Here is a link explaining the US civil forfeiture law which can be used to seize assets:
https://www.justice.gov/afp/types-federal-forfeiture
Specifically, I'm talking about in rem forfeiture here:
In rem (against the property) court proceeding brought against property that was derived from or used to commit an offense, rather than against a person who committed an offense. Unlike criminal forfeiture, there is no criminal conviction required, although the government is still required to prove in court by a preponderance of evidence that the property was linked to criminal activity.
Theoretically, bitcoin that has been mixed could be deemed proceeds of a crime after yesterday's indictment. I don't know whether the government would pursue this course of action.
There are many instances where this in rem civil forfeiture has been used by governments to take property in what seems an unjust manner.
Here's the classic example:
A husband borrows his wife's car and solicits a prostitute. Prostitution is illegal, and the car is seized as property used in the commission of a crime. The car is seized, though the innocent wife owns it. The theory is that the action is brought against the car, not the wife.
extremely hard.
When you don't have a reserve currency and world trade is done in someone else's money, what you can do is limited. They need dollars to serve debts, which are denominated in dollars. The debt-givers - that same IMF they keep running with here - forces them to sell everything of value they have and invest in resources only, as conditions for the loans.
That means they can't create much value-added production in the country. Meanwhile, the world market prices for their resources are out of their hands.
They get less inflow than outflow in dollars, those dollars appreciate, meaning they get fewer dollars for their resources, which again cuts their funds inflow. All the while the interest on the debt, also in dollars, of course, keeps rising.
This is a dollar/international financial system problem which systematically leads to all developing countries' currencies to fall over time against the dollar and euro - as that upholds the luxury living of the north by making southern resources dirt cheap. It's a racket.
So many exciting things going on:
Privacy: we're getting blinded paths, Taproot channels, and SCIDs. I'm confident receivers will be able to attain great privacy soon.
LSPs: new products are launching every month, standards are being worked on, zero-conf channels and becoming part of the spec
Adoption: more and more merchants, exchanges, and services are coming onboard. Taro is going to accelerate this greatly.
UX: a ton of work is happening to make for a better user experience, especially for newcomers, and especially on mobile and web