Government action may cause the value of bitcoin to increase or decrease. I have a fantasy that they find the 100 largest hoards and destroy them. That would make my stash skyrocket in value. It's what I call the "Goldfinger Scenario".

David is a friend of mine. It's sad to see this. He's going to miss out.

it's pretty absurd that people keep making statements like this about how "it's just a string of numbers" or "there is no law against math."  If it were just a string of numbers, it wouldn't be trading for $26/USD per BTC.  It is meant to be a p2p currency that exists as a unit of trade, and none of us would care about it if it actually was just a string of numbers.

To put it another way, isn't counterfeiting bills just printing pretty pictures on a piece of paper?  Why is there a law against that?  Isn't software piracy just trading strings of numbers over the internet as well? 

Illegal is generally taken to mean a violation of criminal law, which piracy is not.

^This. Thank you. Piracy is not "illegal". A police officer can be sitting in your room watching you do it, and he can do nothing about it. When you are sued by the MPAA and RIAA, it is a private suit, by a private company claiming that you infringed on their copyright. That is no more illegal that if you get sued for slander or libel. What you did is not illegal, there may just be repercussions.

Now it is illegal in many places to film a movie in a theater. You can get arrested for that and you can get jail time. Neither of which can happen to you if you just torrent that same film.