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Re:US prosecutors move to cash in on $8.5M in seized Bitcoin by speedplane on Saturday December 16, 2017 @03:48AM (#15938545)
The governments have not yet fully cracked down, but they have tested the waters with a variety of methods. The fact that they have lost over and over again further increases the bitcoin value.

If a government were to really try to shut it down, there would be an immediate drop in crypto-currency value, but if the government was ultimately unsuccessful, the value would rocket up to even higher levels.

Every bitcoin "investor"/gambler makes these tradoffs.

Re:US prosecutors move to cash in on $8.5M in seized Bitcoin by gozur88 on Saturday December 16, 2017 @01:55PM (#15941128)
They haven't started cracking down until recently because they figured there was a good chance cryptocurrrencies (bitcoin in particular) would collapse on their own or remain an insignificant niche. I think this year for the first time you have large governments which see bitcoin as a bona fide threat.

I'm kind of curious to see how this plays out - how far they're willing to go and whether or not, as you say, they're ultimately successful.