Steven Mnuchin said during the press conference that the government will not permit anything to threaten the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency.
If people turn to bitcoin en masse, especially since it has no real value, that could destabilize the world markets.
The federal government will essentially choke off cryptocurrencies and bitcoin by using government regulations.
In both his statement and during the Q&A session, Steven Mnuchin repeatedly said that Facebook and other cryptocurrencies are going to have to meet all the banking regulations that every other financial instrument is required to comply with in the United States.
That means meeting FinCEN’s rules, the Treasury’s criminal regulatory framework.
These regulations are so complex, so onerous, and littered with minutia, that they require highly paid compliance officers that every financial institution hires.
Regulatory compliance is enormously expensive and time-consuming. It takes years just to set up the regulatory framework, years to interpret that framework, and years worth of work in order for compliance to be achieved.
That’s what will kill bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Eulogy made by Lawrence Meyers
