Bitcoin vs Bureaucracy: Regulation, Control & the CBDC Threat | BTC Prague 2025 Panel

At BTC Prague, I had the honor of moderating a panel on one of the most urgent challenges facing the Bitcoin ecosystem: how do we respond to growing bureaucracy, creeping overregulation, and the very real threat of CBDCs? Here is what we discussed — and why it matters now more than ever.

Bitcoin Cannot Be Regulated — But Businesses Can

One of the clearest points made on stage came from Zach Harvey, co-founder of Lamassu, one of the world’s first Bitcoin ATM companies. As he put it: Bitcoin itself is designed to be ban-proof. Every previous attempt at decentralized money — E-gold, Liberty Dollar, early PayPal — was regulated out of existence because it had a central point of control. Bitcoin does not. When you use it in a truly decentralized manner, no regulator can touch you.

But businesses are a different story. We — the companies building infrastructure around Bitcoin — will always face regulatory pressure. And that pressure has real consequences. When I think about Ukrainians fleeing Russian invasion, trying to rescue their savings, or human rights defenders like myself who were financially excluded due to authoritarian attacks, Bitcoin ATMs were a lifeline. Under today’s European regulatory environment, that lifeline would no longer exist in many places.

Regulatory Capture Is the Real Enemy

Zach described how the Bitcoin ATM industry consolidated dramatically as regulation tightened. Small operators — people putting machines in cafes and bookstores to make Bitcoin accessible — were pushed out. Some larger players even reportedly reported competitors to authorities to eliminate the competition. Regulatory capture doesn’t protect consumers. It protects incumbents.

Chris, a Bitcoin-focused lawyer in Spain who worked on the MiCA framework, made a point that surprised some in the audience: regulators are not always the bad guys. The real problem is that regulations are poorly designed, written by politicians who don’t understand what they’re regulating, and applied inconsistently across jurisdictions. DORA — the Digital Operational Resilience Act — is a perfect example. Originally designed for large banks, it now applies to small crypto asset service providers, burying them in compliance paperwork that makes no sense for their scale.

Stefan from Trezor shared that the Czech National Bank told them directly: don’t even apply for a MiCA license unless you have 10 to 15 compliance employees and at least one to two million euros in financial assets. That kills startups before they begin.

The CBDC Threat Is About Control, Not Inclusion

On CBDCs, the panel was clear. A voluntary government stablecoin will simply fail — no one will use it when better alternatives exist. But a mandatory CBDC is a social control mechanism. No vaccine passport? Your CBDC access gets cut off. No valid ID? You can’t transact. This is not a paranoid fantasy — it is the logical endpoint of a programmable, centralized currency issued by governments that already freeze accounts and surveil payments.

Interestingly, some of the loudest voices against CBDCs are the banks themselves. That makes them unexpected allies — and in this regulatory war, we need to find allies wherever we can.

Start Locally, Build Coalitions, Fight Smart

The Czech Republic offers a real model of success. Two years ago, the local Bitcoin community invested enormous time and energy educating government officials. The result: a bill that created a significantly better environment for Bitcoin — passed unanimously across all political parties. That happened because people showed up, explained the technology, and refused to be ignored.

Brandon from Sovereign put it well: regulators thrive on making you feel alone. The antidote is community. A decentralized network of business leaders, advocates, and allies — inside and outside the Bitcoin space — is far harder to suppress than any individual actor. Just as Bitcoin is uncensorable because it is decentralized, our advocacy must be too.

My call to action is simple: organize. We have different skills, different networks, different jurisdictions. If we coordinate, we can win.