Nothing to sell but dreams

Today's key crypto-related regulatory questions reveal how it is not fulfilling its promised potential

Nine years ago, this column warned that electronic currencies would soon be a matter of concern for governments and monetary authorities. How precisely, I asked (‘Two scary steps forward’, April 8, 2013), would the tax authorities track down Bitcoin transactions? How would we have to modify foreign exchange and other regulations to prevent hidden capital flows using cryptocurrencies? Would Bitcoin make it easier to evade taxes, and undermine the government's fiscal policies? And I worried also that crypto would be “a hard monetarist’s dream come true”, given that it was a tech-intensive attempt to kill off monetary policy.