Regulation of Bitcoin, and crypto markets in general, seems to be one of the main obstacles limiting its mass adoption as of today.
Not only are there some countries that actually ban the purchase and sale or use of it, but in some of those where there are no bans there are regulatory obstacles.
For example, the European Union’s new MiCa regulation does not ban them, but it severely restricts their unrestricted and unproblematic use.
The issue becomes especially important in those countries where there is a large and deep market for cryptocurrencies, primarily the US and China.
Bitcoin regulation in the US
There is much discussion in the United States of America about how to regulate the use and exchange of cryptocurrencies.
For now it seems that the government and Parliament are moving generically toward fairly lax regulation, more so than in Europe, but not everyone agrees.
It is worth mentioning that next year there are elections for the presidency, so many politicians are already starting to sharpen their weapons especially in view of the primaries.
That is why some, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, are even organizing their campaign by targeting cryptocurrencies. Warren, for example, has proposed creating a kind of “anti-crypto army” to fight cryptocurrencies, and it could garner some support.
However, it does not appear that the majority of the US political class is with Elizabeth Warren.
In fact, there are those who think exactly the opposite.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Bitcoin
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of Bob Kennedy, brother of President John who was assassinated in 1963, himself assassinated in 1968.
He belongs to the Democratic Party, like his father Bob and uncle John, but also like Senator Warren herself. This shows that even within the Democratic Party there are very different positions.
In fact, yesterday Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly stated on his official Twitter profile that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer an escape from the problems caused by the Fed’s monetary policy.
Kennedy resents the Fed for both its enormously expansive 2020/2021 policy and its intention to create its own CBDC. He also claims that the US government, also a Democrat, wants to destroy the crypto sector in cahoots with bankers.
For Kennedy, CBDCs are a tool of control that reduces Americans’ freedom and privacy, while Bitcoin combats the monetary policy blunders of central banks.
Kennedy is a very strong supporter of personal freedoms, so much so that he adopted radical positions, such as during the pandemic and especially the lockdown.
His positions against vaccines have drawn him much criticism, and so far he has not yet been able to capitalize in any way electorally.
The fact is that he is running to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee in next year’s presidential election.
While to date it is difficult to imagine that the Democrats could nominate anyone other than the current president, it is not completely impossible for Kennedy to undermine Biden by replacing him as the Democratic nominee, or for him to beat the Republican nominee next year and become the next US president.
It is worth noting though, that so far he has never yet achieved any significant electoral results, so it seems decidedly unlikely that he can beat Biden or the Republican candidate.
The situation in China
The situation in China is clear in terms of crypto regulation: it is forbidden to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
This should theoretically have halted the Chinese crypto market altogether, but it turns out that it has not stopped at all. In fact, the Chinese have simply found a way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on foreign exchanges.
For some time now, speculation has been circulating that China may revisit this blockade. Even though it is still only a vague speculation, since very rarely does the Chinese government admit to being wrong, there is one detail that brought it back to the fore just yesterday.
In fact, Tron founder Justin Sun reported on Twitter that real-time updates of Bitcoin prices appeared on the Chinese version of Tik Tok.
Douyin (that’s the name of the Chinese version of Tik Tok) is for all intents and purposes Tik Tok, but aimed at Chinese users. Indeed, since the app is from the Chinese company ByteDance, perhaps it would be better to say that Tik Tok is the international version of Douyin.
Apparently, Douyin has more than 700 million users, and being in Chinese it is used primarily by the Chinese people themselves.
Although ByteDance is a private company, Douyin is in fact always under observation by the Chinese government, which has already intervened several times to impose changes or controls.
Hence, the decision to add real-time updates to Bitcoin prices was not necessarily made by mutual agreement with the Chinese authorities, but in theory ByteDance should not have made it if it knew that it risked closure in this way.
Thus, the question remains whether this is some sort of defiance of the authorities, given that the Chinese population does not seem to favor government-imposed blocks on cryptocurrencies, or whether it is a decision somehow allowed by the authorities themselves. Should they not oppose it, this could be interpreted as a sign of some kind of change taking place in China regarding the government’s attitude toward the crypto sector.
Will regulation on crypto and Bitcoin become more lenient?
It is hard to claim that there are clear signs that regulation toward cryptocurrencies will become more permissive in the future, but at least as far as Bitcoin is concerned, there seems to be a chance that states will accept it as a common asset, especially in the financial markets.
With the bear-market of 2022 seemingly behind us, the detractors of cryptocurrencies may shrink somewhat, and perhaps as time goes on, Bitcoin’s supporters may increase again.
It may take years, but as far as Bitcoin is concerned, government regulations in the future may actually be relatively lenient to some degree.