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People have been saying this for a decade, and several failed exchanges later plus a few attempts at banning US persons from using crypto, the crackdown has yet to really arrive.
> U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other officials have warned about the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit transactions. Wait until you hear about cash. More seriously (and hopefully less reductionist) i feel nations who embrace cryptocurrencies early will see mixed results as the landscape matures. I am more confident that nations which turn their back on it, or shut it out completely, will see a loss of o…
Cash is extremely difficult to use in criminal enterprises, especially with the USD. Large amounts of cash are bulky due to $100 being the largest note. Massive amounts of cash is difficult to convert to/from other forms of assets due to CTR, SARs and fed surveillance.
Cash as a vehicle for facilitating criminal activity by now is largely fiction. Even diamonds are easier than cash.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
you can't reliably opt-out of laws in the place where you physically reside, especially where money is involved.
You can’t reliably restrict what you can’t see
You can argue that cash is also used for a lot of illegal activity and you would be correct, but that misses an important point, which is that cash has been with us since our country's founding and from a political point of view it would be nearly impossible to ban it, even if doing so would be a sensible policy. Cryptocurrency is still in the infant stages and banning it wouldn't entail nearly as much of a backlash.
And that's just Coinbase, ignoring Robinhood, Cashapp, Gemini, GBTC and lots of other exchanges and custody which have very significant volumes as well.
If the Fed wanted to "invest" in Bitcoin, it would kill it by soaking up liquidity and creating a liquidity-squeeze. Because the amount in circulation is fixed, it wouldn't have to buy all of the Bitcoin -- just enough to kill any utility. This is a downside of an asset with a fixed quantity.
Once the community discovered the liquidity-squeeze spike, it would lead to a run-to-the-exit with a price crash. The short-squeeze spike and crash would spread across alt-coins as well due to rush-in-rush-out and leverage across alt-coins.
Once liquidity is killed, liquidity-squeezed, and a crash happens, the FED / SEC could make it illegal citing volatility and losses of citizens.
The Fed would need to do this discretely and never disclose their purchases. If it became public, the community would probably choose to fork.
Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. This has already had varying levels of success with the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase being the acting chair of the OCC and telling banks it was okay to custody crypto and settle transactions on cryptocurrency networks instead of just SWIFT, ACH, FedWire There are some at the SEC, and the new SEC chair was pro-crypto when he was previously the chair of CFTC Cabinet leve…
With all of the effort spend worldwide on money laundering, terrorist financing, and transfer of funds regulations. I find it very hard to believe that someone won't come after cryptocurrencies at some point. None of these regulations make any sense if you can just wire the money through crypto instead.
Do you really think that terror organizations like Isis use Bitcoin to buy weapons? No, they use goold old USD.
> U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other officials have warned about the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit transactions. Wait until you hear about cash. More seriously (and hopefully less reductionist) i feel nations who embrace cryptocurrencies early will see mixed results as the landscape matures. I am more confident that nations which turn their back on it, or shut it out completely, will see a loss of o…
> Wait until you hear about cash. anecdote time: I once travelled to Vietnam for a vacation, people in vietnam prefer $100 bills because they're easier to use for hiding wealth, transporting cross border, and other slightly less than legal reasons. Additionally it's the preferred currency of criminals in the country too (so I heard). They will even pay higher exchange rates for ones in better condition or with more a…
I saw one as a child. Most Canadians have not, as far as I know. An acquaintance of a friend of my father's had several, and my father was interested in numismatics, so he traded one for $100s. The implications of the man who had some "pinkies" (called so for their colour) being a biker with a facial scar didn't click into place until I was much older.
Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. This has already had varying levels of success with the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase being the acting chair of the OCC and telling banks it was okay to custody crypto and settle transactions on cryptocurrency networks instead of just SWIFT, ACH, FedWire There are some at the SEC, and the new SEC chair was pro-crypto when he was previously the chair of CFTC Cabinet leve…
1: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3679495-square-fidelity-coinba...