[TheCapeGreek]

>Bitcoin also doesn't need the approval of any person, police force, legislative body, military, or government.

If you start from scratch with a non-exchange wallet and get paid in BTC for something to it, sure. But if you want to get in with any fiat, you're going through an exchange, which means KYC, which means you definitely need the approval of the exchange (and by proxy your local government/tax authority).

It was a simple solve by governments to get crypto controlled centrally by proxy for most users this way.

[cesarb]

> If you start from scratch with a non-exchange wallet and get paid in BTC for something to it, sure.

I believe the original idea was that, to start from scratch, you would just leave the Bitcoin software running on your computer for a while, since that software not only hosted your wallet but also contained a miner. After a while, you would get lucky and receive 50 Bitcoins.

Of course, that stopped working once mining moved to FPGA and then to ASIC; even with GPU mining software, an individual user has no hope of mining any relevant amount of Bitcoin. That bootstrap mechanism is now completely dead, and the only way to get new Bitcoins is to get them from someone, buy them in an exchange, or invest lots of money in specialized Bitcoin mining hardware.

[LAMike]

> the only way to get new Bitcoins is to get them from someone, buy them in an exchange, or invest lots of money in specialized Bitcoin mining hardware.

Have you heard of this new technology called a "J.O.B"? It enables people to trade labor for currency.

The next ten years will be about how to earn Bitcoin through skilled labor, not mining on your PC.