Bitcoin: Why Does Our Government even care?
Bitcoin. It is a word that has been thrown around all over the news the past month, but what is it and why does our government care so much? Bitcoin is a type of digital currency that uses encryption techniques in order to regulate generation of the units of currency as well as to verify the transfer of funds. The key feature of the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is the anonymity that they offer. This is exactly what attracted many early users of Bitcoin . It was a way to make transactions (often illegal in nature) anonymously. Before cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Tor, this was simply not possible. The same feature that attracts many of Bitcoin owners, anonymity, is attracting the attention of the US government. One of the biggest concerns of the US government, as well as international governments, regarding cryptocurrencies in the news recently is tax evasion. According to TheStreet a government file records that only 1,000 US citizens have reported cryptocurrency holdi