Sometimes I wonder if it really is a good thing for governments to get involved in crypto at all.
It worries me that what they will do is control people even more, by releasing their own centrally controlled cryptocurrency.
It would be more effective in tracking people than credit cards, as credit card companies don't automatically send tha tinfo to the government. I honestly would prefer government stay out of Bitcoin, but what can Ido to stop that, nothing.
On the other hand, it makes sense for governments to switch to cryptocurrency, as we can see what they do publically on the blockchain. We can hold them accountable if all politicians were paid in crypto for example. We could see their shady anonymous donations and stuff like that.
The overall main problem would be is a government centralized a crypto, had control over it, and had the aility to blacklist people and ban them from using it. They could use that to control people. we must never let that happen.
It is currently not possible to centralise Bitcoin for example. They would need a lot of hashing power to have control over the network. So I don´t think this will happen in the near future. There is a high chance that countries will create fiat style cryptocurrencies, but no one will use them. I am always asking myself what would be the benefit for the normal joe ?
But technically Bitcoin is controlled by 3 big mining companies...
When blockchain equals AI then centralization will equal a singularity of that AI and the total control that follows will be the darkest age ever, but during that dark age humans will be ruled by AI and only when the technology is completely destroyed will humanity regain it's freedom. But that also why we must fight to be smarter than a centralized AI. At least with Steemit we will be able to understand them because they will have to talk to us in order to gain any power over the currency.
The cat is already out of the box. There are so many cryptocurrencies now, some of them fully anonymous like Monero.
The russian government is sure trying get influence in Bitcoin. They're planning on building a huge mining plant to compete with Chinese miners. Mining is currently mostly done in China.
The Russian central bank has also been speaking about introducing a centrally led coin - the cryptorubble, but I'm sure many Russians are sceptical enough to not jump on that.
That is a very good point indeed ! I have heard from a very famous insightful investor ( Doug Casey) that America is planning on creating a "Fed Coin", and like you say it will allow the government to track out every move and thus cryptos function will be the reversed of its original intention