[kaycebasques]

I have heard mixed things about the historical event you're mentioning. I've heard it was a law that wasn't strongly enforced. Of course just having the law in the books probably served its purpose of reducing gold transactions. But that's different than the government actively fining people $10K. Which would be like $200K today by the way.

Also, I'm not sure if it is an apples-to-apples comparison. Back then the main money of the society was associated to gold. There is no such link today. I.e. the value of USD isn't associated to BTC. The government had a existential need to reduce gold transactions. You can argue the government is threatened by crypto etc. but like I said it's not apples-to-apples.

[Jansen312]

No strongly enforced means it will be selectively enforced. And there are many such opportunities to do so for a government if they need some leverage on certain individuals. And these days, a Jury can be bypassed making Jury nullifications immaterial. Essentially it is government or more like unelected bureaucrats becoming overloads over private individuals.