Agreed. FDIC backed bitcoin(and some easy way to deal with the IRS taxes wrt bitcoin) would make things a lot smoother. But it's very hard for me to imagine a u

Agreed. FDIC backed bitcoin(and some easy way to deal with the IRS taxes wrt bitcoin) would make things a lot smoother. But it's very hard for me to imagine a universe where anyone would dare to insure bitcoin; a property that you can't even prove was stolen or who it currently belongs to. The only way I can see that happening, is to take away the concept of the end user holding the private-keys. But I don't know what bitcoin is without that element to it. The way I understand bitcoin's goal is about giving control to the public and preventing "The Elite One Percent" from pulling stunts like this[1]. If all private keys are controlled by coinbase/btc-e/bitstamp/etc, then we're kinda back to banks. At that point what's the difference between the USD balance I see in my online bank account vs the BTC balance at Coinbase? 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-ma...