2016 Bitcoin

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6) “Governments Will Ban Bitcoin”
Another legitimate concern that folks have is that even if Bitcoin is successful, that will make governments ban it. Some governments already have. So, this falls more in the “risk” category than a “misconception”.

There is precedent for this. The United States made it illegal for Americans to own gold from 1933 to 1975, other than in small amounts for jewelry and collectibles. In the land of the free, there was a benign yellow metal that we could be sent to prison for owning coins and bars of, simply because it was seen as a threat to the monetary system.

This chart shows the interest rate of 10-year Treasury yields in blue. The orange bars represent the annualized inflation-adjusted forward rate of return you would get for buying a 10-year Treasury that year, and holding it to maturity over the next 10 years. The green square shows the period of time where owning gold was illegal.
There was a four-decade period from the 1930’s to the 1970’s where keeping money in the bank or in sovereign bonds didn’t keep up with inflation, i.e. the orange bars were net negative. Savers’ purchasing power went down if they held these paper assets.

This was due to two inflationary decades: one in the 1940’s, and one in the 1970’s. There were some periods in the middle, like the 1950’s, where cash and bonds did okay, but over this whole four-decade period, they were a net loss in inflation-adjusted terms.

It’s not too shocking, therefore, that one of the release valves for investors was banned during that specific period. Gold did great over that time, and held its purchasing power against currency debasement. The government considered it a matter of national security to “prevent hoarding” and basically force people into the paper assets that lost value, or into more economic assets like stocks and real estate.

This was back when the dollar was backed by gold, so the United States government wanted to own most of the gold, and limit citizens’ abilities to acquire gold. No such backing exists today for gold or Bitcoin, and thus there is less incentive to try to ban it.

And, the gold ban was hard to enforce. There were rather few prosecutions over gold ownership, even though the penalties on paper were severe.

Bitcoin uses encryption, and thus is not really able to be confiscated other than through legal demand. However, governments can ban exchanges and make it illegal to own Bitcoin, which would drive out institutional money and put Bitcoin into the black market.

Here’s the problem. Bitcoin has over $250 billion in market capitalization. Two publicly-traded companies on major exchanges, MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Square (SQ) already own it, as do a variety of public companies on other exchanges and OTC markets, plus private companies and investment funds. Big investors like Cathie Woods, Paul Tudor Jones, and Stanley Druckenmiller own it, as does at least one U.S. senator-elect. Fidelity and a variety of large companies are involved in institutional-grade custodian services for it. PayPal (PYPL) is getting involved. Federally regulated U.S. banks can now officially custody crypto assets. The IRS treats it like a commodity for tax purposes. That’s a lot of mainstream momentum.

It would be extremely difficult for major capital markets like the United States or Europe or Japan to ban it at this point. If, in the years ahead, Bitcoin’s market capitalization reaches over $1 trillion, with more and more institutions holding exposure to it, it becomes harder and harder to ban.

Bitcoin was already an unusual asset that grew into the semi-mainstream from the bottom up, through retail adoption. Once the political donor class owns it as well, which they increasingly do, the game is basically over for banning it. Trying to ban it would be an attack on the balance sheets of corporations, funds, banks, and investors that own it, and would not be popular among millions of voters that own it.

I think regulatory hostility is still a risk to watch out for while the market capitalization is sub–$1 trillion. And the risk can be managed with an appropriate position size for your unique financial situation and goals.