Topic: What would happen if ISPs start blocking cryptocurrency data? (Read 16269 times)

I'm not so worried for the pool operators, I mean people could always go back to mining solo and BTC won't die.  I do worry about the gov. trying to prevent BTC data from being sent though.  That seems like the only way they could TRULY clamp down and kill BTC officially.

I see that as a win because Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, etc. look nothing like where the industry wanted to go in the late 90s.

The main impetus that made filesharing popular is the record companies, and later Hollywood, refused to be reasonable in terms of making their content available.

Basically they were forced to conform to what their customers wanted or else be left behind entirely. They tried fighting this with lawyers, but all that did was make the circumvention technology evolve even faster.

I'd like to note that it is impossible to shut down a Confidence Chain.  The transactions can be routed through any medium, even steganographically embedded in images.  Entire economies could be grown on a message post board like 4chan for instance with only the participants knowing about it.

You could build similar bridges for Bitcoin, but it's not fundamentally built for these characteristics like Confidence Chains is.

Clearly. We're veering off topic here, but what the heck.

The supposition that 'they' (whoever they may be, including the artists) have any inalienable right to receive any money is predicated on the idea that intellectual property is not a logically and ethically bankrupt concept. Unfortunately, it is - and so, they don't.

These type of streaming services are the only real chance they've got at clawing some money from people.

While you're right of course, the very fact that someone might think they won is significant. The great mass of people seem to be have been successfully herded into models like Netflix and iTunes than bittorrent. I speak of course of the rich countries.
It seems a quasi-equilibrium has been reached where the "authorities" make only limited attempts to suppress bittorrent, while providing an alternative within accepted structures, and you get a 80-20 (pure guess) split between those who go along, and those who choose to stay outside the system.

Perhaps the future for Bitcoin is similar. I would argue it's a little different, because file sharing is principally about entertainment, whereas money is about your livelihood. It can mean life or death for your family business, for example.

Trouble is they have little financial leverage tools with Bitcoin unlike currencies or commodities.

They have control of the standard financial markets and they can easily change the value of currencies by printing, issuing bonds, etc. There are plenty of financial instruments that they can sell short or long without actually owning the currency or commodity.

The blockchain stops that as it enforces one owner per unit of exchange.


All they can do is trash its reputation.

No doubt big elephants in the market especially central banks will try their best to fight with bitcoin as it is not threat to economy but to their personnel goals. They shall try every method to destroy crypto currency due to up and down in prices possible. However investors will protect the crypto currency from destroying. 

That's why it'll be futile to even try banning Bitcoin.

They won?

Let me check something- nope, I can still find any content I want on TPB and download it without any problems.

ISPs never wanted to stop Bittorrent. Media content mafia tried to pressure ISPs into stopping Bittorrent. And they pretty much won - every place on Earth except the worst shitholes now has digital copyright agencies. Copyright whores passed laws that favor them. Copyright whores send blackmail letters racketeering filesharers without suffering any repercussions.

Does no one remember what happened when ISPs tried to stop Bittorrent? How well did that work out? How quickly did users adapt to the extra steps necessary to operate compared to how quickly the ISPs acted?

Well if that happens the price of bitcoin will probably decrease a lot..and probably here will be consenquences of the people
that go and continue to use bitcoins, their threats will be punishable and this isnt the first time that we see something
harmless get punished. Even if there is a way around it it will be a bad sign for BTC and businesses will be put to a stop,
ending btc most likely. But there will always be consequences for their actions.

Now that is true, they will fight but they will also be very busy with their own fight as not all of the Central Bankers are on the same side.

The Central Bankers of countries with the lack of natural resources, high numbers of jobless and social programs to fund are in deep shit and are on one side. The Central Bankers of the countries with the natural resources often have little of no social programs to fund, resources to sell or manufacture with and are on the other side. One of the only things keeping the whole of this together is the nuclear arsenal of the West and the Western Central Bankers payment system that ties every other country into the $ by forcing the PetroDollar exchange but that system has and will continue to erode as other payment systems are and will be used such as the latest PetroGold exchanges that have occurred.

The addition of virtual currency exchanges just accelerates the process.

Some may argue we already are.

That sounds like a wonderful scenario, and I'm all for utopianism, but let's assume the worst-case. Beyond the possible political moves of nation-states, we have to take into account the central banks, who are the real movers, political leaders largely being their puppets. Say all the central bankers get together and decide to do everything they possibly can to stamp out the greatest threat they've ever faced: cryptocurrencies. It would be foolish to think they won't eventually do so, if they haven't already. In fact, ACME would be their baby, their first card. The next measures could be severe persecution of anyone caught "counterfeiting" and the institutionalization/normalization of this anti-digital currencies mentality by means of relentless media propaganda. "Counterfeiters" will be equated with "financial terrorists" and will be dealt with extra-judicially or by any means deemed "necessary" for security, blah blah blah.

The Chinese and Indian central banks have already made some preliminary pronouncements. There's no reason to think they wouldn't fully cooperate with ACME. SE Asia would follow suit behind Thailand. Likewise with Japan and other US-subjugated/client states. In the Middle East no one would step out of this line as it's too easy for the USG and media to label them "terrorists" etc. I somehow can't picture Africans of any sort running ASICs as a means of getting food on the table. The Bolivarian/anti-imperialist nations might be the biggest cryptocurrency adopters at that point, LOL.

We can't assume it won't ever happen. If we want this technology to succeed we need to understand what we're up against and account for worst-case scenarios. Whether you want to call it a totalitarian dictatorship or something else, the difference is largely semantical. The central banksters don't play by the illusory rules of "democracy" that our "elected leaders" supposedly play by. They've been in this for many generations and are not about to give up their monopoly on currency without a fight.

besides it won't ever happen.  that would mean we're living in a totalitarian dictatorship..

Okay let's say that the 5 permanent members of the council do so. France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States propose it and the then current temporary members are forced to accept. If they do that then all ASIC's miner manufacturing will stop in those countries and rise in others, think Middle East, Southern Africa, South America, AsiaPac.

Trade using virtual currencies between those countries will happen with greater frequency as it is easier to do so than use the banks in the majority of the smaller countries, even if you pay all local taxes, it also bypasses the majority of the existing banking systems, the countries are now split in two. Soon oil and resources are traded in the virtual currency trading block. China who needs the 3rd world resources has the gold to pay with, so does India. The Western countries excluding Russia have no resources left, Russia has its own oil and gas. Within a few years the Western countries will either get cold or join the virtual currency trade block.

That's my guess of the end state of your scenario.

Remember, we're talking future worst-case scenario here. I wrote that the UNSC member states also adopted ACME, and we can imagine that they would be pressuring non-member states to go along with its provisions under subtle threat of violence (because not complying would make them part of the "threat to the world economy").

I guess the key is not so much getting around the restrictions, for that is easy from a technological standpoint. What's harder is to avoid losing too many users. We can't ask the average user to "just switch to port 80" or something like that. Software updates should be as simple as possible... I'd say they should be automatic by default.

Or like one of the many proprietary encrypted protocols out there used in financial services, e.g. Bloomberg Anywhere.