I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that it seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it s

I'm not very convinced. The excitement about bitcoin now is that it seems like a semi-mainstream alternative payment system. And a big part of that is that it seems legal in the first place. Soon enough, I expect law enforcement to start to actively target bitcoin exchanges (see e-gold). Sure people can respond to this by using elaborate schemes like the one you link to ("When depositing or withdrawing from ATM's the runners/operators face must be concealed as they have cameras. The ATM's used must constantly be changed, they must essentially be random otherwise the operators can be caught"). Then the only way to obtain or sell bitcoins will then be to take part in this elaborate and blatantly illegal money-laundering scheme. Criminals might still be willing to do that (although organized crime presumably have access to better money-laundering facilities already, so I'm not sure how many). But users of services like witcoin (bitcoin based micropayments to tip your favourite bloggers) presumably won't. Likewise, mining will become less popular if the only way to get money from it looks like it attracts the interest of the FBI. And how many will run the p2p client at all (so the entire trust network could collapse)?