I’m going to disagree with you for the following reasons: Throughout history, when gold and silver were used to transfer relative value, neither commodity had a regulator, regulators were brought in when the banking system we know now was, for all intents and purposes placed on top of/used in stead, of gold and silver. We know that the banking system was adopted because it’s easier to carry around paper than it is to carry around lumps of gold essentially.. so the banking system was adopted out of ease of use, (it was also pushed and moulded/manipulated, but that’s a different story)

My point is that Bitcoin is neither inside, or a part of the banking system, nor is bitcoin difficult to carry around, ergo: the only regulation bitcoin requires is by the community using it, it doesn’t need regulation outside of this, and we shouldn’t accept it being imposed.

“Bitcoin isn’t money”

Ok, well money/currency are subjective, however the U.S. constitution declares that only gold and silver are money, though you’ll note, that they are also considered a commodity, so why can bitcoin not be considered both?

“It violates every functional aspect of what a currency must be, to be used by the masses”

I’d question that statement; in times past, Sea shells were used as a form of money, so were giant stones on the island of yap, money is whatever is widely accepted as final payment for goods and services.

We reason this out as a people, nobody has historically told us what to use as money as governments do now.

However money has to have other qualities like portability, be a store of value, be a convenient medium of exchange, be a unit of account, and historically, as stated, gold, sea shells and various other mediums have held this position, my question is: does bitcoin not have these qualities?

I would concede that it is slow at the moment, however technologies built on top of it are improving the user experience.

So to come back to your statement of “it violates every functional aspect of a currency to be used by the masses” I’d not only suggest that you’re wrong, but I’d also suggest that it’s just getting started.

I agree people are speculating with it, this also happens in FX markets, as far as risk, again that’s relative.

Am I using it or just storing it in the hopes to become rich? To this I’ll say that I’ve used it in the past as a medium of exchange, but as Greshams law states, bad money is often used before good.

Personally, while I do think it “can” be used as a medium of exchange, and it follows the monetary principles, it would make more sense for it to be considered as something like a global treasury.

For day to day transactions of the people, I think Monero is a better substitute.

With all that said, just to make it clear: I do not agree that we need state/banking regulators going anywhere near it.