But, THIS time everything is going to be different! Because of Bitcoin's paradigm-shifting, gravity-defying, game-changing properties, the normal rules of bubble economics and financial regulation no longer apply! The Brave New World has arrived! /sarcasm<p>Seriously though, Bitcoin is going to enjoy its glorious rise for only as long as the politicians/regulators/law enforcement fail to realize the true extent of the threat to their power, IF Bitcoin's intended properties are allowed to continue unrestricted. Once all these players wake up, the crackdown will be a lot fiercer than anything ever done against P2P file-sharers. Napster threatened just one industry, Bitcoin is taking a swing at our entire political and economic system.<p>It is just a matter of time before every Bitcoin exchange is forced to turn in all their records to IRS, the transaction histories are fully outed and the main benefits of using Bitcoin are minimized. The regulators have no reason to leave alternative currencies alone vs. crack down like they've done to the likes of the Liberty Dollar ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar</a> )<p>At the end of the day, any currency is only as viable as the enforcement power behind it, which ultimately means "people with guns". Bitcoin has none of it and US Dollar has the largest world power behind it...