even if the US tried to seize American Bitcoin-related assets and prevent Americans from transferring money directly to Bitcoin exchanges . . . [T]here are just too many ways around those laws -- c.f. online poker legislation.
Online poker is not a fundamental threat to the government's ability to collect taxes like Bitcoin is. Also, online poker as far as I know is not a generally useful tool in the commission of crimes and acts of terrorism.
Online poker is not a fundamental threat to the government's ability to collect taxes like Bitcoin is.
Anecdotally - I've seen multiple British people (including geeks at Dorkbots, who I would have thought more open to libertarianism without necessarily conflating it with conservatism - admittedly, the two correlate pretty closely in the UK) utterly outraged at the prospect of various schemes for alternate currencies, open currencies, etc. Their objection? They see the possibility this stuff can't be taxed, and get outraged at the idea, because they have...
Tangential, but a subject of some local interest:
Why Bitcoin will fail by Avery Pennarun. "The sky isn't red." Thesis:
I'm not sure I buy these and am not competent to evaluate his claims on 3., but would like others' critique.
L019: Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen by Jason Calacanis. A rather more enthusiastic viewpoint of the project:
The actual text contains many more caveats than the eye-catching selection of points above.