Who is "Jerry Brito"?

We know he is based in Washington, in the USA. This is a very bad thing, because the people who write from there are infected with the disease of the White House and the tens of thousands of aparatchics that swarm there like flies.

Someone writing from Washington cannot be thought of as neutral, unless he proves it, and Jerry has just proved, with this shabby article, that he is anything but neutral.

When he says, "regulators are taking notice" which regulators, and why are they taking notice of Bitcoin and not any other technology? I put it to you that these bad people are looking at Bitcoin precisely because they are being egged on by Jerry Brito and his ilk. They are busy trying to kill Bitcoin in the USA, and by constantly pestering the three letter agencies they are making the bad event of Bitcoin legislation more likely to come to pass. When Jerry says, "Government" seems to be getting serious, what exactly does he mean? The Canadian government says Bitcoin is not money. Other governments have declined to comment at all. Why is it that Jerry thinks the only government that matters is the US Government? This is textbook parochialism, American exceptionalism and small mindedness.

Jerry asks should the nebulous "Bitcoin Community" engage regulators; once again, which regulators, and why should Americans take precedence over Canadians or the British, who have also said that Bitcoin is not money and financial controls and legislation do not apply to it. Why should the Bitcoin Community look to the worst government in the world, and not the best? Is he really that insular and naive to think that the US Government is the only one in the entire world that counts? It beggars belief that this could be the case, but it appears that he really does believe this.

Ignoring the regulators is an option because Jerry is talking about American regulators. You can ignore them and move your business to Canada, all without having to put up your middle finger. Fundamentally, it seems that Jerry doesn't understand Bitcoin, why it was created, or what the word, "jurisdiction" means. These things are important if you want to write about Bitcoin.

Right on que, Jerry brings up the Straw Man of Money Laundering rules. This is a Straw Man because Bitcoin is not money, and anything can be used to exchange in lieu of money. Apart from that, Max Keiser recently, when asked about Bitcoin and Money Laundering, replied with the facts about HSBC and its conviction for handling many billions of dollars for extra-legal drug selling entrepreneurs. Anyone who employs reason, as a writer in Reason should, should understand that the War on Drugs is completely immoral, and should not be a pretext for anything whatsoever. The absurd Anti Money Laundering laws, that are designed to punish men who engage in this fake crime are absolutely against logic and right, and people who write for Reason should know this. I find it very suspicious indeed that this article takes the slant that it does.

Regulation is not just a practical matter; it is a matter of ethics. This alone is a reason to reject them, and their corrosive effect on the development of the Bitcoin network. As we see repeatedly, US Banks are willing to shut down the accounts of any person that is doing anything out of the ordinary. The man behind Defense Distributed has just had his Chase account closed, even though he was doing nothing illegal. People like Jerry Brito are actually for this sort of act, because they are for regulation of industry. This is completely unethical and harmful to the "society" that he claims he (and you) are a member of.

Jerry then goes on to describe the people who want regulation (force and violence used against others) as being the, "other end of the spectrum". These people are not at the end of a spectrum, they are wrong. They are wrong and immoral to want to control other people. They are evil, and this needs to be said plainly, and out in the open. Men who want to use force to control other men are the scum of the Earth, and the cause of all our problems. Apologists for them, like Jerry Brito are a major part of the problem, because they refuse to call a spade a spade, and confront these violent men with the reality of what it is they are proposing.

Cameron Winklevoss, that uniovular circus attraction says, "no one wants a fight". This is code for, "we will fight and imprison anyone who tries to stop us regulating Bitcoin". Thankfully he and his brother are doomed to fail. No one with any brains is going to put up with being regulated by these two clowns; they will simply remove their servers to Canada and continue to profit away from the corrosive Crony Capitalists south of the border.

The fact that these people are, "not alone", the classic appeal to the people fallacy, is trotted out by Brito. It doesn't matter how many people think a wrong thing is right Jerry. You need to get out of Washington where this sort of thinking infects everything.

It is extraordinarily hilarious that Jerry calls the upcoming conference in Vienna an "Alternative Conference". In a peer to peer network, everyone's client has equal say. There is no "center of Bitcoin" and all conferences have equal weight, because at the end of the day, only the Bitcoin network matters and nothing else. This is the fallacious idea that America is the center of the world rearing its ugly head again. Shabby thinking at its best, and really rather repulsive. We will see many more conferences springing up in the future, and the USA will not be the center of Bitcoin forever, just as English is soon to be a minority language on the web. The numbers do not lie; there are more people who are not Americans than there are Americans, and they simply cannot control the world, or anything in it on behalf of the world, and have no right to do so.

No one with any brains wants to bridge a gap between violent crony capitalists and Bitcoin entrepreneurs who want to be free. Brito is wrong when he says that exchanges are being regulated; they are not. Everything that a Bitcoin exchange does right now is completely voluntary at every level. The fact that this generation of exchanges has chosen to regulate themselves mimiking the banking model is a short term anomaly and a blip. Once again, "the Treasury's" guidance is moot to anyone who does not live and work in the USA. Invoking it here in this way, as if it has authority over the entire universe is simply wrong. Bitcoin companies in other jurisdictions can and do completely ignore "the Treasuries" guidance, and even in the USA, guidance is not the same as legislation. Before trying to write about complex issues involving the law, its important to understand the difference between legislation and guidance, what jurisdiction means and all of the matters surrounding this. You simply cannot wing it, and get away with it.

Rejecting regulators is not only satisfying, but it accomplishes a great deal, and Jerry is completely wrong in this regard. We only need look at every other unregulated business that has thrived, indeed, the Internet itself which is unregulated, to see just what an unregulated industry can accomplish. It is simply absurd to assert that an unregulated Bitcoin economy will not grow to the size of the Internet in user numbers. Anyone who say that it cannot thrive without regulation is not aware of the history of the Internet.

Finally, regulation is not at all inevitable. Canada and the UK will not regulate Bitcoin especially as companies start to flee the USA and the Jerry Brito's of the world, who want to shackle entrepreneurs. I have no doubt that Brito and the Doublemint Twins will try to convince other governments to follow the lead of the vile US Government but this will be very difficult now, in light of the PRISM scandal, which has inoculated everyone against the US animus.

Jerry Brito has it completely wrong when it comes to Bitcoin and regulation. He is anti-American, anti-Liberty, anti-Capitalist and anti-Reason.