Good question OP.
Bitcoin should not be regulated in any way, period. However, it will be, and this doesn't bother me because deep down it
cannot be regulated and we know that. So let the stupid senators make their laws regarding the exchanges and money laundering and blah blah blah. The fact that I can keep my coins secret, on a thumb drive, and transfer them across the world with nobody knowing means I care not what laws are plastered upon Mt. Gox.
And strategically speaking, if the politicians go ahead and regulate parts of bitcoin, it will lend it legitimacy and help it become even more ingrained in the economy. It will build and build. This is much better than if the politicians outlaw it fully... and we know they'll either regulate or outlaw, so I prefer the former.
And again, we know the meaningful essence of btc cannot be regulated anyway
i strongly agree, even they try to regulate it in whatever means, still they cannot, the whole system is designed to be decentralized, changing it would destroy the very essence of its platform, the algorithm is finite, they can try to decipher the series of numbers but they will not succeed. especially now that the users are exponentially increasing, hundreds of transactions per seconds, even the smartest computers cannot identify the users.