I think it's a bit disingenuous to use 2008 as the point of reference. Bitcoin didn't really reach the point of public consciousness before the 2017 boom (whic

I think it's a bit disingenuous to use 2008 as the point of reference. Bitcoin didn't really reach the point of public consciousness before the 2017 boom (which was largely attributable to price manipulation. Prior to that the main use-case was buying drugs online, and prior to that it was a niche hobby for libertarian futurists. Given the increasing prevalence of ransomeware attacks, and the fact that they have touched higher and higher profile targets, it's not impossible to imagine the regulatory hammer coming down on cryptocurrency at some point in the near-ish future.