Given that all functional governments (who have monetary sovereignty, rule of law, functional tax systems, etc) have reason to fear btc for the same reason the US govt does, the "safe haven" / competition argument has always seemed dubious to me, as 6529 points out. Which leaves the governments with nothing to lose -- maybe the ones who don't control their own currency anyway could be friendly to btc even in the face of US opposition?

Although it remains to be seen how friendly they'd be when the thumb screws started tightening -- look at who fell in line leading up to Desert Storm. I think a lot of bulls have a super false sense of security about this. On a scale of 1 to 100, I think that, to date, we've seen state opposition at about ten.

I hope we never see it get any higher, but if it goes to 85, I guess the silver lining is that we'll have answers to these questions.