It doesn't mean anything. Governments can bend the rules at any time to put themselves in an advantageous position. It's not the first time that that things like this happened, and definitely not the last time. The only thing they should ask themselves, is how much sense does it make to enforce a total ban on something that can't be banned at all. If you ban Bitcoin, or just even exchange activity, people will directly jump into their local peer to peer market, which is something that has been growing rapidly, and that globally. It's an important choice to make - will you as government just regulate this market in a fair manner and maintain some control (make people pay 'due' taxes, and know what person holds what quantity of crypto assets), or will you push people into the peer to peer markets that almost can't be controlled at all? Easy choice for me.
I agree that if the choice is whether to tax it and get a due share of the market, or ban it and get nothing at all, it is a no brainer. But the governments sometimes don't follow the rational thinking process
For instance, the same argument holds for drug market. It has been proven all over again in many countries, that if they don't ban drugs, but rather make them legal, they not only get some share of money, but also they can help the victims effectively, number of affected people diminishes and crime rates (especially violent crime rates) diminish as well. But for some reason I am not quite able to grasp, legalization of drugs doesn't happen. Maybe the money is not in the taxes, after all.
Maybe the same is the case with bitcoin. Maybe the governments do not think straight. Or maybe money is not in the taxes.
