Governments would never be willing to give up that control. People don't realize how easy it would be for governments to kill all cryptos if they really wanted to. About as easy as killing an online poker site.
I agree to the first part, they are not willing. They are also starting to embrace the technology, not much the currencies and it makes sense. But how could they stop them? I am curious technically speaking. Making them illegal and closing exchanges might give them strength after an initial drop. Btc had already two massive corrections, it's heavy in mining, slow in transfer and expensive in fees, but still breaking up and being stored even by some top investors. Government action would make sense for crypto like xrp-ripple, as they are looking for acceptance in the system, and they do offer speed and cost never seen before. But most crypto seem to love their decentralized, whatever legal or not status. Btc first rally might have been pumped by the all dark web illegal business and easy hidden capital transfer. Governments can probablyly act on their value but I don't see how they could take blockchains off the net so easily.
Several institutions are introducing their own blockchains, I read about Spunta today, Italian banks proprietary blockchain for internal transfer. Some other are adapting to existing coins and using things like ripple. Some have tried to build their own without success. It will definitely be an interesting development. I don't see currencies with this type of volatility entering people wallet soon, but they might be useful as a tool behind the scene.
I don't even think they would have to make cryptocurrencies illegal. All they would have to do is ban brokers (RobinHood, CoinBase, PayPal) from allowing customers to exchange them either directly or indirectly for USD. They could claim that it is being done to stop illegal activity. It would cause more than just a temporary drop because it would totally kill the means of exchange argument. Ultimately, governments want to track and know every transaction their citizens make. They will find a way to get there with their own digital currencies. This part is conspiracy theory: I suspect that the reason China has not banned cryptos is because a lot of bitcoin mining is done in China and also because their ultimate goal is to become the world's reserve currency. So maybe they are hoping for now that cryptocurrencies challenge the reserve status of the US dollar and put the coming digital renminbi in a more competitive position.
China doesn't have to hope. It just has to watch the US swing to the left . It can than just watch the seemly inevitable decline
explain to us how crypto rallies to ATH existed before robinhood, coinbase, and paypal even got involved in the space?
Coinbase has been around since 2012. Since very few merchants will accept crypto directly, if you cannot exchange the crypto easily into dollars or other fiat currency, it's useless. Same would apply to precious metals. Yes. Unfortunately, that is true as well.