Regulation is not about the ones and zeros but about the conversion of € to BTC and account keeping.

Both account keeping and converting one currency into another are well understood problems for regulators.

Regulation is about control, which is what Germany is now trying to do with Bitcoin. I suspect the regulators will fail with regard to control of Bitcoin in the long run.

"I suspect the regulators will fail with regard to control of Bitcoin in the long run."

How do you figure? Germany, like any other developed country, can simply go to the delta: merchants who want to stay in business. Want your business license? Better comply with currency laws.

The argument could be made that this move by Germany is actually a ploy to make Bitcoin look like a paperwork/legal nightmare and time-moneysuck so that merchants will stay away from it.

Bitcoin is too useful to be squashed by mere government regulation. If a few more countries employ these draconian measures, some cash-starved government will welcome Bitcoin in the future.

If regulators ("the body of Leviathan and the head of a social worker", to lift from Joseph Stromberg) were smart, they'd advocate easy exchange rules and impose a small tax on each transaction on the exchange.

Over the course of generations, I tend to have more faith in markets than in governments. That's why I think regulators will fail in their efforts in the long run.

Is it also a ploy to keep people away from credit cards? Cash? Gift cards? It's an interesting novelty for now, with almost no legal strings attached. It's almost like paying for things with rubber bands--cool and interesting at first. But as soon as it's trying to play with the big boys (credit cards, gift cards, et. al), its use has to follow the rules, and suddenly it isn't so novel after all. That'd be my prediction.

I see the opposite. Regulations will create an even larger undermarket for Bitcoin than exists now. In the next decade, use of Bitcoin (or something similar) will have grown enough outside of regulation that the next generation of Bitcoin users won't even pay attention to the regulators anymore.

Then can regulate some of the end points, but they can't control the transactions themselves.

No one controls bitcoins. They control the EUR/Btc conversion. If you have all the BTC in the world but cannot buy food with them - because depending on where are in EU selling in other currency may be illegal.

So the state has a lot of tools.

> No one controls bitcoins.

That really annoys regulatory mindsets.

After we had to bail out the banksters, there is not much love in Germany for unregulated financial entities, either established or with an unproven exchange medium.

Bafin does not seem to care if you use btc to trade with your friends, but once € are involved they make the rules. Don't know if that angers you, but I think they have a case.

Almost all traditional finance today is just ones and zeros, and its all quite successfully regulated.

Traditionally, they can point guns at the guys running the servers and tell them what to do (Liberty Reserve)

Not so easy with Bitcoin

Bitcoin's ones and zeroes don't originate in a central bank.

Neither do the others. There are very many "central banks" out there, and the U.S. creates money out of thin air just as successfully as people mine Bitcoins out of thin air.

Unlike the creations of the central banks, there's an end to Bitcoin's creations. The value in this model is seen in Bitcoin's steadily rising and holding price.

If you believe that speculative bubbles constitute value, sure...

All monetary systems are speculative bubbles. Some just have the backing of a government to give support to the bubble. The last guy out of assignats probably felt a little foolish.

Apparently you have no idea what a speculative bubble is.

I know enough to have already exited the bubble market that's not too far from busting.

Which makes it harder to regulate how?

If you don't create it, you can't control it. You can make laws about it, but you still don't actually control it.