[echelon]

Remember prohibition?

The minute the fed considers Bitcoin and crypto to be a risk, they'll axe it. Coinbase or not.

I think the CIA likes having Bitcoin as a means for foreign nationals to exfiltrate money. That's harder to do now in certain countries, but still possible.

And the FBI likes being able to watch where the money flows.

[splintercell]

> Remember prohibition?

Yes, but I thought the whole point of prohibition (unless you're living in that weird period between 18th amendment and 21st amendment) is that it was a terrible idea, never to be repeated again.

> The minute the fed considers Bitcoin and crypto to be a risk, they'll axe it. Coinbase or not.

This doesn't make sense, you presume that Fed has zero understanding of consequences of their actions.

Fed may consider something to be a risk and yet not act on it. Just because they haven't acted on it, doesn't mean they don't consider it to be a risk.

[cdiddy2]

I am fairly sure there would be constitutional issues with banning it. After all its just some characters/a string. We went through a lot of this with the cryptography wars in the 90s

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

The law is not a computer system. Illegal numbers[0] are a thing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

[oneoff786]

Even if that were true, the government need only block the exchanges which are a financial service.

[oconnore]

Bitcoin clearly qualifies as "interstate commerce".

[Spivak]

Something something color of your bits. And even if you somehow managed to convince someone that a digital asset was speech you still have to contend that commercial speech isn't as protected.

[celticninja]

I remember prohibition, do you? It enriched a number of people willing to break the law, only to be repealed in a short time, when it was found to entirely useless and simple to get around.

[oneoff786]

What are you going to do with your Bitcoin if it’s illegal?

Alcohol you can drink

[celticninja]

Alcohol was only illegal in the US, unless there is a worldwide ban it will be fine. I have survived this long without ever setting foot in the USA, I reckon I can manage a bit longer.

[AlexanderTheGr8]

Not 100% sure but tornado cash means that FBI can't really watch where the money flows (if the criminals are smart enough to use tornado cash)

[malfist]

Pretty sure prohibition wasn't executive action. But I could be getting my history on the 18th and 19th constitutional amendment wrong.