QUESTION: Marty,
In light of the recent ransomware attacks where individuals/companies are being held hostage until they pay the criminals in bitcoins, why wouldn’t governments around the globe step in and just shut down Bitcoin. It amazes me. Bitcoin allows people to sell everything from drugs to trade secrets on Wall Street and they do this without having to even pay taxes on it! What’s going on behind the scene that allows this operation to continue?
MM
ANSWER: My guess is they are doing the same as tax straddles during the 70s. They knew what was going on and let it run and then fined everybody with interest and penalties. Incidents like this do not bode well for BitCoin and authorities going forward. Way too easy for a politicians to make a big issue out of it. They are already coining the phrase “cash is for criminals” so it would be easy to swap out a word here and there.
