[An.American.Expatriate]

become very attractive for people who don’t want the government snooping into all their financial transactions.

The block chain shows every transaction every made with the coin. Not sure how that can be deemed "safe" from government snooping ...

[aquila48]

But it’s all encrypted and private... for now.

The government could at some point require businesses to get the identity of people using bitcoins in a transaction.
At that point the value of bitcoins would drop significantly.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/07/14/how-private-are-bitcoin-transactions/#4a976ca64f3b