What happens when governments regulate Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrency Regulation

The very reason for many cryptocurrencies nowadays is to provide a way for users to regain some of their privacy and freedom. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin exist as a result of governments and banks having ability to freely spy, track and trace our private lives and having the gaul to lie about it, when we know full well they are doing it.

The unique aspect of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin for example is the fact that no one controls it, not a bank, not a government or a person and you can imagine how pleased the majority of citizens feel about this. Under the hood, bitcoin uses a public ledger called blockchain, which contains every single transaction ever processed allowing users on the network to validate and verify. Unlike the traditional money that we carry around with us, the authenticity of each transaction is protected by a digital signature, which corresponds to the senders address. This is grants users the ability to have full control over sending bitcoins to whoever they want.

Courtesy: DeepOnion Community

Because bitcoins are sent to and from addresses rather than to and from bank accounts, there is a certain level of anonymity involved. Whereas with a bank account, if you send $100 to a family member the bank will be able to follow that transaction and discern where the money came from and where it has gone too. Banks are able to exercise that much control over the flow of money to and from their system, they can halt the sending or receiving of money to and from accounts.

Cryptocurrencies like Verge, PIVX, Zcash, Monero and DeepOnion are able to offer a sophisticated level of anonymity, privacy and protection against prying eyes. Cryptocurrencies like DeepOnion, which has integrated itself into the Tor network and actually has all transactions routed through Tor providing a high level of anonymity.

However, with cryptocurrencies alike gaining more and more traction every single day, they are also becoming more and more powerful as time goes. Society has found a reason for them to stay, and I think this has scared many governments around the world who rely on compliance, and a certain level of naivety from citizens. Giving people the ability to become somewhat free of their shackles by granting them more privacy and freedom than some institutions feel is necessary, some people believe this is how revolutions start. Someone steps out of line, then another and another and so on. I think governments feel threatened when it comes to cryptocurrencies, because they really have no way to control them which means the users are free to do as they please.

If governments do end up finding a way to control and regulate cryptocurrencies it will undermine the integrity of what cryptocurrencies stand for. The freedom and privacy to be able to control our financial lives without the threat of being spied on. As a start to the regulation of the use of cryptocurrencies, many countries have outright banned exchanges, which has restricted access for many people to purchases them. Regulation of any kind would most certainly cause uproar in the crypto-community, but there maybe a way to regulate cryptocurrencies and still retain full privacy and freedom.

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