Topic: Cons of Bitcoin - why I dislike it. (Read 970 times)

good point, but the adoption rates of Bitcoin seems to increase and people actually figuring how to work on it. Only time will tell how it ends as there are too many uncertainty involved.

You have some point in there but not all changes in the value of bitcoin is caused by speculation. Speculations somehow affects the decision of the traders to purchase bitcoins and affects the volatility in the market. But you missed this part, the number of bitcoin users are increasing and thus it has also contributed largely to the price of bitcoin.

For me, the biggest downside to using bitcoins is the need to constantly exchange bitcoins for Fiat in order to buy something. It's always extra costs, waste of time and responsibility to once again appear in the field of view of the state.

seems You guys found lots of cons of bitcoin. But which I think the most disadvantage of bitcoin is --Amount of bitcoin is limited and if any bitcoin holder dies he also takes away his bitcoin to the haven .

This problem has nothing to do with Bitcoin. On the contrary: Bitcoin is very good at being a payment system without "undo"-option. Unlike Paypal, unlike most bank transfers.
As a seller, it's very safe to accept Bitcoin. Selling Bitcoin for Paypal is very risky, and most likely a violation of their Terms. You can't blame Bitcoin for this.

If you take another step back, you'll get to the point where it's rediculous you as an investor makes more profits than the people producing actual goods. Youtube has several documentaries about inequality, but the main point is that for almost the entire history of mankind, "being wealthy" gets you a larger share of economic growth than "working hard". Eventually that has to end, as the rich get more and more, and the working poor need more and more jobs to pay the bills. It's the basis of capitalism, it's a terrible system, but unfortunately all other systems are even worse, so we're kinda stuck with it.

Neither does real estate and stocks.

It's never been Satoshi's goal to make poor people rich, nor to help them.
Other altcoins are created for helping the poor. Not by making them rich, but by giving them access to electronic payment systems. Stellar offers "Services for the Underbanked": for $0.01 fee you can make hundreds of thousands of micropayments. Millions of people don't have access to a banking system, but many of them nowadays have access to mobile phones. How nice would it be for them to skip the ancient banking system, and use something that doesn't require rich bankers?

I also make huge profits from real estate and stocks. Albeit Bitcoin has risen a lot more than any of my real estate and stock transactions, but that's because it's in a bubble fueled by dreams of investor's jumping in as mentioned in my last post. The technology isn't as innovative as you think, and it's definitely not going to help poor people. The only thing Bitcoin would help in a scenario where it keeps propelling endlessly, is the people that jump on the bandwagon now ( or when prices were lower ) some poor person that never heard of Bitcoin until 2021 and tries to jump in at say a valuation of $20,000 ( again assuming it keeps propelling out of control ) they are only receiving a portion of bitcoin, this isn't going to change their life. They will spend say, $100 on bitcoin, and if it's widespread at the time, they'll buy $100 in groceries and then they'll be back to where they were in the beginning had they just went to the store and spent $100 USD on groceries. Same outcome. It would have no effect for them other than the fact of the risk. They might buy in at $100 thinking that it'll keep jumping in price like it has done in the past and then it drops to $15,000 overnight because Mark Cuban calls it a bubble again, or there are problems within the bitcoin community, another MtGox? Someone hacks the system? Attacks, etc and now they are left with $75 to buy groceries for their family. Remember this is a poor family, so now they lost $25 that they could've used to buy more food for their family. And Remember with higher prices comes higher volatility, not more stable. BRKA was trading at $247k 3 months ago and today it's $267k and trust me, BRKA is a lot more stable than BTC, yet a $20,000 change is still pretty dramatic.

Sure the scenario is quite silly, but you said poor people, so I used a poor person scenario, I know plenty of poor people that have issues coming up with $25 dollars, no less $100... I see no affect Btc will ever have on poor. It's an investment, not a currency... and an iffy investment at that. If I was Mark Cuban and I said all this, I am sure you'd see prices in the $3,500 or less right now, but I have no say since I'm not a billionaire investor.

I think I have really said all I can say about Bitcoin at this time, I don't see many reasons for me to reply to this thread much anymore. I have said how I feel about it, maybe I am wrong, maybe I'm right. I feel this is a very high risky investment, I wish anyone that invests in it long term luck. I know the average person will not hodl their investment and will cash out. If too many cash out at once too it'll fall. Especially if/when the Winklevoss brothers decide it's time. It's been an investment for a long time and I think that's all people will ever view it as.

I really do hope that people can use my opinions to make wise decisions, I wish no harm on anyone. I wish everyone could become rich and profitable, I wish everyone could have a house, food, and so much money they could buy whatever they wanted. There are going to be losers in bitcoin, and winners. I just hope that my opinions made some people think a bit more about bitcoin as a whole. I never came here to disrespect anyone, but I did come here to educate from the things I've learned over the years. I'm sure many of you know more about Btc than I do, but I also have different a perspective that I think might also be helpful in making decisions in the future before investing in Bitcoin and where it could be heading.

Thank you all for reading and for your responses.

While you are looking for all the excuses in the world, not to participate in this experiment, we are making huge profits. Yes, I agree Bitcoin is not perfect and if you can find a stick, you could hit it from all sides. We have never seen a technology like this before and the innovation it unlocked is absolutely mind boggling. < Just look at all the Alt coins that spawned from it >

I concentrate on the positive aspects of this technology and I invest in that and the potential it has. We have hardly touched on micro payment and the affect that it will have on poor people. < once the fees goes down even more >

My only point of posting is not whether it can go on without me, is that it should not go on with or without me. It's not real money. As I quoted earlier about what Warren Buffett said - "Stay away from it. It's a mirage, basically...The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is a joke in my view."
 
I only posted to show all the flaws it has in reality and that it should cease to exist, or at least go back to realistic levels ( under $100 per coin ) right now the bubble is beyond ridiculous and all these crazy people every few days saying it'll be $10,000 by this date and that date. They're only saying that because they own lots of Bitcoins, like that 18 year old bitcoin millionaire that owns 403. Sure he'll say it because he owns it. He cares about his own net worth. I know people that invest in west Dayton and put $5,000 in their house that they bought for $5,000 and claim they could easily sell it for $80,000 now that they did work. They got a "steal" no... you bought in west Dayton, you wasted $5,000 rehabbing it. You're lucky to get more than $7,500 even in this economy. People always like to dream what they invested in is great even if the reality is that it isn't great. "he psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it's going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you're right. But it's not going up because it's going to work. It's going up because of speculation." In other words, bitcoin’s upward momentum ­– even the price more than doubling within 90 days ­– may be a kind of self-fulfilling pipe dream."

That basically says it all.

I guess you have to understand that Bitcoin is not actually aiming for all people of this planet to be using it. Bitcoin is here for everybody but not everybody can be for Bitcoin. We have to accept that fact because we are still a free marketplace. And even if you would not want anything to do with Bitcoin, I am sure you are not a big loss with the King of cryptocurrencies because Bitcoin can go on without you.

Bitcoin is never perfect and will never be because it is just also man-made but compared to other innovation this can be far-reaching in scope and application. By the way, maybe 5 years from now, I hope you can be able to go back to this post of yours and make some serious evaluation of your orientation and decision. We all have to make some choices and it is okay...it is all right...if you have already decided not to go with Bitcoin anymore.

I remember in 2006 and 2007 we were paying almost 4 dollars a gallon in South Florida, and the national average if I read correctly was $1.30 a gallon in 1999. I'm paying now $2.05 or so a gallon here in Ohio. If anything, gas got cheaper over the years. As did many things. The house I am closing on in Huber heights in a few weeks last sold in 1997 for $72,000, I'm purchasing the property now (albeit it needs some work) for $17,500. I used to pay $3.00-$3.50 for a gallon of milk, I now pay 0.98 cents. The house I live in now, I paid $21,000 cash for it, it last sold for over $55,000 in 2002. I grew up in a house in Florida, where the average house was $150,000 a house by 2002 and $230,000 a house by 2006 ( peak economy ) by 2008 they were worth $55,000-$75,000... there will always be inflation, but time and time again currencies and economies have properly corrected themselves. I do understand that over the years many things have gone up, and I have just shown you a few examples ( I have more ) but I also have some I can show you that are higher now too, as I'm sure anyone could. But with that also comes higher wages. So it makes up for the partial inflation, and when you have higher wages, and spend less on gas, milk, bread, buying a property, and even rent in some areas. It makes life a lot easier. I used to own a rental duplex in 2015 in Dayton, Ohio. The rent I charged was $475 per unit, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Albeit, it was Dayton and not Beverly Hills or SF. ( But then again, that goes back to the location rule of real estate.)

I used to live in Dayton in 2009 and rent down the same road where I ended up buying my duplex was $425 for a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom and $525 for 2 bedroom 1 bathroom. Rent did not increase at all, actually due to competition of other apartment buildings in the area, I had to lower my rent to $475 to get people because now I can find a 2b/1b there for $500 all utilities included ( I wasn't including utilities, I had to make some money lol )

My point is, the US seems kind of stable, maybe in Venezuela this could be great. I just don't see a need for it at the moment here in the USA. If you know about the genesis block that was first mined by Satoshi Nakamoto himself it had a hidden message "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" But in all reality the economy was just adjusting itself to a normal, natural level before it got out of hand. I admire his thinking that he wanted to create a currency that would not crash and could be used in times of turmoil like The Great Recession, but it's already been proven up to this point that it's an investment, not a currency. 99% of the people that invest in Bitcoin invest in hopes it goes up so they can sell out for USD, YEN, SGD, or whatever their currency is. They don't buy it in hopes of using it on their next grocery visit. Therefore, I don't see how Bitcoin protects anyone from inflation, if anything bitcoin itself is inflated right now with its crazy prices. I just think that this is not what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind when he/they designed it. But then again he/they own around 1 million Bitcoins, so maybe this is what they want? That's to be determined.

- it’s not tied to geography and won’t be caught up in a trade war. If the world moves away from the USD as a global reserve currency (as nearly happened when the Euro came along) then the USD will tank. If you are in the U.K. holding pounds really sucks right now with brexit still reducing the value of every penny. Bitcoin, once its stable, allows for greater security than any one geographic currency. ----- That's yet to be proven.

The amount of money growing in the total money supply (from debt etc as well as actually printing dollar bills) way exceeds the amount of currency physically destroyed. Look at what a $100 bought in 1999 vs how much that same $100 buys today. $100 today buys a whole lot less fuel, food and rent.

I guess that’s one of the big advantages of bitcoin:
- it’s a deflationary currency and so can be used as a store of wealth in troubled economic times. It’s more likely to increase in value than the USD which we know will drop in value over the next few years.
- it’s not tied to geography and won’t be caught up in a trade war. If the world moves away from the USD as a global reserve currency (as nearly happened when the Euro came along) then the USD will tank. If you are in the U.K. holding pounds really sucks right now with brexit still reducing the value of every penny. Bitcoin, once its stable, allows for greater security than any one geographic currency.
- it cheap to transfer funds if you transferring large amounts
- it has MOST of the privacy of using cash with most of the advantages of using a quick to use debit card.

I agree with the OP though in that we are so early in the development of crypto currencies that buying bitcoin is a hobby rather than a long term investment. I’m very bullish about crypto in general but I’m not putting in more than an amount I’m willing to loose and these days I’m buying a basket of currencies not just holding bitcoin. There is no way to pick the crypto winner or winners today. In face we know that some of the current high market cap coins won’t be here in a few years - we just don’t know which.

Half the people in the world still don't have internet connection. Of course I get your point though, but it's still yet to be proven that Bitcoin can be mainstream as the internet, or even facebook for that matter. There's also always something that can and will come up that could replace Bitcoin. A good example of that is MySpace was king in 2004, they had many opportunities to buy Facebook but refused. Facebook took over and won, Facebook knows that this is a good possibility that someone will someday overtake them, so whenever they see a company coming up, they don't make the same mistake Rupert Murdoch did, they buy it no matter the cost. WhatsApp was 19 billion dollars. They bought Instagram, they tried more than once to buy SnapChat with Mark Zuckerberg even going to their house and knocking on their front door personally, they refused to sell and Facebook copied their features in hopes of killing out SnapChat knowing it could be some kind of competition to them.

So now there's where other issues come in, something better will always come up. Satoshi is nowhere to be found and there are no owners of the Bitcoin system, thus they can not keep buying competition as they come up and threaten them. I don't think they can compete when other currencies come up, especially if one is so much better. People say Bitcoin is the father, therefore it'll remain. LiveJournal was the father of Social media, then Xenga, then Friendster, Hi5, MySpace... how many of you on this forum use those on a daily basis? how many use Facebook?

Plus this is all even considering that the government doesn't decide to ban it outright. I read on this forum somewhere yesterday how if the government banned it, people would still use it. People use drugs and that too, is banned by the government. Drugs has a real effect behind it, you get high, you have a feeling of joy. There are reasons people use drugs, they want that feeling of not being sober. You don't get any kind of high from Bitcoins, it is supposed to be a currency, if the government did ban it, how would you use it? to buy a house? a car? go to the store and buy groceries? If the government does ban it and you continue to use Bitcoin, you're doing for hobby purposes only. There's no real investment behind it anymore as it could not be used anywhere publicly, which is what a currency is meant to be used for btw.

As long as there are files out there on the internet, hackers will exist. The sad truth about the internet. There's not much one can do about it. But that is one of the many reasons as mentioned I feel Bitcoin is too risky to invest a lot of capital in.

Man the hackers thing is such a big cons... I do not know if ever will find a way to fix this. But today the computers are so vulnerable so you cannot trust to hold signifant ammount of money in BTC if you invest flat at virst. It is just not safe there are so many way to penetrate and even cold storage it is not solution. IMO

Bitcoin is still a relatively new concept and tech behind it is not widely known. This is only natural, give it time. How many people know about the Internet in the mid 90.?
Internet was used by crazy people who used modems and paid for every minute of connection, and no one knew exactly how it works either.
Look what happened to the Internet now - every single person is using it every day.

A. I can leave my cash in my house and wake up in 5 days and not worry that my USD is worthless. Bitcoin could crash at anytime, or it could go up thousands more. The point is we don't know. If we're comparing it to a cash currency it should be as stable as a cash currency, not in a bubble.  Plus you're kind of missing the point, cash is tangible. Bitcoin is not, if I lose anything on the internet, I should be able to get it back.

B. Who is to say that though? I get it's a program that someone made, but who is to say it is a currency? You can look at other altcoins like dogecoin and see they're almost worthless because there is no cap, but the thing is, it's all fake. Nothing is to say this is worth more or less except for people's feelings towards it. I think the article I quoted in my first post says it best ""There's certainly a lot of bullishness about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that's the case with bubbles in general. The psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it's going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you're right. But it's not going up because it's going to work. It's going up because of speculation." In other words, bitcoin’s upward momentum ­– even the price more than doubling within 90 days ­– may be a kind of self-fulfilling pipe dream."

In reality Bitcoin is only worth what you think it's worth and same goes with any cryptocurrency. They could all fail at any given time. This is a new technology.

Also everyone likes to point out the USD and the mint printing more and more each year, but no one takes into effect how much the government destroys each year. Here's a nice article on that: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/the-destruction-of-money-who-does-it-why-when-and-how/236990/ but in case you don't want to click the link - Think about money being created. A furiously spinning printing press might come to mind. Now imagine money being destroyed. Do you think of a three-story shredder, a bonfire, a wide blue recycling bin?

You might have noticed that it's pretty hard to find any cash printed much earlier than the 1990s in circulation. Just as more money is constantly being created, it's also constantly being destroyed. Who are the destroyers of money, and how do they do it?

In 2010, 2.6 billion $1 bills were destroyed. ( keep in mind that was only $1 dollar bills, not $5's, $10's, $20's, $50's and even $100's which also get destroyed )

So yes there is inflation with USD but there's also the government behind it keeping inflation down by destroying old money, something else that won't happen in Bitcoin. There is no one really behind it anymore keeping it anything more than a fun hobby because you very well could lose everything you have invested in it.

C. I highly doubt that most places will start taking Bitcoin for many reasons, if I owned a business the only way I'd dream of taking Bitcoin if I could quickly turn it into USD ( so my money would be safe and secure ) not in something that's fake. I read through a lot of these forums and most people are always talking about whether they should hodl their bitcoins or sell them to realize their profit. If bitcoin was a currency, there would be no need to sell to realize a profit. You already have your profit. Why sell? I don't go around trying to sell my USD for a profit, I use it to buy groceries, houses, etc... look around the forums and see how many people talk about the money they've made by investing in bitcoin. Not that the money was bitcoin.

Plus, there are only a handful of people that own a majority of bitcoins, early adopters and people like the Winklevoss twins. Most people own no bitcoin, and most people that do own very very little. The amount of people that believe in bitcoin on a mass scale is actually really low. Too many if's about the technology and I see nothing amazing about the blockchain, and how only 21 million coins will ever be produced. I don't see how that could ever stop inflation. If anything I think it could help fuel it, think about my Venezuelan example up there how 1 USD used to be under 2,000 BsF and now it's over 16k BsF... think in 200 years if Bitcoin is the only currency ( lol ) and it's split up among so many people that for a loaf of bread it costs 100 Satoshi, a gallon of milk 250 Satoshi... and they're making no more of it, the blockchain is done. People will get sick of that and a new technology will emerge saying you can now buy a loaf of bread for 1 Shanaynay because this blockchain technology is new. Keep in mind that all these new technology's are using the same blockchain technology as well. I don't get how or why that's important to it. I guess Satoshi wanted the people to feel like they were doing something productive by "mining"

I just see too many down sides to Bitcoin and too many upsides to government controlled money... and trust me, I'll be the first one to tell you I'm not a fan of the government and/or taxes, but I see more potential in it than I do in bitcoin... plus at the end of the day it's a lot easier to use by far.

Thanks for your long and thoughtful post.

I do wonder though if you are confusing bitcoin as a currency with other financial services. Reading through your post I think there are three themes in what you are saying:

A) bitcoin is not as secure as credit cards.
Bitcoin is like cash rather than a credit card. Just like cash it’s not fundamentally secure, if I leave a wallet full of cash on the seat of my car it’s likely my car will be broken into and my wallet stolen, if I leave a wallet full of bitcoin on an insecure device it’s likely it will be hacked and stolen.

This is why card cards can charge the fees they can. You pay them through fees for the extra safety they offer of being able to cancel transactions which if you made with cash the cash would gone. There is nothing that stops a credit card company offering the same service using bitcoin as the currency rather than USD, I’m fact you probably will se that in a few years.

B) bitcoin goes up and down in value
Right now bitcoin is new, and we don’t know if it will be the crypto currency that survives in the long term. However in the long run a deflationary currency like bitcoin will always outperform holding money as cash, as the value of USD drops consistently year by year as more is created by the financial system. Bitcoin is not a stock, it doesn’t add value and pay a dividend like a company would. If anything it’s like gold, it’s value goes up as other currencies go down in value over the long run.

C) the infrastructure around bitcoin is not mature
Right now owning bitcoin is harder than owning cash or a credit card. Crypto currency is only going mainstream now and it’s going to get a lot easier to use in the new few years as the financial services industry adds more products on top of it. Already this year for the first time people who use investment banking services can open a bitcoin account, in a year or so most investment funds will own at least bitcoin. The mature products and services you are looking to use are on their way, but by the time they are here the chance to own a whole bitcoin for the average consumer will have long gone.

Pursuer -

1. Volatility is still a huge problem. You say it is becoming less common with $200 price jumps but yesterday August 19th it was trading at $4,038 at one point, then last night it was at $4,232, before tumbling down again to $4,115... that's still a kind of wide range to be in. Especially since 2 days antecedent on the 17th it was $4,510.

2. Warren Buffett is an investing genius. I have studied Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, BRKB) There are REAL reasons behind why it BRKA went from $19 dollars in 1964 when Warren Buffett took over to what it is today. You can NOT compare Bitcoin to Berkshire. In the latest quarter Berkshire reported 90 billion dollars of surplus cash. Not including all the companies they own stock in. The entire Bitcoin market cap is worth less than 69 billion. There's no comparison. One is what people believe in, they believe in Bitcoin, therefore the price is what it is and the other is a real company making billions of dollars daily. Plus it wasn't 0.001 cents a share, it was $19 in 1964 which adjusted to 2017 inflation is $150.52, which even by today's standards is expensive for a lot of people.  

Warren Buffet "Stay away from it. It's a mirage, basically...The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is a joke in my view."

3. If the USA and/or Japan ban Bitcoin it's basically done. There would be no coming back from it. If the majority of people stop using it for fear of prison time, the countries that haven't banned it would not be enough behind it to drive the price up to what it is today. It would die out quickly. Of course that's only a scenario of what if... but that what if question doesn't come to my mind in stocks. Something that's been here since 1817 in the USA and proven to work for the better part of the last 200 years.

4. Yes, coinbase is making it easier, but you're missing the point. I wasn't asking for the average person to become a bitcoin miner, I was asking the average person to use bitcoin. Most can't figure it out. Everyone on this forum can but I'm on a bitcoin forum, but if I was to ask a person for their smartphone and download Coinbase for them and put 100,000 Satoshi in their wallet and said okay go buy something from a vendor that accepts Bitcoin they would probably be confused without being taught how to use it. It's not as easy as swiping a card, and I think this is going to be something that would be an obstacle to overcome in the future. Maybe it can be, but it's something that will have to be taught how to be used and not come natural to most people.... and for that reason I'm out. ( lol )

5. You'll have to bring that up with the HVAC man, I thought he was trustworthy? I guess not. Sorry my example of how my credit card company saved me $1,250 is weird for you.

6. I heard people have done it before? I haven't but I read comments online, maybe things changed? I don't know. I guess I should've did more research on that one but I still think if you did send to the wrong wallet you should be able to recover your funds.

8. Maybe Japan can afford not to tax people? I know the USA is tax hungry and they're even starting to make people that come into the USA declare if they have over $10,000 in cryptocurrencies before they can even come into the USA. It's been a law forever in the USA that you had to declare over $10,000 in cash for tax purposes, now this. They want to control us in any possible way and tax us for anything. I don't agree with it, but it is what it is.

9. I'm not a hacker, but again, read quite a few stories of people putting coins in different wallets in fear of being hacked because there were many that did get hacked. One guy said he got hacked and lost many coins but when he reported it to the police, the police didn't take it seriously because at the time Bitcoin wasn't worth much as they are today and now he basically lost a fortune. I'm not sure the ratio of people being hacked vs credit cards stolen, of course the latter is a lot higher due to the pure volume and acceptance of credit cards, but you're missing the point on that one. I had my credit card stolen once before and someone put $300 on it before it got blocked. ( they blocked it so it couldn't be used anymore, something else bitcoin can not do ) and my credit card company realized the fraud and refunded me my $300...

Maybe I shouldn't have said most are scammers, but it can't be denied that many are. It brings new ways for scammers to hurt people since it's harder to put an ID to their actual wallet and it's non-refundable. I am sure Bill Gates has received death and extortion threats in the past, but it's pretty low when you go after a dying man and his family - During the last year of his life, the Finneys received anonymous calls demanding an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin. They became victims of swatting — a hoax "where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim’s home" Again, scammers are everywhere, but it just seems like a new place for scammers to come to. Doesn't mean everyone is, but if the system was corrected this would be less of an issue.

Hitlab - I agree that it could help out in situations like Venezuela. I have quite a few friends from Venezuela, none of them mentioned bitcoin to me and one of them has a candy store and her dad owns a grocery store. ( so they have food unlike many there ) and they don't accept bitcoin. I am sure many do but as of now still the main currency people accept is BsF despite the inflation rates. Right now 1 dollar buys 16,256 BSF approximately on the blackmarket, and back in March it was around $1 for 4,500 BsF and then it dropped into the 2,200 range and my friend said to me that she was trying to get the BsF together now so she could buy back some USD on the black market to save for her and her son to leave Venezuela. She didn't mention buying USD to buy bitcoin. I think her main goal is to just get out of that country, as with everyone. As soon as Venezuela starts to calm down and get back on the right track ( hopefully soon, because it's bad there right now ) and North Korea starts to act right ( again, hopefully soon. ) I believe people will start to have more trust in governments again. Although Trump might be an issue too... but that's a completely different topic I'm not wanting to touch.

Edit:
Also something I missed in my first post I know the internet changes some things but imagine if you started to print currency out of your house and distribute it somehow to people. The government would flip. It would be illegal within the first hour even if you said it's decentralized the fact is you printed off a currency and then imagine trying to spend this new currency you just made at stores. It's the same in theory what's happened here which is why I'm sure Satoshi wanted to keep his identity hidden in the beginning for fear of what could happen.