What do you guys think it would happen if all the governments in the world declared bitcoin to be illegal?
How do you think the community would react? What could be the possible solutions?
It would depend on how aggressively they backed enforcement / penalty. Drugs are illegal, but the drug trade continues. But people are also currently sitting in jails for long periods of time because they got caught using/trading in drugs.
Under your scenario, it would most likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy that bitcoin would slink into the dark underbelly of society. Most people would avoid it like the plague. There would be NO MORE upward price volatility at all. Initially it would drop like a rock in price, then it would most likely establish a baseline black market price.
But wait! Even for this to black market scenario to happen, you still need miners. Again, finding and jailing the miners would be childs play for the authorities, even if any existed that were willing to work at high risk for low monetary return.
So in the end it depends on whether or not the authorities enforce the declaration of illegality, or if they allow it to live in a black market environment. They could kill it, or they could let it live a crippled miserable existence,a nd people would use it at their peril.
One thing is for sure.... most people wouldn't want to own any or touch it with a 10 foot pole.
And this is a POSSIBLE REAL FUTURE if R3CEV/HyperLedger future eventually adds the creation of it's own fedcoin into it's plans. Right now it is possible they just start using HyperLedger with current fiat, and sort of choose Bitcoin as the primary default crypto. But they are just saying this now as a "marketing tool" to get the central bankers signed up. R3CEV/Hyperledger has basically won the war against Ripple/Ethereum models for a simple reason: Basic Business 101 >> Understand your customer.
Ripple/Ethereum said to the banks, "We have awesom Blockchain technology,a nd you use our Cryptocurrency" . R3CEV/Hyperledger said, "We have awesome Blockhain technology, and you can all use your existing fiat currencies." Customers always run to the least disruptive, simplest solution. Ripple/Ethereum have been marginalized and will now begin to be regulated to either minor marketshare, or die all together. Best to get out.
But R3CEV/HyperLedger (and I also think the big banks themselves) do subconciously
(or conciously) know that ultimately all the current fiat currencies die in time and get replaced by crypto. I have a hard time believing that they aren't seriously looking at the option to develop their own Bitcoin Killer FiatCoin.
But R3CEV/HyperLedger won't be able to, or won't put the effort into, creating its own FiatCoin if Bitcoin is able to get a bigger toehold into mainstream society before R3CEV/Hyperledger becomes firmly entrenched and rolled out to masses. In that case I think the end game will be that Bitcoin emerges as THE Global Currency, monitored through the Fiat Blockchain that R3CEV/HyperLedger creates for the world's governments and banks. So it is a footrace as to what the end result it.
Nothing is established. Very god topic / question. It is a realistically possible scenario at some point.
