Topic: How are the banks corrupting Bitcoin? (Read 1560 times)

what?!!
he has already changed the code once (bitcoin xt) and failed.
and no matter how much more he or anybody else changes bitcoin code, as long as there are other people using bitcoin (all the users, services, miners, other developers, etc) it will fail again if it is not useful, and they don't agree upon it.

I'm surprised to hear this from you. Gavin can change_some_ code at any time. He is powerless to change any code that anyone else is running. Hell, he can't even make changes to Bitcoin Core without the approval of the gatekeeper he put in place when he gave up the helm.

I think the best example was the collaboration between the banks in Australia, where they closed business accounts linked to Bitcoin. They have since been taken to court for anti-competitive practices. They can repeat this kind of behavior, in countries where citizens are not protected against that type of actions.

It is still necessary to convert to fiat, and they know it. In future as more merchants accept bitcoin, things might change, and we would not need a account with them. They can accept it and work with us, or we will increase our efforts to take them out of the circle, like they did with the millions of unbanked people in this world.

If all of the banks agree - and share data (which they already do in most countries) then you'll be hard pressed to continually open accounts. I'm not saying it's impossible to attain or spend Bitcoin without a bank intermediary - I'm saying that it's such an inconvenience to do so that a majority of people will not bother. Of course there are hardcore adopters who might be happy to do so - but you can be pretty darn sure that if it's a ton of additional effort a majority of laypeople will not adopt. There is already enough difficulty in explaining Bitcoin's workings, how to secure coins, how to acquire them etc. that more problems aren't going to help Bitcoin at all.

But this is all in theory - the reality is that the banks won't do much unless they feel threatened - and they're not threatened enough yet to accept the losses that come with turned away business.

I think Banks have the power to do much. For example, buying large amounts of Bitcoin with their clients' deposits and then selling to create volatility and lack of trust in BTC while getting some profit all the while. They can join also and complaint to governments. They can scare their clients of Bitcoin being not trustworthy...

To sum up. I think that they can do a lot to harm Bitcoin, and perhaps they are not harming it yet because they do not consider it a real threat.

They could make it an extreme pain in the arse to use it which would hurt Bitcoin in the extreme. Given that literally every person I've seen only cares about the price relative to fiat - if the banks all agreed to close every persons account who they tied with Bitcoin transactions (which is perfectly acceptable under their TOS) then you'd have no way to get fiat (outside of raw cash transactions). Not very many people are willing to deal in raw face to face transactions (especially with the personal security risks) and thus Bitcoin would be rather hard to use given that you have no way to spend it (as no one accepts Bitcoin as Bitcoin - everyone denominates it as fiat - much like a commodity).

Gavin can change the code at any time. Isn't that one person with way too much power over the project?

A curious parallel train of thought that I have heard goes something like this:

As the number of Bitcoin nodes continues to decline and mining centralization continues to be an issue, does Bitcoin's decentralization become a less compelling argument in it's favor when compared with potentially looming blockchain offerings run by existing banking institutions?

Not my own argument but perhaps it is worth considering.

see:
https://bitnodes.21.co/dashboard/?days=365
https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/06/19/mining (from last year but still relevant)

u cannot stop an idea who's time has come,

its a skynet bred self reinforcing self protecting

system, a digital system born out of an analogous

world, u have to say we have become the digital

heart of the world and we now have complete

control of the analogous parts

It's up to the chicken-hearted people. If the people wanted freedom from the banks, they would do it. As it is, people want all they can get, and they want it easy. If the banks and media can talk them into believing the banks are the way, that's what most of the people will do.

Bitcoin will always be there for all of us. When the banking system crashes, those of us who hold bitcoins will be wealthy, bringing the world back out of the crash.

I hope that you are right and that Bitcoin can't be corrupted! I do know that they won't go away without a fight, that's what I am sure of! And why would they, when they are sitting on this big pile of gold all this time and doing pretty much whatever they want.

Now will they try to sabotage us, or build their own centralized blockchains, or something third, the future will tell us!

I think there are to much imagination here and (maybe) not facts. I haven't seen the video because it is hard for me to understand the spoken English but mainly because was very long. More than one hour to give thoughts about something that, according to me, it is only imagination. So the picture is that all the banks (must be the commercial ones) were make together (?totally impossible thing ??) against bitcoin to "join it, infiltrate it, alter it and corrupt it"......before it gains any legitimacy." Why must do this? What have to do a bank with bitcoin. Especially a commercial ones. They love the money. Any kind of money. Because the money is their everyday bread. With money they earn the bread for them, for their employees and their families. Why hate a money named bitcoin?

As for various diversions everyone must find its place in this world. If bitcoin will be the best will have its place as the best. If not (even I am a lovers of bitcoin) must leave the place to the best and take its place. This world is make in this way. Everyone fight to have a better place. Have anything strange here. If some other coin will become more successful than bitcoin, then bitcoin must "shake its hand" and congrats with it for its success. Then try to improve itself to go again at the first place. There where must be forever for being the first of its race. And the first materialized product of a tremendous disruptive technology named peer to peer.

Banks could make all the big exchanges offers they cannot refuse to buy them out, then control the bulk of the exchanges themselves. That wouldn't corrupt the Bitcoin protocol, but it could corrupt the Bitcoin markets even more than they are already corrupted. The exchanges wield a huge influence over the Bitcoin markets.

I don't think the duplicate of bitcoin can gain enough adaptation to replace what bitcoin is being used till now. You may see there are lots of other cryptocurrencies based on blockchain but their value is not so high as they are not used widely. Same thing will happen if these banks introduce their new coin.

average joe's always accept the products that banks offer them, even though they are quite expensive. something great as bitcoin can save them a lot money and hassle, only they think it's not safe and don't think it's worth it as they don't know what bitcoin exactly is.

Well you means bank corrupt through manipulate the price? or it through related cryptocurrency? still confused your direction actually.

I'm really hoping for this not to happen.

I like bitcoin the way it is right now, out of the hands of corporate companies and banks.

by offering something similar, that in apparance may look more secure, and deceive average joe, it's all about getting those "average joe" to use your service

until now it's bitcoin that need to "corrupt" fiat and steal their "customers" in order to succeed, banks can hinder this in the future

One possibility is to create confusion and dissent from within the Bitcoin community. This is a talk where this kind of action against a FLOSS project is attributed to the NSA in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jQoAYRKqhg

For one thing, they do have enough money to corrupt or bribe major developers to work for them. They can also influence them to design and develop a competing technology, that might replace Bitcoin and then influence the government to support that.

In this world, money can buy you almost anything, because most people have their price.