Topic: If bitcoin becomes illegal? (Read 10562 times)

I don't see any reason that it will become illegal in a tax free land like Bahamas

The main reason BTC could be a headache for government, is because they could not collect tax on BTC transactions, and there is no way to map the account to physical person/institute

And I think central banks don't really care about it either, what they need is a currency that they can control the money supply, in this way they can affect the macro economy the way they want (price stability and low jobless rate). A currency with a fixed supply is totally useless for them from modern economy point of view, since it neither can bring price stability nor lower the jobless rate

Actually the later could be true, if BTC price increased so much that it created another bubble, it might create many jobs, mining companys, BTC exchanges, client developers, online wallet institution, same as those gold buyers recently. In that case, if it is also good for economy, and can achieve what they can not achieve with normal monetary policy, why claim it illegal?

Bitcoin is by far the most anonymous form of electronic payment because it is decentralized. LR is IP based and easily traced and blocked.

I think that the legalization of Bitcoin could become a bigger problem than becoming illegal. Legal using of bitcoin will result end of anonymity. Without it bitcoin is less attractive than LR, because it requires additional software.

Look at prohibition for insight on how people will react. Opportunists will be opportunists.

Thanks for the sources!

I am Dutch btw (not US) and our government is socialistic as well (although this is least left government in a long time, to bad it already fell) but the decisions made in France are just horrendous (imo of course, but that speaks for itself).

Maybe it did centuries ago (at the end of the 18th century reforming everything was fashionable) but I couldn't find a reference. A more recent attempt in Indiana (at the end of the 19th century) is the best I could dig up :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature-once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3

Each time US people criticize French people I think of this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty
and that we still like you today even if you forget our long friendship to focus on some old stereotypes

I don't expect bitcoin itself to become illegal; it's not even clear what that would mean (private keys banned when they correspond to bitcoin addresses?).

More likely the exchanges would be walled off from receiving/paying fiat. That would be a serious problem.

The more illegal they try and make it, the more people will use it.

Lol is this true? (source please). I knew the French government was stupid, especially the latest one with their 70% income tax and plans to expropriate Total (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=tot&ql=1) but actually stating pi=4 is beyond stupid. We should invent a new word for that. 

Bitcoin is math. How do you make math illegal? They can freeze all the bank accounts they want for all I care. I'm sure the banks won't care about losing the revenue from the gambling industry.

I'm not worried about the government deeming bitcoin illegal.  i expect that.

i AM worried about the US gov seizing mtgox.com like they seized the poker sites.  should Gox move to a different TLD like piratebay/demonoid?

i am worried about the US gov freezing Gox's bank accounts like they froze >70 banks accounts related to PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Cereus.

Stealing is unlawful
Laundering money is illegal.

It would be great if Bitcoin would become legal tender in certain US states that have also made gold legal tender. This way BTC and Gold are interchangeable.

Essentially already this has been done when the French government decreed pi = 4

Everything would suddenly become legal (ex falso quodlibet)!

Seriously though: unlawful is also understood to mean not morally right. While usually illegal things are also unlawful and vice versa, this is certainly not always the case. The problem is of course, that moral is even more subjective than the legal system. Your understanding of unlawfulness might be vastly different from mine and while I think it's important for people to follow personal moral principles, I'm also glad we have laws which codify something like a common understanding of moral and justice of a nation's people.
Sure, both laws and morals can be used to justify great misdeeds, but I'd argue that individual morals go even more often wrong than nation's laws.

ad Bitcoin becoming illegal: not gonna happen! You will always be allowed to mine and exchange Bitcoins (what's there to forbid?) - it's the interface points to the fiat world that will become targets of increasingly strict regulations. In fact, that's what we're seeing already (stricter policies at Dwolla/Mt. Gox, the statement of the German financial supervisory authority).
If you want to know what will happen when Bitcoin becomes illegal, ask yourself what would happen if Mt. Gox was shut down - because IMHO that's about as bad as it could realistically get.

Awesome.

Now I have another question for you.

What happens if The Congress passes a law saying that 2+2=5 ?

nice article on this topic
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.862515

Illegal means "against or not authorized by law." Unlawful means "contrary to, prohibited, or unauthorized by law...while necessarily not implying the element of criminality, it is broad enough to include it." (Black's Law Dictionary) So, for example, you could unlawfully stay in your apartment after your lease is up (unlawful detainer) but that's not a crime against the state, it's a civil wrong (tort) against your landlord. If the landlord then took you to court and had you properly evicted, and you then returned to the premises, you might then be guilty of the crime of trespassing. Trespassing is illegal.

From: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/currency

CURRENCY. The money which passes, at a fixed value, from hand to hand; money which is authorized by law.

And because its in Legal-Dictionary.com it must be correct, everything on the net is correct and factual afterall.  This is how the SCOTUS will vote when the case comes before them:  Mt. Gox v US Secret Service.

Yes and when you buy coins on Mt. Gox, you are basically buying advertising.  You sponsored some code in the public ledger which is distributed to all clients.  I almost hate the concept of calling this a currency or a "coin".   Its not, its an interactive information ledger, which is modified by account holder wiht their secure logins (priv keys).  Smells more like a distributed message board than a currency. 

Correct me if i'm wrong, but by legal definition a currency is issued by an authority, no.  It either has or has not a legal tender status in the court.