Topic: Regulation Can Also Be Protection (Read 623 times)

This was an interesting read about Kirobo trying to circumvent the Israeli regulations  https://saferinvestor.com/blog/isa-cryptocurrency-security/

These are the major concerns we have to face with the people because daily new people are approaching the Crypto. So it should not damage their intention because every one of us is here to make money. So might don't know how to choose the right ICO, if government regulate then they will happily start investing into companies without facing any scams.

yes as it should be, regulations are made to protect, reduce crime, when crime begins to be in bitcoin to protect it by a rule, so that no one is harmed for those who obey will benefit and for those who violate will get punishment, so that we will invest more protected because it is our right

Regulation is not protection, but rather a protection racquet. And to be clear, the cryptocurrency markets are already broadly regulated under older laws. Take the example of BTC-e. They never obtained the necessary licenses or complied with USA's money laundering laws. As a result, neither BTC-e nor its customers were protected when the US government shuttered BTC-e down last year. There was no way for customers to recover seized funds; clearly the shutdown was not done to protect customers.

Licensing schemes are barriers to market entry that afford your business protection from government action -- for a very high price. That price ensures that only a limited number of capital-rich entities -- the Coinbases, the Geminis, the Bitflyers and the Circles -- can afford to pay for protection. This is how oligopolies form. That's where the market is headed now.

Regulations does not only implies for something to be made unlawful or restricted. Regulation simply means some rules around the specific topic are applied. For example the Human Rights is a set of regulation which grants benefits to humans. Therefore of course regulation also means protection.

Yes and regulations, apart from protecting us, come hand in hand with mass adoption. It is too naïve to think that everybody is going to use bitcoin and government is not going to regulate it.

Definitely right regulating bitcoin must be a protection to us bitcoiners.Government want to regulate us to avoid those illegal activities of some person who did bad in crypto.Bitcoin can be secured to any scammers or hackers if crypto was became legal.

Nothing can stop people being illegal.  But certainly rules and regulations can prevent illegal moves.  Yes regulations are indeed needed. Regulations directs and disciplines every act and formulates uniformity. This leads to long run and stability. At times it becomes hard to practice at the beginning but the outcome would strengthen the basement.

This is one of the reasons why many governments are concerned on the use of bitcoin because it might be use by some people for their illegal activities. They will seek further control the way btcoin is used to protect financial stability. The use of bitcoin by some criminal elements are hard to detect and many are are resorted to imposing regulations to control the use of bitcoin.

Regulations are necessary, I think if uncontrolled use of crypto money increases, crime rates and the country's economy are seriously damaged.

Yes! I actually dream of having it regulated, just that it would always come with consequences. But you know, since you have mentioned we are not in a perfect world, you should know very well there is too much politics going around. And because of such, we are put in a difficult situation as we are at the mercy of these politicians and businessmen alike, who, respectively, have their own vested interests. The average people are always the ones affected regardless if it is about Bitcoin or whatever global issue there is.

One probable thing governments would do is to regulate it by its own terms like exacting personal information in every transaction so they would know how to tax you accordingly. But of course, this is at a limbo until the VIPs have sat down and made compromises by virtue of reciprocal concessions.

So yes, regulation can also be protection but the VIPs are the ones protected while the average people are the ones robbed, technically speaking.

"The only problem is when regulations are set-up not to protect but to also kill or stifle the very thing being regulated."  I agree with this.I think regulations must make sense..

I agree if only there would be regulations to support the legal use of cryptocurrency it would be of great advantage for everyone. It gives the user the sense of security and wouldn't have a second thought when makjng their transactions.

If regulation is put in a good use and if we'll be benefiting from it the that would be great, but if it used to protect self interest it'll be an abuse of power.

Regulations can protect us from being scammed by the exchanges or by some users though you're right that don't invest on the things that you are not sure but this can help a lot. Regulations can also be bad to some people cause they will need to pay taxes for that one and basically this kind of decentralized market don't what that things to happen but if we talk about security, I'll agree for the regulations.

One of the reason of regulation if you think about it is about the protection that a state wants to give to their investors aside from detecting and preventing money laundering from criminals.
Many people disagree to this kind of system and it really shows how much demand for anonymity there is in the community and i think that's the reason why prices of cryptocurrency is very volatile and expensive even without having a physical appearance as a currency.

I don't see a reason why we'd need to be protected from one another. IMO if you don't know where to invest, how to verify a company, a dev team, or any other service provider, you shouldn't deal with them. You should look for a professional or not get involved with high risk investments at all.
The government prays on our laziness. Their regulation has nothing to do with protection. I see it as a form of control.

Even if you would take a pic it wont really guarantee you that it would happen into your place specially on regulating bitcoin. We do all know that there are some places who do regulate bitcoin which for some people it is really and advantage stuff because into the chance or having the feature on protecting once theres a problem arise into it but on general speaking for true believers of bitcoins potential would really oppose into this kind of regulation matters.

Your thoughts that lawyers, tax advisers, etc. are incentivized to lobby for regulation is interesting, but I think it oversimplifies the picture. Yes, you're right in acknowledging that lawyers and their ilk have a vested interest in complicated statutes because such statutes require lawyers to properly interpret. However, I believe the real problem lies in the grey area currently created by a vacuum of legal guidance. All anyone in the legal profession has to guide them right now is common sense and analogies to similarly-classified items. This legal imprecision is bad for lawyers because they might reach the wrong outcome and even worse for their clients who will bear the brunt of legal sanctions if they fall on the wrong side of future regulations.

It is in every legitimate investor's best interest to have regulations which, at the bare minimum, classify crypto-assets. The importance of this is tantamount to long-term tax planning. For example, Bitcoin is a cryptoCURRENCY because it acts as a store of value. While the IRS has decided to treat bitcoin as property, it is likely better classified as a foreign currency. Ethereum on the other hand, is more like a commodity in that one has to USE UP ether in order to access the Ethereum network. Tokens built upon the ethereum platform are (generally) neither cryptoCURRENCIES or cryptoCOMMODITIES. Rather, these second-generation tokens are utility based and can be thought of as cryptoTOKENS (these might lend themselves more to the 'property' analysis currently utilized by Bitcoin).

Whether a crypto asset is classified as property, foreign currency, or a commodity is extremely important for a variety of reasons too convoluted to get into here. As a quick example though, commodities (corn, oil, etc.) are NEVER entitled to long-term capital gains treatment meaning no matter how long you hold a cryptoCOMMODITY (if the IRS were to choose to implement this thinking), it would never be entitled to long-term cap gains tax treatment. As a result, holding ETH for more than a year would make much less sense. Likewise, with foreign currencies, one can apply the full extent of their losses in foreign currencies to their current tax year (whereas Bitcoin losses, being classified as 'property' instead of 'currency' are currently limited to amount of ordinary/long-term gains (depending on holding period) + $3,000 per year. Any amount in excess of this would be lost or be forced to carry backward / forward. For big losses, this amount may never be used up.). 

The angle I was thinking of analysing your comment when you came up with this line "(e.g. tax advisors, lawyers)", was the area of job creation but you decided to touch another area.

I think regulation would even see more people being employed in government to carry duties of collecting taxes, advising and lawyers for defending of adjudication because investors must adjudicate in the courts where they are aggrieved or feels short - changed by the system. This will help to grow the knowledge of bitcoin.

This is why the concept of cryptocurrency can be quite complicated, you enjoy freedom through decentralization but it comes with the price of being unprotected which can bring you so much risks that you may end up with nothing in the end due to its ambiguity. In your mind, clashing thoughts would be prevalent and you'll be thinking of what's more important to uphold but at the end of the day, it's the challenge and risks you're willing to conquer and take that over powers any decision. As supermine mentioned, Bitcoin is a decentralized platform. Establishing regulations would defeat this purpose making it not the genuine Bitcoin that most people know about. On the other hand, regulations are what would protect you if something unfortunate happens in this venture, a must in transaction you do. Take your pick in what suits your situation, otherwise try to make both aspects work harmoniously to have a win-win situation.

Cryptocurrency regulation will play the major role because i order to reduce scams happened around. Already with SEC involvement, we have seen many fewer scams with the ICO's. So regulation is next level of crypto currency future.

Regulation is absolutely a protection not just it can be because without the regulation the bitcoin will becoming a threat someday that instead of helping the people it might be used to put the people at risk by allowing Bitcoin to be used in illegal activities. People who don't want to support regulation are trully those selfish and greedy individuals who only think of themselves but not the welfare of entire nation.

Regulating crypto will be in favor of crypto-traders in long term scenario. This will help us to trad freely without the fear of unfairness and fraud. However, regulating crypto is not child's play, because cryptos can be accessible and transferable all around the world without any border hindrance. So regulating crypto at global level require a lot co-ordination among nations which seems to be impossible at this point of time.

I daresay you are still living in a pipe dream of sorts. People behind Cryptsy are well known but the main villain, Paul Vernon, has managed to escape and still hiding somewhere in Asia, while those who ended up caught in the end got off pretty cheap. It turned out that they in fact successfully pulled off the job and had to return stolen money ($8.2 million in total) to their clients at laughable exchange rates, something like $200 per bitcoin when bitcoin had already been well over $1,000, just short of $2,000 by the end of July, 2017. Would regulation have helped the victims of the scam in any meaningful way?

Apart from that, no amount of regulation will save you from coins theft. But theft in the cryptoverse means almost no chance of getting the stolen coins back. Sorry to sound like a wet blanket here but this is how matters stand in the crypto world. People would still be left holding empty bags.

That's right, and I really agree ... as long as its regulation is not clear and as difficult to apply, we will be hard to make a good breakthrough for this virtual currency ,, but if viewed from the side of the profits, crypto is very promising .. so let's hope that the regulation can be applied, so that clear and no more worries for us all ..

Regulation will work like share market because there won't be the sudden increase in the market. Still, we can make money but things will take time to regulate because they need to analyze before regulating and what are the major techniques to be followed by them.

The government is only protecting itself by coming up with all sorts of regulations, and all that to remain at least somewhat of a controlling authority in a market that can't actually be controlled. It's time for people to understand that the government doesn't care about what happens with people -- the only thing they care about is you to pay your due taxes, and the fact that they through centralized services can still more or less control you. Governments are the biggest criminals and scammers, so who exactly is there to protect the people? If you don't obey, they'll get what they want from you by force, so tell me, how fair does that sound?  

Regulation van ensure a safer and more secured transaction. With this we can eliminate or punish scammers who keeps on destroying ghe reputation of btc. However regulating btc is a big change for cryptocurrency if this could be done with good intentions then I think it will build a better crypto community.

regulation can be a protection for all users in order to avoid bad people who are trying to do something in the government. if the government allow cyptocurrency legal then strick regulation should imposed in order for us to be safe from scammer.

The problem with some government when they get huge amount of income by imposing any tax on bitcoin they want to have an authority to regulate on crypto.But the good thing is we can secured  to any scammers or they will be punished if they hacked us.Legality is very important to us meaning to say they want to adapt it as our digital currency.

With the idea of freedom from those authorities provided by using cryptocurrency since it eliminates the middle man in the transaction, a regulation seems the opposite of it but it is needed because there are people who take advantage of this freedom to scam other people This is the reason why some countries decided to ban cryptocurrency because they just want to protect their citizens from the abuses that they might get by being involved in this industry.

Having freedom is a breath of fresh air but due to the people who are not contented with this freedom, they wanted more of it which would end up scamming whoever they can thus regulation is needed. As what you say OP, in an ideal world regulation is not needed but we are in real world so we need protection from all those people who have bad intentions for them to be accountable just in case.

It would be nice to see more demonstration of knowledge from regulators, and some bleedin' pragmatism too. Look at what the New York Bitlicence did. It basically denied anyone who lives there access to vast amounts of services.

On the flipside I grow very tired of 'this is a free market so you deserve to lose all your coins in a hack.' So far the 'free market' has permitted psychopathic children to steal or lose humongous amounts of money.

I'd prefer it if the means were there to nail them to the fucking wall, or not let them get started in the first place.

I guess the well projected regulation is good for the entire industry. But it is hard to provide such at the moment. The regulators really don't know how they actually can provide some legislative frameworks.

Since people are trading cryptocurrency into fiat currency the government are very more concerned because a lot of them are taking huge amount without having any personal information. Until it was change because of the alarming issue of taking and putting a huge amount of money in the banks.

But this thing is not really possible and I don't even know if there would people would really be interested to make a group on having such the same views in mind. I do agree on the thing that regulation can also be a protection but would really remove the decentralized feature of crypto and not all people would really love that kind of position. Advantages of such regulation is there but everybody wont really be agreed on that.

Yeah i also think that if done right than the regulations implied on bitcoin can be beneficial and could be for more protection for the users. Though people who don't like to to pay tax for bitcoin would have to pay tax but other than that it will be a great advantage for users. If there are regulation in a country on bitcoin that means it will be totally legal for people and they could use it as much as they can.

Regulation is key. However, the crypto community should take a hint from wall street and lawyers. If the cryptocommunity simply created its own self-regulatory organization (SRO), such as FINRA or the ABA, the government will be willing to mostly defer to the SRO's rules by reasoning that the SRO best understands the landscape. We can then implement better policies than we will actually be given if handed down by a confused Congress. SRO or bust!

But the excessive regulation may be one of the main issues in this field at the current moment.

Regulation can protect people is yes, regulation is like a law for country and people. So for regulations is important and make it clear.
I hope regulation can be setup in some country. Regulation very important like legalized cryptocurrency.

I honestly agree with you. I think having the right regulations can also be beneficial for us (crypto lovers) but I'm afraid that these regulations might be use for the wrong reasons like corruption. Well, we're never certain of the future, we can only hope for the best for both parties.

What would be a good regulation taking the exchange's example?

I believe it would be to have a 'clear', transparent exchange, which we would know the names of the people behind the site. The problem is that the governments charge a lot of money from services and consequently from its users (because the services won't have any loss, they will pass their outgoing to users), just to make the first ones regulated.

That is not fair. The right thing would be to not charge anything (maybe a little insignificant amount) from exchanges, let them operate like they currently operate, but just make them show their legit informations!

People aren't trying to hide themselves, they are just trying to not pay abusive taxes because their activities are regulated and a government's parasite charge a lot of money just to make the regulative job.


If there were unity and discernment among the citizens of a country, only fair regulations would pass. What happens is that people against these regulations are minority in many places, so they are easily weakened by the local authorities.

Yes you are right regulations can play a vital role in our protection from scammers. But in my opinion it will take long time to make some legislation on crypto.

It takes two to tangle in this regard. Regulation by Government might open way for non bitcoiners to have interest in Bitcoin, invest in it in order to gain out of it since their fair of uncertainty is being alleviated to some extent making the Crypto to be more durable in use for transaction on line since they are now legitimately somehow covered from being scammed. But they are to me entering into the world of Deceit negligently because this does not  guarantee their protection in totality. The other angle at which I looked at this is that it might springs up inflation or cause deflation in the economy since the effect of middle men will be drastically abolished or reduced, and this shall however generates high or low demands and supply for goods and services in the economy.

Regulation can also be protection?


Yes thats true and i do believe in the saying that "ignorance of the law excuses no one". Your ignorance with the law or rules and regulations will not save you but rather harm you , so it is better to obey it because it is also for our own good and protection.

Instead of serving as a safeguard for the users, regulations became detrimental to the users instead. It is the government and state's duty to ensure the security of its citizens and this is the purpose for creating regulations. These regulations were made to discourage the potential scammers, instead of scaring away the investors or users. In a way, it should actually encourage the use thereof since these regulations should help prevent scams.

Actually.. this is will be lead to a new things that lead to a more modern era, it must to be applied at nowadays and for so on.
Yeah and anyhow if indeed the government has been regulating, there will be many things that are more tended on the positively and can be avoid the negatively things that can be done with crypto.
I think if we got hacked by hackers, we can report it to the government, and the government will act on it. If the country has not regulating yet.. it's not just a hackers who act freely, there will be a lot of negative things that will harm many people and the country.

Anything that is excessive can be not anymore good and this wisdom is quite true with almost anything we do or get concerned with in life. This is quite true with cryptocurrency. While there can be legitimate reasons to regulate, the same platform can be abused by anyone. And maybe that is the reason why we have to be vigilant always as there is no perfect government at all. One thing for sure...if the government want to pass regulations then there is nothing we can do but follow not unless one is so mentally prepared for all the hassles going against the law.

When government regulates the use of bitcoin, it means you can freely use the bitcoin in any transactions that allowed by the law. There are also some protections that are provided by regulation on your bitcoin bitcoin funds. But the real reason for implementing a regulation on bitcoin and the cryptocurrency exchanges is to control the way bitcoin is used to protect the financial stability. More governments are now looking for a better or effective crypto regulation to protect global finance from the illegal activities.
But regulation might not be effective to control or prevent hacking because it is use modern technology and recognized no law.   

I see where your concerns lie but how can regulation, however strict it may be, save you and your coins from being stolen? If the exchange staff is incompetent in security questions, then no amount of regulation will help you in this department. Even the biggest exchanges like Bitfinex had been hacked in the past with literally dozens of million dollars worth of bitcoins stolen. You as their client should be concerned about these issues in the first place. In a nutshell, heavy regulation will give you a false sense of security and protection where there is none.

This might be the reason why the price right now are still dump but I believe this regulation will protect us from the scammers, specially from the exchanges. There's a pros and cons but we need our government to support this technology so we can freely use this. We don't want this to be banned, we can't stop government from doing it so I really think regulations will be done in the future.

Regulation is a double edge sword since it can protect you in some ways but then it can also hurt you as well if the one who are implementing it is not in favor of what you are doing. There are many people in crypto world who are just so excited to be free from all those regulations because they can do whatever they want without anyone restricting their movements but then there would always be abusers of those freedom and think of ways to get more from other people thus we still need regulation to have accountability of those people who use the freedom to abuse or scam others.

That is the main goal behind setting up a regulatory body, to safeguard the interests of the common people. But it is also being used by the governments to safeguard their own interests as well. Like China and USA banned ICO through the financial regulator, instead of filtering them through proper procedural formalities.

Definitely the presence of regulators in any market boosts the moral of the common people because they know that the regulator has completed the due diligence and then approved a company to run a business on their soil. So people invest in those companies or transact with them with confidence. So it is basically a protection for us if not run according to the interests of the governments.

Such changes would really be implemented specially into bigger exchanges seeing of that they do able to generate millions of dollars when it comes to trading volume on daily basis which is normal for them to have those KYC to bas asked on. The risk of exchanges is there and talking about hacks since they are not backed by something then security would really be absent people do lost their coins forever once exchange been hacked.

Before entering exchange, we really know the risk involve on it. Thats what are terms and conditons stand for. Most of exchangers today needed a verifications using ID before our wothdrawals, but what the use of it if the exchangers would just shut down in an instant?

I think it would be more of a large scale exchangers to implement the regulations for the whole country and the world because in every country have a different regulations. This would not be easy if countries are not united with a certain law to implement it.

We do need some regulations for everything like Imagine a signature campaign without rules, it will become tragic. People with freedom is sometimes scarier than those  who follow rules. Regulations are made so that we can have a peace and order not only on this forum but everywhere. It can be a filter to those people who just want to make us something bad and gives us protection to stay away from them.

Though regulation might be considered as a step-forward towards improved collateral and security in payment, this would also result to a more 'controlled' and 'less-volatile' price of bitcoins in the market. What makes bitcoin interesting is its decentralized and high volatile nature, which makes it the perfect vessel/instrument for long-term investments. As compared also to the other types of investment in the market, bitcoin is regarded as the one who gives the highest yield of income in a short-amount of time.
Regulation among the cryptocurrency world can be a double-edged sword, as one entity has full control of the prices and the volume in the market. This then, may be subject to fraud schemes depending on the price of it currently.

A regulation can be very useful if everyone could benefit from it but when the government focused on centralizing everything the cost will be great. So it should be approved by the people's choices and not by themselves though it will take a lot debates but i'm certain that it is effective at the end. Though they can't really centralized Bitcoin itself but they can centralized those exchanges.

The idea of bitcoin was that it will be a currency free economy. With no regulation. I am against state regulation of cryptocurrencies. This is contrary to the idea of cryptocurrency. Now governments and banks are actively engaged in an information war against bitcoin. Probably this was the reason for falling prices.

I have a strong suspicion that they are not there to protect us, simple folks, but rather to protect themselves and their financial muscle from being taken by us. If they were really into the protection thing, why did they start talks about it only now when crypto has shown its strength? Cryptomarkets can very well regulate themselves, while government intervention will be more like a bull in a china shop. They are afraid of losing financial grip on the world, and that seems to be the primary driver behind their actions.

It's ok for me to regulate bitcoin exchanges if the purpose is to protect the users from any harm or illegal means. But if the government will later abused it or use by some people in power to be their source of money or use it in extortion activities, it is no longer beneficial to the users and to the people as whole. Excessive regulation is not also a good idea because the right of users will only be limited to a fewer choices. Good regulation will ensure the safety of users' transactions and may prevent someone from using the cryptocurrency in illegal activities. Personally I don't like regulation but if the government is decided to impose it then we have no choice.

Bitcoin is being create and people interest this technology because of it's decentralized concept.
If government regulate bitcoin, it means that bitcoin being control by government which means that bitcoin become not decentralized anymore.

I'm just afraid when government regulate bitcoin, bitcoin's demand start decrease and unable reach current value anymore ( $ 10.000 ++ )

Regulations is mean to protect us from harm, since there are always different point of view in solving a problem, regulation ia needed as a solution,  maybe some of the regulation  sounds not fair but actually it protect all of us, but somehow when regulation is implemented the freedom is gone
I actually prefer crypto is not regulated, let the peole have it's freedom to used, but in one side, some people used it for illegal things, so maybe the solution of this is  to be regulated, it is better being regulated rather than be banned

I agree with you, regulations can build or break a good idea like the blockchain and its projects, and if done just right this will certainly protect investors and their money and prevent the closure of our beloved exchanges that keep the crypto ecosystem alive and in check.

This should be regulated with a great purpose to gives us protection, its really good to be regulated but the government must work for the interest of the public and not just to manipulate the circulation or even the collection of taxes. There’s a pros and cons when it comes to regulation but if its for the sake of many people, will support on it.

It makes some sense but crypto will remain crypto, and if someone steals your coins, then no amount of regulation will help you find the thieves and get the coins back. There is scarcely an exchange that hadn't been hacked in the past with their clients money stolen, so I don't really see how regulation can be of any particular help here. It may prevent deliberate scams, of course, but definitely not thefts. And for users, it won't make any real difference.

regulation can be protection and yes i do agree about that but the regulation also must have good benefit from both sides the government and bitcoin users itself i mean if the purpose of the regulation is only payment of taxes but we as bitcoin users can't get full of protections then i think it's useless

No matter which way you go there would be no security because you wont even know if those government who do backed exchanges would assure you to have such protection. Centralization means full control and we cant dictate or do know on possible plans are being molded ahead but somehow thinking off about confidence since its being backed by government will really be there. People do have different preference some may agree with centralization and some would prefer the traditional ways.

I agree that the people in the BITCOIN industry feel protected by the government.

for me the government should apply the rules / legislation to the bitcoiner that regulates this (the list includes most or all developed countries with free market economies), which ensures the right of consumers, as well as fair trade, competition and accurate information on the bitcoin market . so crypto users have a sense of convenience.

This is the ideal scenario where the people and government can work hand in hand where just like stock markets in each country they have regulators which also protects the people money and give people confidence to invest more in same way if things works towards this direction for cypto it would be beneficial for entire community.

Regulations are one of the steps for centralization. We already know the story, it starts with regulations and later after some decades it leads to
"I control your money".

In @CryptoBry's example with an exchange closing its business, I don't see how it can really protect people. What about if exchanges didn't exist? What about if Bitcoin is the only currency worldwide (so we don't need exchanges anymore)?

Now if you say regulations are good for criminal activities etc. Oh really? That's why the current system is so efficient to do this, so why do they create more and more regulations?

Another argument can be, it protects both parties (let's say, buyer and seller) for their transaction. To not be scammed or whatever you can imagine. It's up to people to educate themselves about the risks when doing a transaction.
IRL if you got scammed and used banknotes to pay, who is going to help you? Nobody, your money is gone.

One of the goals with cryptos is to do be able to do a transaction without using a third party

Regulation is the reason why there is an organized organization and a smooth flow of a transactions. So it is better to have a good regulation to protect us.   

Regulation is a good thing it makes usage of bitcoin beneficial for the government and citizen but at the same time it looks opposing the basic nature of crypto currency that is decentralization.The crypto was found to be used as a currency without any intruder in between,now government will record the transactions by means of regulation.So we have to pay taxes and other stuffs to the government as using fiat money.But regulation will protect(maybe) the crypto currency market from illegal activist.So it is a good thing right for the government and for the citizen also.

I think if the crypto currencies were totally regulated the people may lose their interest on using it because it also looks same as using fiat.So there maybe more price fall in crypto market if more countries regulate the usage.

If the bitcoins are regulated then it will be really helpful for the entire community. The regulations will make sure to protect the interest of the investors and it will also keep check on the service providers. People will start to trust bitcoins and it will attract more investment into the bitcoin market; as the demand for the bitcoins will increase, there will be rise in the value of the bitcoins.

It seems to me that excessive regulation is a problem of our time. States constantly stepping on our rights. Moreover, they want to take our income in taxes. The government can't demonstrate the effectiveness of government. Probably this is the main reason for the growing popularity of cryptocurrency in the world.

Exactly my point and that is the reason why the argument of regulations will continue to win everyday and its because the major players are giving room for such. Imagine an exchange site that would wake up and close up, get hacked, treat customers like they are doing them a favor for coming to patronize them, customers support is not responding and no matter how you complain, they just seems not to clear. It does not happen in the real world, banks don't just close down, they don't treat customers anyhow without having to deal with complain from the Central Banks, I have seen banks refund for extra charges taken from my account simply because someone is there to call them to order.

Its not all good for banks too, but some bit of regulations is required for sanity to return to this crypto world because only then can trust on a large value is placed in the industry and hopefully we can get there.

There is also another catch. Introducing regulations increases the demand for certain
professions (e.g. tax advisors, lawyers). People in these professions are therefore
heavily incentivized to lobby for the continuation or even expansion of regulative efforts.

There are several cases where a finance minister in a country has first introduced
strict regulations and later switched to the very companies that were affected by his laws
in order to advise them on how to circumvent the regulatory rules that were
created during his term as minister.

Well the only problem is that governments don't see it as we do. We have nothing to lose if it becomes mainstream, but we would rather be happy to get something extra to use beside the traditional money that we have been using for centuries. But governments see it somehow as a threat, as they know they won't be able to control its growth nor its supply at any cost. If they regulate it for the protection of people not killing it, and if people start using it more often then the economy which is in their hand, it will be a disaster for them, and that is what they don't want.

Well that has kind of always been the idea. Regulations are for the protection of both the state and its citizens, not just regulation for the sake of regulating.

The catch here is that regulations could go both ways; overly stringent regulations could turn people off on the idea, while proper regulations could legitimize crypto in a way that citizens know that they're engaging in something real, and not some bubble crap that FUDers love saying.

I personally am for regulations for as long as they don't stifle the growth of the technology, and it erases the uncertainty of the government's future steps at the very least.

In an ideal or perfect world, we don't really need regulations because people would be following the principle of fairness and selflessness but we are not in the ideal world and so we need regulations in order to protect ourselves from people who are just waiting to crunch us alive. The only problem is when regulations are set-up not to protect but to also kill or stifle the very thing being regulated.

One area of concern for regulation is accountability. For example, without regulations placed and laws enacted for the matter, an exchange can just closed its business leaving many members holding empty bags because their funds are gone the moment the site is not anymore operating. And because the people behind the site are anonymous members don't know what to do and where to seek help.

I also felt uneasy about regulations but if done right this can be for our own advantage and the whole cryptocurrency movement.