Topic: If USA Will Be In The War - Government Can Confiscate All Bitcoins + Blockchain (Read 361 times)

I agree, plus USA has a lot of smart people who will stop the politicians from trying something like this, they know that it would not work and they know that it is not going to be easy, we should be aware of the fact that it is going to end up being a little different. I believe that we can't really have some sort of situation that could be a little bit difficult to handle on the long run. I hope that we could get to a point where we can't really benefit any worse, and should be something that could bring some glory to people.

I hope that we can make some changes, and for that to happen we need to arrange a situation that could be a little different compared to everyone else, can't be really all that easy to let governments take our coins. Lets assume I have my money in my wallet, they told me that I need to give it up, what if I don't? They can't take it from me, so it is going to be pretty obvious that they are going to end up with nothing at all.

Some people have outlined the scenario for a self bailout of the national debt which is to subvert all pension holdings into buying only government debt no other asset.   You will still have some value and a return and pension value however your savings would now be keeping the government out of bankruptcy.  That is quite probable, they will consider the mass figures not BTC holdings which are not that common still and dont amount to nearly as much as a very common work savings scheme like a normal pension.

Are you referring to capturing the entire global bitcoin blockchain or just the US one specifically? You know that they won't be able to consider it if it's global as they don't have control over the bitcoin blockchain nodes located throughout the globe. The US government has authority over just domestic matters; it cannot oversee matters in other countries.

Without the US interfering with the recipient's bitcoin transactions, someone in another country is able to send any bitcoin they own "anonymously" to a US citizen. That's what I think that sets bitcoin apart because it can't be controlled by the government."

I think OP's referring to the fact that for the most part, during conflicts of this degree every country obliges their constituents to surrender some of their belongings to help fund war efforts as shit doesn't pay when you're in the middle of the red zone. Thing is, despite this I don't think there's a possibility that the US could ever successfully make the people surrender their bitcoins. It's literally encrypted for crying out loud, what are you gonna do, surrender your trezor to them? Lol. Plus I reckon most of these war hungry retards in the upper echelons of the government couldn't operate a fucking smartphone let alone a hardware wallet for that matter, so they'll resort ot tangible goods instead, just as how things have been in the past.

The fact that they have gone to war, every conflict everywhere has had participation from the United States, financial aid, weapons,... are things that show that this crisis has been and is continuing takes place between the parties.

I remember that the EU and the US had previously placed bans on Russia regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the assets of some parties were confiscated for political reasons, and of course bitcoin could also be confiscated for all kinds of reasons. A coercive way they think is legitimate to control, but that only adds to the conflict. Chaos everywhere is increasing, and finding a safe haven for assets is a way to protect the overall situation that affects the economy and how we make choices individually, collectively, as a country,... to overcome this period. It's not just bitcoin - although its current scale is still small, it still belongs to the asset category, so control can still happen.

Hang on. So what we discussing is if US gets into war then US government is free to sell the bitcoin that they have seized. With whatever rate they sell they will get the ton of money and this can be used in the warfare. Wow, so USA doesn’t want the common peeps to use Bitcoin for daily stuff but they are ready to sell it for the killing and mass murdering.

I am not surprised. Even if they say it’s federal seized money and it will be only sold out in the auctions, then how come they have the rights to restrict the general public from using it.

& hell no, USA can seize bitcoin, USA cant stop it completely. What do you think rest of the world will do about it? Just watch the circus of US government. Lolz.

I know that the US is still a world power in many aspects including the technology sector, but I doubt that they can carry out a 51% attack on blockchain, if they could do that they probably would have did it a long time ago. 

As for banning bitcoin, that is even more impossible, the world is becoming increasingly multipolar, not every country is an ally of the US and willing to follow their orders. The United States alone will not be able to do anything about bitcoin, or even with allies involved, they will be unlikely to completely stop bitcoin. There will still be countries that oppose the United States and continue to maintain bitcoin.

Well, let's hope that we don't see it (if the third world war started, then many of us would all have much more important things to worry about than our sats), but you're right, and I think that it is important, when you say that if the government became tyrant and seized Bitcoin it would become an almost worthless asset.

I don't think that would be possible. If we talk only about bitcoin, we all know that it's not owned or controlled by anyone. It's not illegal to have bitcoins. So, I don't see any reason to seize the citizens bitcoins. If the sized coins were tainted or connected with illegal money loundering, stolen funds, or hacked funds, then that would be valid for them to seize. But if you were a law-abiding citizen, you did nothing wrong and owned some bitcoins. Then it's illegal for them to take your bitcoins. It's our hard earned money, not the government's. If they did this, they might break out of a civil war. The only place where they can forcefully seize our assets is CEX. Apart from that, if they tried to, we could just send it around the world with just one click, and they wouldn't be able to take that.

This conflict between Israel and Palestine can really lead to 3rd world war. So I would not phase out the possibility. But even if US goes to a full fledged war, I do not see an immediate action on the bitcoin holders to be honest. US gets into war without affecting its own citizens. because every political party knows, if US citizens are affected due to their government's actions abroad, they will never come back to power for the next 20 years. So no government will take such risk to seize the bitcoins from the US citizens in the name of a war.

But the US government might do the same in the name of tax collection. So it's better to keep certain things a secret. At least it saves us from the bad times!

Bitcoin, being a digital asset can be moved from one country to other in a matter of few seconds (as long as the internet is there). So a ban that is applicable only in the United States will not work. There are a few other options, and none of them are 100% perfect. The US government can launch a 51% attack on the blockchain, but it will cost them a few tens of billions of USD. Another option is to go for a global ban. But then, not all of the 200+ countries and territories are going to agree with this stupid ban.

I don't think that the USA can confiscate all bitcoin assets because bitcoin runs on a decentralized network which does not allow for intervention. As long as the USA does not have access to users' wallets, whatever they try to confiscate Bitcoin assets will not be possible. And what's more, now is the modern era where the government cannot arbitrarily treat people, so if the USA does things arbitrarily it will cause problems for themselves.

I don't think that the Government can do this because if it was that easy, they would have done this for a long time, bitcoin is built on a solid system, and this has made it impossible for any entity or organization to have control or total access in the system, currently, there are Bitcoin enthusiast than before, if US start the liquidation of this digital asset that's if they can, there will be problem, I believe there are major investors whose assets are in bitcoin, don't you think this is the reason why those treats and speeches will never hold. As long as people have known what Bitcoin is all about it will continue to grow in publicity because it is an asset.
I don't foresee the Government taking this approach because so many measures are involved, they will be affected in turn, and that's why they always discourage interested citizens gain the majority.

The only flaw on this assumption is on what grounds will the US government can confiscate Bitcoin from node owner. Also if ever their government become tyrant then I’m sure they will have problem on how to liquidate that kind of amount without giving a huge impact to the price of Bitcoin in general.

Pretty sure that everyone will early exit if the US Government start seizing and liquidating Bitcoin and other crypto assets. But I’m not really sure how can they possibly do this legally without illegal charges. I’m sure USA will not be committed to become tyrant country just to fund a war of other country.

Yes, this can happen to people ...if they store their Bitcoin (Crypto Currencies) in centralized services. We saw this when Executive Order 6102 required all persons in the USA to deliver gold coins, Gold bullion, and Gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $467 in 2022) per troy ounce. (1933) - Read more about this here ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

So, it is very important that you keep control over your own Private keys and that you do not store your coins on ANY centralized services that can be targeted by a government.  

Well, the government can't confiscate individual bitcoins; for that, they should have the private key/ seed phrase of all those addresses, and it is an impossible task. They can only confiscate the BTC holdings that are on exchanges located in their jurisdiction.
As long as you have your BTC in your wallet, no one in the world will be able to confiscate them. This is how decentralization and anonymity work. It is also important not to use an exchange wallet for storing BTC because exchanges can be hacked or bankrupted.
As far as US war expense is concerned, the whole of the crypto market won't be able to cover that.

For reference, over 2 trillion dollars ($300M per day) were spent on the US war in Afghanistan.
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/31/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-end-of-the-war-in-afghanistan/#:~:text=After%20more%20than%20%242%20trillion,a%20day%20for%20two%20decades.)

The only thing the government can seize in such cases are the exchanges that take place on the centralized platform. However, those that are DEX (decentralized exchange) are no longer insured, and if your Bitcoin is in a cold wallet or any hardware wallet, it is not covered by the government.

That is why we must always be vigilant and prepared for unforeseen chances, so that if something occurs to centralized platforms, we are aware and prepared in case the government takes such a measure.

I agree, that's what they will do if they're in the dire need for more funds.

Every citizen will be pushed with money that they've got and will be confiscated and if it's still not enough, all they need to do is to secure and be more strict with where Bitcoins can be exchanged into fiat.

They'll go with these exchanges and have the information of any registered user on them and that's how they're going to get their intel, and in no time they'll be at the door steps knocking it and you'll have no way of denying it that you still own some.

This applies to every government in the world. Every country might go to war at some point in the future and might attempt to start seizing coins if things will get dire for the war economy. If people will voluntarily or involuntarily let their government know how many coins they own, the government might come to them to confiscate the coins, and even if they attempt to hide the coins, the coins or the liquidated funds will become harder to use legally. So it's not like crypto is a perfect loophole for avoiding funds seizure.

I agree that the US can probably do that theoretically but it's very unlikely they're actually going to do that. Blockchain cannot be seized and confiscated but confiscating Bitcoins will lead to a huge dump, which most probably will lead to their own BTC reserves losing value and investors leaving Bitcoin due to a massive loss of trust. 

Well, there are 46392 NODES main nodes scattered all over the world. The numbers are obviously not too large, but not exist only in US, which means, the US can seize the nodes running in their country, by any means, first, they have to find their locations and the real owners and other paperwork, but let's just forget those protocols, and agree that they seize those nods, then what. How many nodes are there in the US? Can you tell, according to this website, the US has 10191 nodes running in their country.

If that's true then my friend, it will not matter shit to the BTC blockchain other than some congestion on the network and huge losses to the US economy. I hope now you understand.

The website I am talking about.

• Bitnodes estimates the relative size of the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network by finding all of its reachable nodes.

Agreed

To remove the question, you just have to understand what is funding illegal formations/regimes. If anyone thinks that it looks like this: here you have 1,000,000 dollars, and there they will sell you 10,000 machines for it, you are mistaken. No, that's not how it works. Someone who is at the top or in control of some process gets the money. Whether it's dollars, euros, rubles, bitcoins.... Then. Yes, yes - part of the money settles in his (or a group of people's) pockets, and the hundredth of the money is used to buy those "10,000 machines" and given to those who will be the direct perpetrators of terrorist attacks, murders, etc. Yes, part of the money is used to pay consultants, open accounts.... But the key nuance is those who live off the money - the top brass. And as you understand - they are not going to blow themselves up at a roadblock, or break in and kill civilians, or commit other crimes. NO. He has money and he wants to live beautifully. Death and all this stuff is not for him. He is above these mortal and worthless performers who are fooled by propaganda. And here comes the most subtle nuance - the number of goods and services sold for bitcoins is not so wide to satisfy the demands for a beautiful life of another "fighter against capitalism". He wants a villa, a yacht, pretty girls, and cars... And for that you need money. And here is the most delicate place - to convert illegal cryptocurrency into legal fiat money. That's where the biggest control point will be. From KYC to blocking funds to seizing them from exchanges.

Not happening. too many scattered nodes all over the world.

Any country in the world can say All crypto is too easy to get money into terrorist hands.

That country can then make endless kyc rules.


and bust you if you do not comply.

The threat of war and terrorist can be used to justify tough laws by a country.

So instead of picking any one country the reality is a lot of countries may do this kyc kyc kyc.

Just from the title, I seem to see something wrong. It made me think when I read the title, to be honest, and a question came to my mind, and it was "Is Blockchain Stealing?" As far as I know, Bitcoin can only be stolen if the thief knows the access to it, such as the seed, private key, and password. Unless someone in the know gives what a Bitcoin thief should know,

That means it is true what others say: that it is good to hide Bitcoin, especially in times when there is ever a war. You can hide your crypto assets or Bitcoin even if they are in a hardware wallet, a cold wallet, and others. As long as you have all the important files for this.

The problem seems to go beyond a localized conflict.
"U.S. President says Hamas must be completely destroyed". Given that Hamas is a "maintainer" of Iran and some other anti-human regimes, dealing with Hamas will lead to the involvement of those regimes/countries as well, against the coalition of Israel and the developed west. Yes, it won't be easy, but hopefully the result will be peace and stabilization, as was the case after WWII, which cost the world a huge price, but in the end, before the rise of Rashism, the world lived more or less stable.
Yes, I understand Russia is one of the key beneficiaries and scriptwriters of this massacre in Israel. I hope soon, the world will know who helped to organize, directed, financed Hamas terrorists (by the way - including with the help of cryptocurrency, which has already "surfaced"), and in fact since the 60s of the last century is the ideologist of the concept of world terrorism.
This is not my personal dislike for Russia (quite reasoned), it is a historical fact - you can read the concept of controlled terrorism developed back in the USSR, about methods of terror and destabilization.

Regarding the confiscation of bitcoins - technologically it is difficult to do it without getting the wallet and access to it. Probably the best solution is to destroy the carrier and data carriers of the wallets of the sponsors of terrorism, which will solve the problem and have a positive impact on the crypto market. The second way is to tighten and introduce new regulators in the crypto market, which is not very good and will further undermine confidence in cryptocurrency.

.The US could enter the war on Israel's side if Iran openly supports Hamas and its allies in the war. This scenario is quite possible. The fact that Hamas launched more than 5,000 rockets into Israel in the first days suggests with a high degree of probability that these rockets were provided by Iran. Iran is already warning Israel against sending its troops into the Gaza Strip and threatens to side with Hamas in this case. Given the threats to Israel and from other Arab states, World War III may soon begin. Although some argue that it has already begun.

As for bitcoins, it is unlikely that the US government will ever want to confiscate them even from its citizens for war needs. As long as the dollar is the world's reserve currency, the United States can simply print dollars as much as it needs.

Exactly, no government can just take my bitcoin. This is why we self custody, we have full ownership over our coins. Besides if we are ever questioned about our bitcoin ownership we can simply say we forgot the passphrase or seed or even that we had a boating accident & lost them all.

Lol, you need to be very very very unaware of the chain if you really think that USA could take peoples bitcoin ı mean this is so much ignorance that requires for anyone to be able to even think about a possibility let alone actually being able to do it. That ain't happening mate, the chain wasn't build like that, jus because you know the word "node" doesn't mean that you know how it works, you could literally move the chain away as you want, governments can't do anything about it, you can move it a million times if you want, easily, no pressure at all. Obviously government could just ban it, or just say give it to me, with KYC they could force you, but not take it by force, that ain't happening.

I'm not tracking lol.  The exact reason crypto was created was to have 100% control of your money.  If you own your keys no one e can "take" your money.  I don't think you quite understand how bitcoin works and need to read up a little more.  And further the US won't just take everyone's money to fund the war, those in.power would just get voted out it's not a dictatorship

The total current worth of bitcoin in circulation is about $526,896,225,000 which is a substantial amount to finance its war expenses. But the question now is how will the US government confiscate a decentralized currency. They can achieve this if all the Bitcoin is kept in centralized exchanges located on the US which is not the case. The US doesn't need to seize Bitcoin to finance war while they can easily turn to the printing press and mint more dollars.

It is small conflict that escalates to become a big wars. This conflict between Israel and Hamas has the potential to become a protracted war. A war that cost the US government over $2.3 trillion the loss of 2,400 US servicemen and the death of over 42,000 civilians is not small. The US had to withdraw from Afghanistan when it became clear that they could not achieve their projected goals fighting a war that costs $300 million daily.

Your provided link at the bottom does not back up your statements, which I think are totally wrong. Because USA does have big impact on the price of BTC but they don't have full control over the BTC blockchain. Because miners are distributed all over the world, and they all are not locals of the US.

And that's why they don't have to follow the orders if any given by the US to confiscate the BTC.

But in reality, it can not happen, because BTC is decentralized, which means it is distributed all over the world and blockchain technology also, which means, that even if they confiscate BTC in the US, the blockchain and the BTC will work properly at that time too. Because other miners are sitting at different places around the glove to validate the transactions.

Just to help you understand 19 million BTCs that are in circulation are not owned by the US only, I own BTC, and I can make TX as I am not from the US. This means, that it is not necessary for the BTC to be shut down if the US wants to confiscate  BTC trading etc.

The USA is going to length to ensure that it's not considered a country that's at war with any other country, and that position has been clear well before the Israel-Hamas war, namely in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Also, realistically, very few countries would want to go to war with the USA, considering how strong this country is economically, politically, militarily, and how it's a part of NATO. If it's a relatively small war (by small I mean something like in Afghanistan), it surely won't need to confiscate anything. If it's a huge war, I still don't think the US would want to lower the popular support that much. I mean, even much smaller countries with a much higher need for resources for the army (like Ukraine) don't do that because this is not the way.  Not to mention that it'll be hard to perform such a confiscation of a digital, decentralized asset.

The first part is not how bitcoin works, you can't confiscate other people's bitcoins using nodes. The US regime has to kick down people's doors and physically take their bitcoins/keys. Or just make an announcement that people should hand over their bitcoins to the government and receive an IOU, they have actually done something similar to this in the world war times with gold!

The second part on the other hand, can happen at any time which is why people should not keep their coins in other entities custody such as the centralized exchanges. It can easily be frozen and confiscated.
But here's the thing, there isn't that much bitcoin stored on exchanges to be able to fund a war for US that needs trillions for days to enter any wars. The entire bitcoin's value is $500 billion!

Only a portion of the entire global nodes (and also hashrate) is located inside US jurisdiction. By seizing all of them and not relaying transactions, there still are other nodes in the rest of the world (99% of the population!) that will relay it.

That is the power of decentralization...

If the whole Bitcoin blockchain with main nodes in seized, you probably can not make transfer.

Bro change your dealer, he is selling you expired ice.  I mean, really! Do you think 19 million has been mined and all of that BTC exists or is owned by US citizens only? Ok let's agree on the fact that they can confiscate our BTC, but you are saying they will confiscate 19 million and that would be a budget booster for the whole US market. Dear, please think before making a topic, you are aware of the fact that BTC is not totally owned by US citizens or nor under the control of US government.

And the fact on which I agreed before, <-- for that I have only one thing to say is, they cannot confiscate our BTC because they don't own shit out of it, we can send it anywhere in the world without asking them, even if they try to make a warning to US citizens that you have to assist with us and not make any TXs out of the country, they can not stop that, US citizens can easily send or receive BTC from there non-custodial wallets, yeah they might confiscate the BTC exists in custodial wallets (like of CEXs). Or they might shut down the internet in overall country to stop people from sending money. Well, I don't know why I am thinking of it at the first place, I think I should also change my dealer hehe.

War with who in particular? You can't be in a war and just want to ban use of something when it is not affecting you. If USA should be in a war, they might want to sanction the countries that become their enemy and if they want to make payment through the bitcoin, then that's the only when it becomes an eye soar for them to confisticate any bitcoin transactions they found illicit(in their dictionary), which everyone will understand because it is personal but they can confisticate all the bitcoin, they don't have the power to do that.

Furthermore, Bitcoin miners are not situated in a single location which bitcoin decentralized and decentralized means power shared across diffrent areas. If today USA want to stop bitcoin, they can only ban it in USA but they don't have the power to it globally, the world doesn't only revolve around US, other countries have bitcoin in possession but they don't speak about it and if US don't like it, what US feel don't affect them. It might affect the price but it will get stronger with time.

Before Israel - Palestine conflict, I did not even consider such a possibilities ( USA is sending a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean ).
What if USA will be in the war in future or any international conflict that can lead to the war - USA government can confiscate Bitcoins with USA based blockchain nodes + exchanges + online wallets for war expenses. There are already 19 millions mined BTC worldwide, so this can be real war budget booster for weapons and other expenses. USA currently also has $33.54 trillion in federal debt, so if there are such international conflict, mined Bitcoins seizing for war budget can be really on the White House decision table.
Washington already owns more than $5 billion worth of seized bitcoin - https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2023/06/16/us-government-owns-way-more-bitcoin-than-any-other-countryso-why-arent-they-selling-it/?sh=d18b8d81f32a
List of wars involving the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
Look also here:
 - The economics of war. How does this affect us all especially us in crypto?