(02-16-2018, 02:18 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Will cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin be legal or even credible in the near future? Stay tuned to historical reality to find out.
Governments typically ban any technology or device that can give people the means of evading or avoiding taxes, whatever the time of the Generational Cycle..
China banned cryptocurrency exchanges in September of last year and look what happened. The market initially plummeted, but then rebounded because the technology is peer-to-peer. Centralized exchanges are nice, but not necessary. Blockchain is also distributed, which means the only way to "kill" it would be to shut down the internet, first of all, and also destroy every computer in the global network, which might be possible, but not likely.
Bitcoin may evolve and not survive in its present form, but the community supporting this coin is die-hard and growing. Coinbase, the largest exchange in the US, is processing around 100,000 new accounts daily. So the technology is obviously credible.
Regulation is inevitable and individual states are taking the lead. Arizona, Wyoming and one other state are currently debating allowing tax payments via major cryptocurrencies; and many states now license and regulate exchanges.
There was a regulatory hearing in Washington DC just last week with testimony from the SEC and the CBOE. Of interest specifically to this forum was the testimony of the head of the CBOE. He began by talking about his Millennial children. When they were still quite young, he opened a brokerage account for each with a small amount of money and urged them to start trading. They weren't interested, he continued.
However, beginning a year ago, all he heard from them was bitcoin! bitcoin! bitcoin!
His advise was if this motivates and excites Millennials . . . we should weed out fraud and abuse, of course, but primarily we need to support this technology.
