, the US government will be incapable of stopping even 1% of American citizens who choose to interact with these protocols. VPNs are ubiquitous, highly secure and dirt cheap.

It is possible to nearly completely stamp out crypto usage in a single country, just as it is possible to nearly completely stamp out drug usage in a single country. But it requires CCP-level authoritarianism. Neither US voters nor the US judiciary has the stomach for that. You'd have to be extremely anti-crypto to think it justifies the creation of a Chinese-style great firewall and the associated surveillance state.

[cinquemb]

> You'd have to be extremely anti-crypto to think it justifies the creation of a Chinese-style great firewall and the associated surveillance state.

Even then, I see plenty of chinese users (talking in mandarin) on various forums/servers using decentralized protocols, hardly that effective.

Pipe dream laws for pipe dream deficit spending to continue to prop up zombie companies and industries.

[verdverm]

In jest, I'd point out Purdue and the Sacklers

[alksjdalkj]

If you need to hire high powered lawyers to be able to use crypto, isn't that demonstrating that crypto has failed to be a universal, government-independent currency? Or am I misunderstanding something and that was never the point?

[dcolkitt]

My point is that you don't need a lawyer to use crypto. Just the same that you don't need a lawyer to order LSD off the dark net. And 99% of people who do both, do so without a lawyer. The rising price of crypto clearly shows the market shows no fear about this measure slowing down widespread adoption.

But for a small percent of unlucky people, mostly disadvantaged people without connections who can't afford the lawyers to insulate themselves from legal risk, the government will come in and randomly ruin their lives. No enlightened society should ever criminalize a victimless behavior, unless it's capable of widespread enforcement. Like the war on drugs, criminalizing an activity that you know you can't stop only ruins lives, without actually stopping the thing you're ostensibly worried about.