I don't think it's hard to imagine a near future in which the US Government outlaws the use of bitcoin within its borders. In fact I'd almost guarantee that outcome. Bitcoin is far too threatening to the establishment (from the likes of Visa and Paypal to the Treasury and Fed due to the monetary aspects). If they owned it or could control it, that might be a different story.
Indeed, I'll pin a time table on it. At the current growth rate, within 24 months the first calls to outlaw bitcoin will echo from some Senator or House member's office in DC. It'll lead to blanket legislation targeting bitcoin and any similar services that could exist in the future.
Agreed that it'll be discussed, but that's a hell of a precedent: outlawing legal transactions between private citizens in any specific currency.
Given that Citizens United held that money is speech, it seems there would be an obvious first amendment challenge to such a law. Not that I'd expect equal legal treatment for corporate super-PACs and a bunch of scruffy hackers.
Bitcoin is doing very well. MtGox has ~300K USD being exchanged every day - that's at least that much worth of transactions in BTC (might be more depending on the rate bitcoins are recirculated). There are a LOT of different things one can buy with it. There's a real, boring, everyday economy going on. The value has doubled in the past year - there was a 40% drop in Aug12, but it recovered a third of that the very next day and since then has steadily grown back to that high. It's not bullion or anything, but neither is it crazy: in fact it's been a bit boring, and that's a very good thing in a currency.
Smartphones are slowly taking over the world, as once they're as common as featurephones are now - say 5 years tops? - bitcoin becomes very useful in economies without proper banking systems, which is to say a whole lot of them!
Even if the US manages to outlaw it, it's hard to see how they can stop it.
> within 24 months the first calls to outlaw bitcoin will echo from some Senator or House member's office in DC. It'll lead to blanket legislation targeting bitcoin and any similar services that could exist in the future.
To be clear, you're predicting legislation that actually passes, rather than just being thrown around? Suppose that calls to outlaw bitcoin come in the next 24 months, but then it doesn't get put into a bill, or it gets put into one or more bills that don't get passed - how long would it be before you'd say this prediction was wrong?
Indeed, I'll pin a time table on it. At the current growth rate, within 24 months the first calls to outlaw bitcoin will echo from some Senator or House member's office in DC. It'll lead to blanket legislation targeting bitcoin and any similar services that could exist in the future.