Will FBI v. Apple ultimately threaten Bitcoin?

Governments are all about national security - that's almost a given.  So it totally makes sense that the FBI would want to unlock the iphone used by the perpetrators of the San Bernadino shootings.  It shouldn't be surprising that the FBI would then want to use that same technology update to access other iPhones in other national security cases, then other federal crime cases, and then any cases.  It's the slippery slope we've seen often when government adopt new technologies (e.g. assault weapons now used against minor drug offenses).

But what if this isn't really about national security, or iPhone privacy at all?  What if there's a deeper issue about privacy and anonymity that the government sees in the bitcoin movement? 

Next to national security, governments are most interested in making sure they collect all the taxes that they can.  The rising growth of bitcoin threatens that interest, in the anonymous nature of bitcoin transactions.  Without a source and identity associated with transactions, governments will lack the ability to properly trace and audit financial and commercial transactions for the purposes of collecting taxes (and, as a sideline, preventing nefarious activity).

The same 'weakness' has been highlighted as a feature of cash recently, but with cash, it's difficult to move substantial amounts of money over long distances and national borders without significant weight and volume issues ($1M of $100 bills is about 22 pounds worth).  With bitcoin, that weight problem is eliminated without the loss of anonymity.  Billions can move great physical distances at the push of a button, safely and securely, and anonymously.

And maybe that's what really has the government concerned, and what they're really after - a way to force any company that promotes anonymity and privacy into developing backdoors into that technology.  This national security issue is one that galvanizes public support in a way that tapping into commercial transactions for tax revenue would not. 

The outcome, however, might be the same, and it will be quite interesting to see how the government argues this case - either in the very specific details of 'we need this one phone for national security' or the more general 'we need to be able and allowed to force open encryption by any entity who would create that encryption in the first place'.  If the more general case is the one being pursued, and succeeds, bitcoin's useful life as an anonymous crypto-currency will be short indeed.