How does the United States threaten the core values ​​of cryptocurrencies?

Author: Kadan Stadelmann, CryptoSlate; Compiled by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

As investors eagerly await the upcoming Bitcoin ETF, they are letting their Bitcoin be used by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase As financial giants cynically take control and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s war on self-regulation continues, the U.S. Bitcoin industry is facing an entirely new paradigm. This new paradigm may not be so beneficial to the industry.

In the future, Bitcoin held by U.S. citizens may no longer be held by ordinary people, but by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other large institutions, and this may become required by law. While the Bitcoin community has largely celebrated the recent approval of a Bitcoin ETF in anticipation of price increases, this vehicle still introduces counterparty risk to a technology designed to eliminate counterparty risk. This effectively takes away from Bitcoin’s innovative nature.

People who buy a Bitcoin ETF will receive paper certificates instead of Bitcoin, especially considering the SEC wants ETFs to be issued on a cash deposit/cash-out basis. SoBitcoin ETFs take Bitcoin away from holders in exchange for the convenience and some level of security that comes when a large, regulated institution has custody of an asset.

Additionally, there’sWarren’s bill , which would force investors to conduct transactions through the central institutions that Bitcoin is designed to circumvent. No more self-policing, no more cold storage. The senators’ war on self-regulation would undermine software companies’ ability to create secure “non-custodial” crypto wallets where users can control their own funds rather than entrusting those funds to often unreliable crypto exchanges and third-party custodians.

The bill, which is likely to be unconstitutional and is known as the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, would ban the use of digital asset mixers and require self-hosted wallets, miners and validators to implement anti-money laundering (AML) ) policy, thus harming the interests of consumers and industry.

Sadly but undeniably, Bitcoin’s future in the United States is in jeopardy. While many people think of Bitcoin as a commodity rather than a security, what difference does it make if you can't hold your own Bitcoin? The entire industry will have to turn to arguing over tokens with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and instead fight with the Senate and the executive branch over the right to hold Bitcoin, ultimately taking a case (or cases) to the Supreme Court, with the outcome It will have a significant impact on the development of Bitcoin in the United States and even around the world.

Banning the development of self-regulation in the United States would plunge the United States into the Stone Age of the Financial Age, even though much of the innovation in Bitcoin’s infancy originated in the United States. This is all coming to an end, which could have an impact on global markets, allowing Asia to continue to dominate the cryptocurrency market. Europe could also become an important player, especially with clear regulation in the form of Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations.

The two issues are so closely related that one almost wonders if there is a conspiracy to undermine central banks and the land of out-of-control monetary policy, a Satoshi invention. At the very least, it illustratesa country that has lost its way, going from a bastion of innovation to stifling it for big financial institutions.

The main premise of the Bitcoin system is that we hold our own Bitcoins without the need for middlemen like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan. There is no blockchain without self-regulation. Any user should be ethically allowed to download a Bitcoin client, generate a transaction address, and store Bitcoins on their own device, protected by a private key and seed phrase. This is financial sovereignty, and this is what Bitcoin – and cryptocurrencies – are really about. This is fundamental. But in the United States, things are looking very bad.