I don't agree, I believe the reality for btc in 2018 is far brighter than in 2013. I never thought governments would accept btc as a mode of payment that they recognise and try to work with with quite sensible taxation and regulation. I had thought when crypto reached such a market cap there would be a clamp down hard on it.
what your mistaking is that the regulations have not actually changed. government regulations are just ensuring that businesses handling fiat as part of their business get registered as money businesses.
this is rules that have been around for decades.
as for any new changes like the bitlicence.. this has not been a removal of a barrier. it has been creating a barrier not by government but by local area agencies. i guess you dont want to talk about or reveal the number of bitcoin businesses that have stopped serving american/NY customers due to it.
also regulations are not good for users. a regulation is not really a consumer protection.. its not where government polices a business. a rgulation is allowiing a business to operate if the business writes its own policy on how that business will police its own customers. and then charge that business a huge fee for the right to operate and police its customers.
yea yea, you are going to spew nonsense and alot of hype that being "regulated" is like being given a nice shiny gold star that says "we professionals" but in reality its not really worth the paper its printed on
if the government actually cared and were super positive and wanted to do something to help reduce crime and reduce corruption. they would make new consumer protection laws. and then a business with consumer protection insurance and meeting certain consumer quality care standards would get a badge that meant something.
but yea. you will just say anything to hyp something just to try getting the price up.. but not care about the infrustructure, utility/purposes of bitcoin.
again .. if people stopped thinking of the greed of a price rise. and thought about the sustainability and utility/function/purpose. which would then make for a maore stable and healthy long term investment. things would be different.
but all im readiing is hype, hiding flaws hoping it will cause just one more ATH so those already invested can exit with more FIAT than they entered with.
if your only measure of success is hiding flaws in the hopes of hyping a price. then you have the mind of the greedy. which is not sustainable
I think you are wrong though. Regulation is essential to prevent manipulation and collusion. The crypto market right now is still wide open to such things and those will need to be addressed especially icos. Regulations have changed because before there were very few regulations specifically for crypto. As more countries set in stone regulations specifically for dealing with crypto there will be more confidence for institutional money to creep in.
Although to be honest if we ever achieved a decentralised trustless arena end to end including decentralised exchanges (which are the weak link right now) you could chop away a lot of regulation. If anything that could be made trustless and decentralised was made so then you could shrink the need for regulation by a huge amount. Of course we are still miles away from this.
If governments wanted rid they would be bringing in far more extreme tax measures or just outright banning it like some less developed countries have. Of course they would rather have their own centralised blockchains but really they can not compete with a global decentralised blockchain like btc. Decentralised trustless environments are game changers and the efficiency of them is going to increase over time as the kinks are ironed out. The smart countries recognise this and are not going to be left behind.
Of course for now there is a long way to go but all things considered they are going much better than I expected.
I'm not really sure if you expected bitcoin to become mainstream and adopted as an accepted form of currency or mode of payment without regulation or if you are just saying that.
There are indeed flaws but I think things are going rather well for crypto especially btc regarding governmental acceptance and regulation.
I actually like bitbay just as much as btc and like their DDE idea if that took off with decentralised exchanges then we could really start reaching a stage where middle men and regulations are really rolled back.
Regulations are supposed to be there to protect the customer but in a real trustless decentralised environment that is not needed.