As much as I absolutely hate that the things some dinosaur who doesn't understand bitcoin or cryptography in the slightest says matter to me, they do. Of course we know he can't reverse transactions as he says he wants, but he can certainly do a bunch of other things to make my life difficult, even as someone who has never used a centralized exchange and has never completed KYC. He can push to criminalize anonymous transactions altogether, instantly making me a criminal despite doing nothing wrong. He can continue to push for agencies such as the FBI and CIA to work with blockchain analysis companies to deanonymize all transactions and all bitcoin users.

The US government will quite happily spy on you, monitor your behavior, raid your property, seize your assets, all without any actual proof of a crime. If morons like this senator make privacy illegal, then such things will only get worse, regardless of the fact that they can't actually impact the bitcoin protocol.

Of course they can. They can't prevent them or reverse them, but they can certainly make them illegal and pass a law requiring everyone to KYC every bitcoin address. Then all US citizens must either sacrifice their privacy or become a criminal.

Our constitutional rights didn't stop them setting up mass surveillance programs and spying on millions of innocent citizens. Why would they stop them monitoring bitcoin transactions?

That's a big assumption to make, and you have absolutely no guarantee that any court would view these two scenarios as equal.

What kind of “blockchain” will that be? Or does it really need a “blockchain”? Wouldn’t a MySQL darabase be enough for that, with signing entrusted to a central financial entity, and monitored under the the watchful eyes of the government?

I cryptocoin is just a tool and cannot be "compliant with federal regulations and laws".
I guess that this congressmen is talking about companies,that operate in the cryptocurrency industry.
Most of the cryptocoins/crypto companies are already complaint with federal regulations and laws.
Only privacy coins like Monero will face some problems with the law.


Anyone involved in anonymous crypto transactions will be suspected for criminal conspiracy.What?
This is means that everyone is guilty,until he/she proves his/her innocence.I guess that USA will throw the presumption of innocence into the garbage.This is a violation of basic human rights.

Because of guys like this, I think it's good when big companies (PayPal) or influential people (Musk, Soros) get involved with Bitcoin. This gives Bitcoin some credibility in the eyes of the authorities and of people who are hesitant to use cryptos, as surely, such people and companies wouldn't participate in 'criminal conspiracies', ponzis or other similar things.
As for this particular case with Foster, I think it's ridiculous he demands Bitcoin transaction reversion to become possible. If someone gives another person cash, this transaction also cannot be reversed, and people can only meet again for a new transaction that returns the money. Similarly, cash transactions are largely anonymous, as people don't provide their ID most of the time when they're using it. And yet nobody's running around and saying that KYC should be enforced every time people pay using cash or that cash should be banned altogether because it's impossible to reverse these transactions.

They have tried to make encryption illegal, or force end-to-end encrypted messaging software to build backdoors for government access. They can certainly make bitcoin, or a certain subset of transactions, illegal if they want to.

They will obviously be the first to comply or be shut down, but miners and then users will be next in their sights. We are already seeing the beginnings of miners being forced to only mine transactions which are pre-approved by the government, with pools like MARA mining blocks which they claim are "OFAC compliant".

It is naive to think this. Bitcoin is too much of a threat to them for them to ignore it.

The only way to do this with certainty is if you consistently control 51% or more of the hashrate.

Honestly I don't like regulations although I think that if the use of bitcoin is regulated by governments then the adoption will be better. I just looking for something that is free from government control. I prefer like to see government don't get involved in bitcoin world, I don't want government to ban or accept bitcoin, just let people use bitcoin as they want. But unfortunately there is also negative thing in this, if government don't get involved in bitcoin world then maybe there are some people will do crime using bitcoin. I think if people who use bitcoin are only good people then it will be good.

Yes, there is more easy access for cryptocurrency tracking than the fiat moves. Governments say it doesn't have control over the network and the same could fund terrorism and so on. This is how the government mislead people at the beginning in my country. Later it even tried to relate some fund transaction as funding to terrorism. This made more people stay away from crypto currency usage. Now people have got the better understanding, so nothing to worry on the manipulation by government in a different approach.

I totally agree with you here. But I guess systems already have similar database and it is too difficult to use and maybe not secure enough. I do not know the answer:) But blockchain should have improvements over traditional database in terms of recording accurately and timestamping I guess.


For sure,,, and we cannot blame them or even ask them to. In most of the world people are not even ready for digital money or digital banking,,, what more to say Bitcoin and keep your own private key safe and sign and broadcast. My grandmother writes her pin down in her wallet for her bank card which she anyway always makes sure one of her grandchildren is with her:) So yes, with her for example we already did a lot of things whenever the banks moved. Imagine teaching SMS. And telling her all those fake calls from the bank were not to be trusted. And then entering her account online. I would probably give up and cry if we had to teach her Bitcoin, even if using 3rdparty wallet (more user friendly but still not as easy. Now we need only to "give her a payment request", she taps, it opens bank app, she puts in password, paid. Instantly. Free, With no hitches.

I do agree though of course at a certain point, we do not need to change Bitcoin. There are many ways, to have 3rd parties, or us. But in this case I do think a government running its own blockchain would for sure want to have that power. Maybe not in developed countries (minus USA haha). But if you ask our leaders here,,, they would want to control the sun if they could.