IS Donald Trump Powerful Enough To Banned Bitcoin

American President Donald Trump’s tweet caused a lot of commotion last week. Some people find the tweet worrying. Others see the tweet as free publicity for bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Contents hide

1 Bitcoin is code

2 Government can focus on “onramps”

3 Related posts:

According to economist and Twitterer Alex Krüger, there is no reason to worry. He does not expect Donald Trump to ban bitcoin:

1 / Could Trump ban Bitcoin?
Thread ? pic.twitter.com/KeDI35GU7C
– Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) July 15, 2019

Bitcoin is code

The most important argument from Krüger: bitcoin is code, and code cannot simply be prohibited. To understand that, we can look at an example in the past.

In 1995, mathematician Daniel Bernstein was not allowed to publish his work from the US government. Bernstein wrote an encryption program, and the US government was not happy about that. But Bernstein did not give up and sued the government.

And he was right. “Computer language is exactly that: language,” Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote. The court eventually confirmed this. Computer code has the same constitutional protection as a poem or newspaper article.

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Since bitcoin is also a computer code, Trump will have a hard time forbidding it.

Government can focus on “onramps”

But Trump can focus on the “onramps”. By this Krüger means companies where you can buy bitcoin with fiat currency, such as the dollar and the euro. In fact, just like a company such as BTC Direct.

This can be done simply by forbidding banks from providing services to cryptocurrency exchanges. Or by imposing so many conditions on the sale of cryptocurrency that it becomes practically impossible.

Various mainstream media are already reporting that Trump has made bitcoin an issue for the 2020 American elections. But whether that will happen? That is just the question.

There is at least one presidential candidate who is pro-crypto, and that is Andrew Yang. He is very open to all developments around cryptocurrencys and digital assets. You can read more about him in an earlier article.

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