As it has been said, the more things change, the more that they stay the same. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, one might think, that these cryptocurrencies have somehow changed the game in regards to the primacy of the United States dollar, as well as other orthodox currencies around the world. The one thing, though, that we can state with a certainty, is that national governments, almost without exception, do not ever permit any unauthorized competition with their national currency, of which, a given nation’s currency is thereby controlled and regulated by that national government, for the supposed good of that population. This certainty makes sense, because money is simply a medium of exchange, of which, those that are utilizing that money, in all sorts of transactions, need to have the security of knowing that the money is fungible, liquid, stable, and universally accepted -- which is a truism for all major national currencies around the world.
The first thing that we know about cryptocurrencies is that they are clearly not currency, or else, if they were, than governments, the world over, would relentlessly put them out of existence. Further to the point, the usage of cryptocurrencies is typically never one of actually buying goods or trading goods through the exchange of those cryptocurrencies, because the problem with cryptocurrencies, besides the fact that they are not universally accepted, is their unacceptable amount of volatility in their value. Because cryptocurrencies are unstable, and unsecure in the sense there is no national authority to backstop them, this thus signifies that for most people and organizations, they are not going to desire to transact business in cryptocurrency, unless by the very nature of their business, probably because it is illegal or illicit, their hand is forced into utilizing something that theoretically is anonymous and cryptic.
In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service, taxes cryptocurrencies as property, and thereby treats it as such, for taxable capital gain purposes. This is the reason why cryptocurrencies are therefore apparently legal in America, and why this is also true in many other nations, as well. In other words, those that speculate in cryptocurrencies are essentially purchasing something of substance, which may go up or may go down, but is seldom ever actually utilized as an actual form of currency. While it is true that the national government, does regulate the currency of the nation – it is also true that those that wish to barter with one another, and therefore exchange one set of goods for another, are permitted to do so – which is the basic way to look upon any transactions so done with cryptocurrency.
We do so find that Bitcoin and Ethereum, have both seen their cryptocurrency rise remarkably higher against the United States dollar, but this has little to do with the intrinsic worth of that dollar, and a heck of a lot more to do, with those that are attempting to make some easy money, or literally easy crypto, by their speculation in such. Human nature has a tendency to want to speculate, and a strong desire from many a person to make money without having to put forth a lot of effort, which is why there is so much cheerleading and manipulation to try to get a given cryptocurrency to rise, which signifies that a lot of cryptocurrencies have a lot more in common with Ponzi schemes, than they ever would have with being actual legitimate currency.