That's a conspiracy theory. The real reason Bitcoin might "come under attack by governments" is because the primary applications for it have been to buy drugs, hire hit men, and launder money.

> the primary applications for it have been to buy drugs, hire hit men, and launder money

Has anyone actually determined whether such claims are credible? It should be possible to analyze if that's likely, even if it would be hard to prove.

What was the largest online Bitcoin marketplace and what was sold there?

What was the total transaction volume through Silk Road? Something in the middling 10s of million US$. As many have pointed out, Silk Road was an impractical novelty, with higher-than-market prices, and hardly a measurable part of the black market for drugs.

The total market value of bitcoin mined so far is something like US$1billion, and about US$2.5billion at peak prices. 90%+ of Bitcoin is a bet against conventional currencies. A bet that value will flow into Bitcoin because people would prefer that over conventional currency.

I guess I wasn't counting speculation in Bitcoin itself as an application of Bitcoin.

Predictable. Mt Gox implodes and its somehow the governments fault.

I'm not making an anti-government, much less an ideological anti-regulation argument. Regulation could potentially benefit crypto-currency. If Bitcoin succeeds it is almost certain to prompt the creation of regulations, even laws, that pertain, some beneficial, some not.

I'm saying that state actors are a different scale of threat, and that goes un-addressed in the article by a Coinbase founder. If they've got the balls to go up against such threats, they're not saying.

I'd be very pleased if it turns out you can successfully harden a p2p protocol against state actors.

Fair enough. I shouldn't have been snarky.