On Monday, Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Blanche published a memo entitled “Ending Regulation By Prosecution” in which he stated that the U.S. Department of Justice will stop its crackdown on bitcoin and crypto mixers.

Here’s the exact language he used in the memo:

“…the Justice Department will stop participating in regulation by prosecution in this space. Specifically, the Department will no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations…”

The following day, New York Attorney General (NYAG) James co-authored a letter in which she called on congressional leaders to create federal crypto regulation, in part to prevent the use of crypto mixers for illicit purposes.

Here’s what she and her co-authors had to say about crypto mixers:

“Effective legislation must require cryptocurrency platforms to expressly comply with anti-money laundering laws, know your customer (“KYC”) regulations and cyber security protocols to prevent the use of cryptocurrency to finance terrorism, adversarial regimes, and crime. Cryptocurrency that cannot be fully traced, such as those going through money laundering mixers, must not be allowed to be converted, directly or indirectly, to U.S. dollars.”

While DAG Blanche gave the benefit of the doubt to users of Bitcoin and crypto mixers, NY AG James implied that all users of such mixers are criminals, as she refers to the technology as “money laundering mixers.”

Such language is deeply concerning to hear from the attorney general of a state — much less any lawyer — as it presumes guilt.

NY AG James has employed this type of rhetoric around Bitcoin and crypto since she assumed the attorney general role in 2018, and it’s unfair because 1.) she’s never once acknowledged that human rights and pro-democracy activists use mixers to preserve both their privacy and the privacy of their donors and 2.) U.S. citizens have a right to financial privacy.

So, as the topic Bitcoin privacy becomes more prominent in the political sphere, be sure to do your part to amplify the type rhetoric that DAG Blanche is using while pushing back on the dangerous and unjust rhetoric from the likes of NY AG James.

It’s up to us to make our voices heard on this issue and to let our elected officials know that it matters to us, especially as the Samourai Wallet and Tornado Cash cases unfold (more on both cases in the discussion below).

Today, China announced that it will increase tariffs on the goods it ships to the United States from 34% to 84% in response to President Trump stating that he will raise tariffs on the goods the U.S. ships to China to 104%.

The increased Chinese tariffs on the U.S. will make it more costly for U.S.-based public Bitcoin mining companies to purchase ASICs (the premier machines used to mine bitcoin), the majority of which are produced in China.

And this will be largely beneficial for the health of the Bitcoin mining ecosystem.

As Troy Cross eloquently explained in “The Future OF Bitcoin Mining Is Distributed”, if one country controls too much of the Bitcoin hashrate, Bitcoin’s censorship resistance — one of its core value propositions — is put at risk.

In the article, Cross highlighted that if the majority of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate is not only produced in the U.S. but produced by American public mining companies, the U.S. government has more leverage to mandate that these companies only mine OFAC-compliant blocks.

For those who believe that these companies would push back or simply not follow such orders, please note that Marathon Digital Holdings, the largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining company in the U.S., has already proven that it’s willing to comply with OFAC regulations.

The Bitcoin network has a higher likelihood of maintaining its censorship resistance when the hashrate is distributed globally.

As Cross mentioned in a recent interview (below), Bitcoin differs from other emerging technologies in that it does not benefit from one country controlling most of the industry around it.

Bitcoin is a technology. It is not some force of the universe, some natural element or mineral that was “discovered” floating out in the ether. It is a technology. Technologies are created by human beings, not discovered. They are designed. That design has intent, elements of it are made specifically in a way to facilitate that intent. The tolerances of what a technology can or cannot handle are a result of those design decisions, which are in turn a result of the intent. 

New Bitcoiners are being brought into the world of Bitcoin through a lens that obscures and distorts the realities of Bitcoin as a technology and what that entails, and tries to pack it into the box of “digital gold.”

Bitcoiners are becoming goldbugs. People who thing Bitcoin is some magic thing that is decentralized “just cause,” whose future success is preordained and an absolute certainty.

This is a disastrous way for people to conceptualize Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a decentralized computer network. The conditions of a network are not a static thing. Environments change, network loads change, behavior of network users change. All of these things can have impacts on the viability and functioning of the network itself. 

Gold doesn’t need patches for vulnerabilities. Gold doesn’t have to overhaul major subsystems because a change in user behavior overloaded them to the point of not functioning correctly or efficiently. Gold doesn’t need to worry about Denial of Service attack vectors that could disrupt, or worst case bring down, the entire “gold network.” 

Bitcoin does. Bitcoin is not “digital gold,” it is a decentralized network made of software individuals actually have to run and maintain. The Bitcoin goldbugs have completely lost connection with this reality, at least when it comes to rationally assessing risks to Bitcoin, or ways it genuinely could fail or be co-opted. 

Bitcoin is going to have problems it needs to solve, at a fundamental technical level. It already does, and it will have more. This is how technology works, it is an inherent part of it. Bitcoin’s value stems from its use as a censorship resistant network, a freedom money no one can stop you from using. That is its core valuable characteristic. 

That characteristic hinges entirely on its decentralized nature. 

If people do not work to defend that decentralized nature, to interact with Bitcoin in a decentralized fashion, to improve and fix it as needed to counteract limitations or pressures encouraging centralization, then it will not remain decentralized. 

We are going to very soon regret the consequences of focusing so much outreach the last few cycles purely on spreading this “digital gold” narrative. This entire generation of Bitcoiners does not fundamentally understand that decentralization isn’t a static unchanging characteristic set in stone forever. 

It needs to be maintained. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.