Could China (or similar) take control of Bitcoin? - page 7.

YUriy1991

sr. member

Activity: 882

Merit: 215

#SWGT CERTIK Audited

Quote from: legiteum on May 07, 2024, 03:30:05 PM

China still contains a sizable percentage of worldwide Bitcoin mining, so it is by no means "banned" there.

And even if China hated Bitcoin, that doesn't mean they wouldn't attempt to take it over.

True and the conditions are like that if we pay attention. Well, of course China currently has a large percentage in terms of hashing network dominance and potentially in terms of their future dominance of BTC but my view is they are not major key players in the current global cryptocurrency landscape and that is just their Long-Term Strategy.

Simply because everything will lead to a shift in the world economy, of course, it is unlikely that it will be controlled and fully and will depend on one country or single player because many things and factos also affect the growth of this industry.

harapan

sr. member

Activity: 1736

Merit: 306

In as much as China is against the utilization and bitcoin adoptions,China could possibly want to totally get all round control over bitcoin.
However,China's competence to completely take control of bitcoin could be at 0.1 level.Before ever any country wants to authoritates bit coin,she should be capable of solving at least the threatening and consumable activities that are going on or going to occur.
China will not engage bitcoin or whatever they intend doing to bitcoin cannot be predicted or managed under normal circumstances.

legiteum

member

Activity: 182

Merit: 47

Quote from: Mpamaegbu on May 07, 2024, 02:58:49 PM

Quote from: legiteum on May 03, 2024, 06:36:02 PM

The notion is this: although taking over 50% of the Bitcoin hashrate would be a practical impossibility for any private actor or even a small country, China, as a country, has at times hosted over 50% of Bitcoin's hashrate, and it's thus plausible they could make this happen again if they wanted to.

I don't know why I feel repulsed whenever I see a mention of China in relation to cryptocurrency, anywhere. I guess it has to do with how China let this industry down by banning crypto activities in that country in 2017. That action was one that hit me hard at the time as a newbie in this industry. Then China was in a lead position in the space with lots of mining hash from there. That was then. In today's reality I don't think anyone should as little as accord China a second thought once this industry is concerned.

It's still legal to hold and trade Bitcoin in China. All they have done is precluded their banks from holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

China still contains a sizable percentage of worldwide Bitcoin mining, so it is by no means "banned" there.

And even if China hated Bitcoin, that doesn't mean they wouldn't attempt to take it over.

Mpamaegbu

legendary

Activity: 2716

Merit: 1225

Once a man, twice a child!

Quote from: legiteum on May 03, 2024, 06:36:02 PM

The notion is this: although taking over 50% of the Bitcoin hashrate would be a practical impossibility for any private actor or even a small country, China, as a country, has at times hosted over 50% of Bitcoin's hashrate, and it's thus plausible they could make this happen again if they wanted to.

I don't know why I feel repulsed whenever I see a mention of China in relation to cryptocurrency, anywhere. I guess it has to do with how China let this industry down by banning crypto activities in that country in 2017. That action was one that hit me hard at the time as a newbie in this industry. Then China was in a lead position in the space with lots of mining hash from there. That was then. In today's reality I don't think anyone should as little as accord China a second thought once this industry is concerned.

graphite

newbie

Activity: 22

Merit: 4

Quote from: stompix on May 07, 2024, 09:21:42 AM

They could simply buy 3 billion worth of equipment (resell price) so way cheaper produced and with that 30% added they would force a ton of other miners in bankruptcy, taking over the hashrate pie, so rather than adding 600exahash to subdue the current one they could simply replace them by bankrupting and making mining less profitable for other miners, while still making some money.

This is a good point. They could also cause a death spiral by getting 51% for just a few days causing bitcoin price to tank and miners to go bankrupt much faster and making it easier to maintain the attackers >51% hashrate. So might only require ~100mil worth of total power to end bitcoin. The limiting factor in both cases seems to be the ASIC miners but china has a monopoly on that.

Im not sure if China would have to build additional power plants for this or not. If so, that would greatly increases the cost to pull this off. They would need 12-20GW of power and I think China is capable of producing ~900GW as a whole country.

stompix

legendary

Activity: 2912

Merit: 6403

Blackjack.fun

Quote from: legiteum on May 06, 2024, 09:06:39 AM

As of last September, China had 21% of the world-wide hashrate for Bitcoin:

https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/by-country/

So that "ban" isn't really doing very much for that either.

That's not last September, that's when the article was updated.
Cambridge, which is the main source quoted there stopped doing any kind of regional research at the end of 2021.
https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci/mining_map
The 21% number is an approximation from December 2021!

Quote from: blckhawk on May 07, 2024, 12:07:45 AM

To take control of bitcoin, you need to take control of 80% if not all the networks and even at that moment, you'd still need a lot of power and money (for the equipment) to be able to pull it off and China's lacking in money already

You see this is why I love the contradictions people keep falling for in this field
On one side we have the pitchforks lighting up when we talk about bitcoin energy consumption as we compare them with Christmas lights and then we claim it's impossible to make an attack because it requires a lot of power which no country has...so...which one?

First, there is a mistake in the percentages, they don't even need 50% of the current hashrate!
They could simply buy 3 billion worth of equipment (resell price) so way cheaper produced and with that 30% added they would force a ton of other miners in bankruptcy, taking over the hashrate pie, so rather than adding 600exahash to subdue the current one they could simply replace them by bankrupting and making mining less profitable for other miners, while still making some money.
Instead of 600 exa costing 12 billion in gear, it could theoretically be done with half of that, again at resell not producing cost, Beijing municipality has a 110 billion yearly budget!

graphite

newbie

Activity: 22

Merit: 4

Quote from: blckhawk on May 07, 2024, 12:07:45 AM

To take control of bitcoin, you need to take control of 80% if not all the networks and even at that moment, you'd still need a lot of power and money (for the equipment) to be able to pull it off and China's lacking in money already if you're keeping up with the Chinese stuff that's reported by investigative reporters so I don't believe that it's in their agenda to take over the bitcoin network anytime soon, pretty sure that whatever they're doing now, bitcoin or any cryptocurrency has no relation to it or anything like that.

Why would they need 80% and not just 51%?

China has no problem finding the money to build large scale infrastructure projects. I don't see how it wouldn't be possible for them to get 5-10 billion dollars worth of ASIC miners. Also with the current block reward it would only require 32mil USD a day worth of power to produce majority of the hash power. Based on my rough math this would require a 12GW power source and china has a large number of power plants to spread that over. For reference Chinas largest power plant is Three Gorges Dam with 22GW.

blckhawk

sr. member

Activity: 1526

Merit: 332

★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!

To take control of bitcoin, you need to take control of 80% if not all the networks and even at that moment, you'd still need a lot of power and money (for the equipment) to be able to pull it off and China's lacking in money already if you're keeping up with the Chinese stuff that's reported by investigative reporters so I don't believe that it's in their agenda to take over the bitcoin network anytime soon, pretty sure that whatever they're doing now, bitcoin or any cryptocurrency has no relation to it or anything like that.

legiteum

member

Activity: 182

Merit: 47

Quote from: spectre71 on May 06, 2024, 04:55:26 PM

Why would they now?

They already own the Oval Office.

They don't now, but they very well may in January of 2025. That's why the Chinese are doing everything they can to get Trump elected.

bitcoinissobadpleasebanit

newbie

Activity: 0

Merit: 0

Yes, they already have a lot of coins too.

China oppresses people I think.

North Korea oppresses people I think.

These people have control over freedom?

Wtf?

And it's not the people we see on camera either, those guys must be miserable. Sad

It's the anon's.

The sun will shine on them one day, however.

spectre71

member

Activity: 358

Merit: 22

Why would they now?

They already own the Oval Office.

graphite

newbie

Activity: 22

Merit: 4

Quote from: jrrsparkles on May 06, 2024, 04:34:38 PM

What you're saying is 51% attack forever on Bitcoin which is technically possible but not in reality and I doubt China will be interested in doing it cause it costs billions just to keep the control for that they don't get anything at all so there's no point of any government try to take control of Bitcoin in that way.

Theres no incentive to attack the network now but if bitcoin is to become more adopted by certain nations it will become a target. If a country like the USA ever tried to adopt bitcoin it would have to stock pile billions of dollars worth of ASIC miners to potential secure the network if china tried to attack it. Which i'm sure china would try to attack in times of war. So the USA will most likely never adopt bitcoin because it would be to expensive and uncertain if they could secure it. no way to really know how many ASIC miners china has stock piled. similar to a nuclear arms race.

jrrsparkles

sr. member

Activity: 2436

Merit: 272

Eloncoin.org - Mars, here we come!

What you're saying is 51% attack forever on Bitcoin which is technically possible but not in reality and I doubt China will be interested in doing it cause it costs billions just to keep the control for that they don't get anything at all so there's no point of any government try to take control of Bitcoin in that way.

legiteum

member

Activity: 182

Merit: 47

Quote from: Jawhead999 on May 06, 2024, 05:51:58 AM

Says who? China and Hong Kong are different, China completely ban Bitcoin while Hong Kong accepts Bitcoin.

Quote from: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-central-bank-vows-crackdown-cryptocurrency-trading-2021-09-24/

SHANGHAI/LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - China's most powerful regulators on Friday intensified a crackdown on cryptocurrencies with a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, hitting bitcoin and other major coins and pressuring crypto and blockchain-related stocks.
Ten agencies, including the central bank, financial, securities and foreign exchange regulators, vowed to work together to root out "illegal" cryptocurrency activity, the first time the Beijing-based regulators have joined forces to explicitly ban all cryptocurrency-related activity.

That story is old, and it's outdated:

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2024/02/05/china-never-completely-banned-crypto/

Binance is doing $90B per month in crypto trading in China, so it's not "banned" by any normal definition. Individuals can still buy, sell and hold Bitcoin in China.

As of last September, China had 21% of the world-wide hashrate for Bitcoin:

https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/by-country/

So that "ban" isn't really doing very much for that either.

Regardless, whether China did or didn't fully ban Bitcoin on their own soil isn't really the point of this thread. It was discuss the possibility of a country like China having the ability to take over Bitcoin. The answer here seems to be: yes, they technically could, but it's unclear what they would gain from doing so, so in lieu of a strong motive, it's unlikely to happen.

Quote from: Nrcewker on May 06, 2024, 05:59:49 AM

No matter what facts you include here. A nation cannot control Bitcoins. It’s designed in such a manner that no one can have manageable access on it. Yes nations can track the transactions made with Bitcoins. They can impose a tax on it, but there is no way possible they can control it. China always promises things with high values but never able to prove it or delivers it. Hence its not at all possible.

Any entity that controls 51% of the hashrate controls Bitcoin, and while that has never yet happened, it's certainly possible.

Nrcewker

copper member

Activity: 2226

Merit: 536

Promotional Campaign Manager|Telegram @NrcewkerBTC

No matter what facts you include here. A nation cannot control Bitcoins. It’s designed in such a manner that no one can have manageable access on it. Yes nations can track the transactions made with Bitcoins. They can impose a tax on it, but there is no way possible they can control it. China always promises things with high values but never able to prove it or delivers it. Hence its not at all possible.

Jawhead999

legendary

Activity: 1680

Merit: 1179

I would ask a counter question: If China, Black Rock, Elon Musk or anyone able to take control of Bitcoin, why they didn't do it till now? mining rigs are limited, even they have a lot money they can't own a lot mining rigs. If they want to buy mining rigs from other miners, not all miners will want to sell their rigs.

Quote from: legiteum on May 06, 2024, 02:53:04 AM

China didn't ban Bitcoin from their society, and it's still perfectly legal for individuals to hold and trade Bitcoin in China. The only thing they did is forbid their banks and financial institutions from holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

Says who? China and Hong Kong are different, China completely ban Bitcoin while Hong Kong accepts Bitcoin.

Quote from: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-central-bank-vows-crackdown-cryptocurrency-trading-2021-09-24/

SHANGHAI/LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - China's most powerful regulators on Friday intensified a crackdown on cryptocurrencies with a blanket ban on all crypto transactions and mining, hitting bitcoin and other major coins and pressuring crypto and blockchain-related stocks.
Ten agencies, including the central bank, financial, securities and foreign exchange regulators, vowed to work together to root out "illegal" cryptocurrency activity, the first time the Beijing-based regulators have joined forces to explicitly ban all cryptocurrency-related activity.

Natsuu

full member

Activity: 1148

Merit: 158

★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!

Quote from: kotajikikox on May 04, 2024, 01:16:37 PM

if China were to take control of 50% of bitcoin investors might lose some confidence on the coin.

That's for sure, that if half of the Bitcoin will be accumulated by only one entity be it China, other country or organization then they can easily manipulate the price fluctuations of it. Since they have the most liquidity, once they sell in large amount then price also will fall a lot. Same in on buying aspect where price could trade up higher easily by their own manipulation in price and supply. However that's not even true yet. Most BTC are in cold wallets and others were missing. That's why BTC is a great digital asset as how also complicated it is.

legiteum

member

Activity: 182

Merit: 47

Quote from: tread93 on May 05, 2024, 11:27:52 PM

I feel like if China were to do this it would only be to go procure another session of FUD for everyone similar to how they keep banning Bitcoin from their society just to get the price down so they can buy more. Talk about a power hungry country! Hopefully they never do this as I could see it being a devistating time for Bitcoin and definitely a lot of folks rushing to get their money out as welll.

China didn't ban Bitcoin from their society, and it's still perfectly legal for individuals to hold and trade Bitcoin in China. The only thing they did is forbid their banks and financial institutions from holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

tread93

hero member

Activity: 1098

Merit: 534

Quote from: dansus021 on May 04, 2024, 11:23:32 PM

Could China (or similar) take control of Bitcoin? And my answer is Yes everyone can control of bitcoin if they had enough money and enough resources

And if you talk about a country it definitely can do that, 51% attack is doable right? And then if you want to do price manipulation you can buy as much as bitcoin and then can be act as a whale. Tho this is just my opinion guys

I feel like if China were to do this it would only be to go procure another session of FUD for everyone similar to how they keep banning Bitcoin from their society just to get the price down so they can buy more. Talk about a power hungry country! Hopefully they never do this as I could see it being a devistating time for Bitcoin and definitely a lot of folks rushing to get their money out as welll.

dothebeats

legendary

Activity: 3542

Merit: 1352

Cashback 15%

This has been discussed for years, and there was a time when Chinese miners comprised the majority of the miners for bitcoin and people were speculating that these miners could just do a 51% aftack and destroy everything.

To answer your question, no, they won't do that. The money involved in bitcoin mining is huge right now that it will be a grave mistake to perform any of these 'control' in the network. People will notice immediately, and once that happens, see how bitcoin lose its value since they lost confidence to it. It is technically possible, but rationally it doesn't make sense at all.

Topic: Could China (or similar) take control of Bitcoin? - page 7. (Read 1583 times)