Now that Trump has been elected, Bitcoin enthusiasts and businesses alike are more optimistic about the future of Bitcoin in the United States. We can see this clearly reflected in the price of bitcoin, which continues to reach new all-time highs in the wake of the election.
While it is exciting to see US Bitcoiners breathing a collective sigh of relief as the price of Bitcoin rises (which is important), it is also essential to recognize that if we do not remain vigilant and lose our ability to transact with Bitcoin privately and as anonymously as possible, as some rightly suggest could easily happen, we will have failed in our mission .
Former Presidential Advisor Pippa Malmgren on the Legalization of Bitcoin:
"If you make crypto and Bitcoin legal (…) you cannot keep them anonymously, you have to declare them."
"You will not be able to escape the reach of the US government. (…) And because we are in… pic.twitter.com/aVeZBKodQ4
— L0la L33tz (@L0laL33tz) November 8, 2024
While it appears that the Trump administration will be friendlier to the Bitcoin and broader crypto industry than the Biden administration, we still have little idea of what the regulatory details will look like under the new administration. Furthermore, the judge in the Tornado Cash case recently stated that the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) does not require control of funds (private keys) for sending moneymeaning we may soon see a legal precedent paving the way for much greater AML/KYC requirements for Bitcoin users.
Main points of the @TornadoCash statement (so far):
(1) BSA does not require checks on money transmission
(2) The 2019 Guidelines do not have a broad control requirement for money transfers, and "total independent control" is just one part of a four-factor test specific to the… https://t.co/1rnB2SCVpA— Zack Shapiro (@zackbshapiro) September 26, 2024
If we don’t support efforts to legally defend our right to peer-to-peer transactions without having to provide identifying information, we have lost one of Bitcoin’s core value propositions.
So celebrate the fact that the new government is doing things like… Bitcoin Mining in the USA And the right to keep your private keysbut remain vigilant about what both the administration and the courts say about the need to provide identifying information to use bitcoin – and prepare to push back.
This article is a To take. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.