EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
The way I usually phrase this situation is something like 
&quot;The goals of a strong government are in direct opposition to the goals of most modern cryptocurrencies&quot;, and this is yet another subset of those goals where we can see the forces fighting against each other. I find it hard to convince myself cryptocurrency can win out in the long-term, as the more rules they find ways to skirt around via technology and decentralization, the more they will be clamped down upon by regulations.<p>You can spend a decade developing a provably-anonymous cryptocurrency (which we have indeed now done), and all it takes to break your anonymity is a law that forces you to report all transactions on a form, or else face prison time.<p>FinCEN was particularly aggressive and quick to act here, so I do hope they change course, especially given the unusually short comment period. This is where cryptocurrency users should be thankful for some of the less-centralized bodies  in the ecosystem (e.g. Coinbase) who will happily spend millions (if necessary) to help fight these actions legally on behalf of their users and business.