>In the US, businesses must be willing to accept USD for their services/products...
Not according to the U.S. Treasury:
There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a
private business, a person or an organization must accept
currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or
services. Private businesses are free to develop their own
policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is
a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line
may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills.
In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas
stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency
(usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy[1].
>I've met with quite a few Treasury lawyers who work in their policy office...spurring adoption...
Well, they're taking a big risk, since Bitcoin can be easily upgraded to fully anonymous with a protocol upgrade using existing technology (Zerocoin) [2]. I think it's wise to wait until Bitcoin is more entrenched before implementing the extension, but there's no huge technological barrier preventing Bitcoin from being fully anonymous.
Besides, it's not like the current system isn't fully tracked by the Treasury department. They already have access to everyone's transactions (via Swift, etc). The hard part is figuring out which transactions to investigate, and Bitcoin won't make that any easier.
Not according to the U.S. Treasury:
>I've met with quite a few Treasury lawyers who work in their policy office...spurring adoption...Well, they're taking a big risk, since Bitcoin can be easily upgraded to fully anonymous with a protocol upgrade using existing technology (Zerocoin) [2]. I think it's wise to wait until Bitcoin is more entrenched before implementing the extension, but there's no huge technological barrier preventing Bitcoin from being fully anonymous.
Besides, it's not like the current system isn't fully tracked by the Treasury department. They already have access to everyone's transactions (via Swift, etc). The hard part is figuring out which transactions to investigate, and Bitcoin won't make that any easier.
1. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/... 2. http://zerocoin.org/