Crypto crisis means regulation will come sooner rather than later | Kenneth Rogoff
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A higher opportunity cost of money disproportionately drives down prices of assets whose main uses lie in the future. One of the biggest attractions of private cryptocurrencies is the opportunity they offer to bypass governments. Some economists naively argue that there is no particular urgency to regulate bitcoin and the like, because cryptocurrencies are difficult and costly to use for transactions. Advanced-economy regulators will most likely find that the problems with cryptocurrencies eventually come home to roost when they will be forced to institute a broad-based ban on digital currencies that do not permit users’ identities to be easily traced. The biggest investors in crypto may be in advanced economies, but the uses – and harms – have so far been mainly in emerging markets and developing economies. Such a step would sharply undercut today’s cryptocurrency prices Source