Re:Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling
by dragontamer on Monday August 27, 2018 @08:48AM
(#17851111)
The US Government has the ability to extract money from you legally. It holds the power of taxation.
If the US Government, tomorrow, declares a 100% tax on Bitcoin, they can legally posess all of your BTC or... make you a criminal.
See Executive Order 6102 for historical precedent. FDR declared Gold to be illegal and took it from most Americans. At which point, you either gave up your gold, or became a gold smuggler. The US functioned as such until Nixon removed the executive order.
But if it helps you, think about some other government, not necessarily the US one. Do you think they all do the right thing? Should you or should you not be able to help your starving family in Venezuela?
They really can't all be doing "the right thing" because they have wars between each other. And those are legal in their books. But you probably want to play along however imperfect rules your government sets, that is until you want to escape the country and you don't want it to be your government anymore. Because e.g. you don't feel like killing every Jew you know and that just became the law.