You're right. My initial gut reaction was premature. It would open a Pandora's box, though, for the government to try something. There are already international currency laws wherein nations respect each other's currencies. Nevertheless, the U.S. doesn't recognize bitcoin as a currency, despite El Salvador. I think an important reason is the IRS benefits from capital gains each time there's a bitcoin transaction. They don't want this challenged in court. They stand to lose a huge revenue source, and this also helps them to slow bitcoin adoption in the U.S.