Ever since its inception, Bitcoin (BTC) has divided the people into its supporters and opponents. In fact, there are many out there who want it to be completely banned, especially the regulators and the critics of the cryptocurrency. But is it practically possible to impose a ban on Bitcoin? Not likely. After all, the number one cryptocurrency was developed by tech experts as digital money which would hold its ground against the regulators and centralized policies, globally.
Off late, it seems the US lawmakers have also begun to understand the same thing: that there are a lot many difficulties attached to a possible ban on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin ban unlikely:
On Tuesday 30th July, there was a hearing on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency regulations held by the United States Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Through this hearing, (R-ID) Mike Crapo, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, voiced his beliefs saying that the US wouldn’t be capable of banning Bitcoin successfully. Crapo said that if the US decided that they didn’t want crypto and tried banning it, he’s quite confident that they could not be successful in doing so given the global nature of the invention.
Jeremy Allaire, the CEO, and co-founder of Circle which is into financial services globally expressed that the challenge they face with regards to this is the fact that some of the digital currencies are literally open-source software and nothing else. It’s easy for anyone with the internet to implement it as it exists and runs on the internet. Moreover, these are generated algorithmically. So for the governments around the world, the challenge is that this digital money can frictionlessly move anywhere around the globe ‘at the speed of the internet’.
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Prior to this, another Congressman of the US, Patrick McHenry (R-NC) had shared similar thoughts in the previous month. He had remarked during his CNBC interview that there is no potentiality to kill BTC. Bill Barhydt, Abra CEO, also opined that banning Bitcoin could be tough legally for the US government.
In the month of May, Congressman (D-CA) Brad Sherman had asserted that the Congress should ban Bitcoin without sharing an effective roadmap to implement the same.
the video of @BradSherman's call to ban bitcoin is the best advertisement for the digital asset i've seen in quite some time (HT Oskar_Koch on Reddit) https://t.co/KeGCO0uXSh pic.twitter.com/VDF6XxBFre
— Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) May 9, 2019
However, a recognized economist’s theory suggests a way to kill the difficulties attached to the implementation of Bitcoin ban. As per the economist Saifedean Ammous, the best way for the governments to kill crypto is by way of becoming more competitive with regards to financial freedom and monetary policies.
It is also worth noticing that there is increasing support when it comes to banning encryption-backed technologies among diverse US law enforcement organizations, including the Trump White House. Projects such as Facebook’s Libra, on the contrary, are coming across as easy to control projects for governments across the world.
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Looking at it as a whole, it strongly seems that extreme restrictions or actions like imposing a ban might eventually end up making more people aware of cryptocurrency and the advantages it has to offer.
