Lurker > Boo_Mario

The other disturbing thing is the early adopters are actively trying to lure retail investors, mutual funds, banks, etc. into investing in virtual currencies as an "asset class." Mom and pop investors are often the ones who can least afford to lose their savings. If enough people and institutions get sucked in and the price crashes, it may require another government bailout.

Virtual currencies are unconstitutional: Congress has the power to regulate and print money (or delegate that to a central bank) and designate what is and is not legal tender. Bitcoins are definitely NOT legal tender and are primarily used by libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who openly want to upend the existing financial system. Somehow that still doesn't raise alarm bells with Congresscritters.

Almost 9 years after their invention, Bitcoins have very little use in the real world other than speculation, illicit online gambling, money laundering, drugs, fraud, ransomware, and other illegal activities. FBI investigations into drug marketplaces, exchange hacks, unauthorized ICOs etc. etc. have cost American taxpayers millions of dollars.

(Side note: There is value in blockchain-like technology, however it is entirely separate from using bitcoins as a currency. Most Fortune 500 companies exploring blockchain proof-of-concepts are not storing sensitive data on "the" bitcoin blockchain, but rather their own currencies/virtual tokens e.g. a consortium of banks running their own blockchain for trade settlements. It is entirely possible for legislation to allow this while outlawing currency transactions involving unauthorized virtual coins.)

While it's seemingly impossible to ban something that appears to be "decentralized" and peer-to-peer, virtual currencies have a weak point: the exchanges. Just shut them down like the Chinese government, de-legitimize the activity, and it gets forced underground and eventually stamped out.

Are Congressmen & regulators really so captured by a few dozen crypto-currency startups, a minuscule industry compared to Fortune 500, that they can't ban unauthorized virtual currencies, let alone write regulations that aren't completely toothless?