If buying, selling or owning bitcoins were illegal in the US and for US companies, I guarantee trade in bitcoin would plummet and mining would wind-up using a s

If buying, selling or owning bitcoins were illegal in the US and for US companies, I guarantee trade in bitcoin would plummet and mining would wind-up using a small fraction of the energy it uses today. The only bad thing about bitcoin is its electricity consumption. There's also the way it allows those with access to energy they don't own to launder that access into money. Plus facilitating all manner of illegal activities (and I'm favor of making some things, like drugs, legal. Tax evasion or murder-for-hire, not so much).