Topic: For those of you who say governments can't ban bitcoin - page 4. (Read 4646 times)
I say goodluck to any government who thinks it is easy to seize a Bitcoin wallet. Maybe people should start using brainwallets so that they can always access their funds even if a government thinks they "seized" the wallet. You still can't kill it, there will still be people who use it, it will just be pushed underground. Even if a government will punish someone by death if they use i, there will still be people who use it, just as there are people who will kill others even though it can be a offense punishable by death in many places.
Sure they can. They can't get rid of the protocol, but they can make it useless.
Let's say for you have a totalitarian country.
They can make a law saying that they'll execute anyone who uses bitcoin. Nobody would dare touch it anymore. That's an extreme, but it's still possible in some countries (more realistically they'd seize your assets).
For a country like the US. The government probably can't make it illegal to possess or use bitcoin, but they can do the following to effectively kill it:
- Give it unfavorable tax treatment
- Force merchants who accept it to adhere to complex and expensive accounting rules, so that it's not economical to accept it as payment for any legitimate business
- Call it a counterfeit currency and prosecute people who try to use it. (2 words: Liberty Dollar). I don't care if you want to believe it or not, but if you print up your own money (even if it doesn't resemble US dollars at all, eg. Bitcoin bills), go to a store, and try to pay with it you CAN get in trouble.
- Make a few high profile examples. Find a company doing bitcoin mining who's books aren't correct to the letter, seize their assets. Find a bitcoin user who didn't report capital gains on their coins and throw them in jail for tax evasion.
- Use the fact that bitcoin is commonly used for criminal purposes to have law enforcement harass bitcoin users. Government can seize coins that are traced to have been used in illegal activity (or if the government SUSPECTS they were used in illegal activity). This can easily be done to merchants by mandating they report transactions and wallet addresses. The govt could even go a step further and mandate that merchants give access (private key) to those wallets to a govt agency.
Sure, things like drugs are illegal and are a thriving economy, but that's different. You can't grind up a bitcoin, snort it, and get high, so if the government hassles people who use it, and no legitimate business will accept it because it's too much of a pain in the ass, nobody is going to bother using it unless they want to use it to buy drugs online or something.
Let's say for you have a totalitarian country.
They can make a law saying that they'll execute anyone who uses bitcoin. Nobody would dare touch it anymore. That's an extreme, but it's still possible in some countries (more realistically they'd seize your assets).
For a country like the US. The government probably can't make it illegal to possess or use bitcoin, but they can do the following to effectively kill it:
- Give it unfavorable tax treatment
- Force merchants who accept it to adhere to complex and expensive accounting rules, so that it's not economical to accept it as payment for any legitimate business
- Call it a counterfeit currency and prosecute people who try to use it. (2 words: Liberty Dollar). I don't care if you want to believe it or not, but if you print up your own money (even if it doesn't resemble US dollars at all, eg. Bitcoin bills), go to a store, and try to pay with it you CAN get in trouble.
- Make a few high profile examples. Find a company doing bitcoin mining who's books aren't correct to the letter, seize their assets. Find a bitcoin user who didn't report capital gains on their coins and throw them in jail for tax evasion.
- Use the fact that bitcoin is commonly used for criminal purposes to have law enforcement harass bitcoin users. Government can seize coins that are traced to have been used in illegal activity (or if the government SUSPECTS they were used in illegal activity). This can easily be done to merchants by mandating they report transactions and wallet addresses. The govt could even go a step further and mandate that merchants give access (private key) to those wallets to a govt agency.
Sure, things like drugs are illegal and are a thriving economy, but that's different. You can't grind up a bitcoin, snort it, and get high, so if the government hassles people who use it, and no legitimate business will accept it because it's too much of a pain in the ass, nobody is going to bother using it unless they want to use it to buy drugs online or something.
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