Topic: Who might realistically pose a threat to bitcoin? (Read 2795 times)

Yes, and most of them I wouldn't trust with a 10 foot pole to carry on a project of this magnitude. There are so many trust issues at stake here it's nutty.

There are still not THAT many people who have the skills necessary to analyze the Bitcoin software stack from such a high level as to make intelligent decisions for the community at large. This is a very, very tall order and there are very, very few geeks capable of maintaining integrity.

Yes, it's open source, but what if there comes a time when we don't have enough qualified people around to make the *right* decisions?

I think that is really one of the biggest threats; corruption from within. If times get tough, people might get desperate.

Maybe not. It could be thermo-nuclear war, like you said. :-)

-p

That brings difficulty down and more Bitcoin my way! j/k Of course I would donate much of my time and money to help the victims.

It's open source. There are plenty of "Anonymous" folks out there to keep it real.

There are always disasters. I don't see the connection with BTC or any other currency. I'm surprised you left out total global thermonuclear war, now that might affect the Bitcoin Network a bit.

I worry about this but only because I've seen so many crazy natural disasters over my short lifetime and it's a real possibility.

If "The Big One" (a large earthquake) hits the West (or East?!) Coast of the Continental United States, we will lose a significant portion of the Bitcoin network all at once. We might also possibly lose a large portion of the brain talent that is invested in this protocol.

If 25% of the lead developers were to suddenly disappear, I'm worried that all of the drama and tension built up in this community over the last year or two might not be conducive to getting the core software development effort back on track. We have a stellar group of individuals hammering out code and we all trust them to make good decisions for the future of Bitcoin.

We've got some of the largest wildfires in recorded history burning right now, we've had more "mini" earthquakes all over the country than I've ever heard of before, they are polluting a large percentage of our ground water supplies with environmentally questionable (toxic?) hydraulic fracturing techniques... It is not impossible that we could suffer some serious setbacks to our community effort from within just through attrition in the next few years or decades.

-p

A government would need a very good reason to attack the network. If they choose to attack for only reasons of fear, then other big countries would smell that fear and support BTC. Bitcoin is taking over. The first nation that flinches, loses.

+1

It would take a government to stop Bitcoin.  A large government.

Remember that the government is nothing but a group of individuals, each guarding their own interests. Those who are more invested in the current monetary system, and have more access to inside information, will certainly want to protect themselves from the looming collapse. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that some members of the political class are already investing in bitcoins.

Banks are too attached to their mainframe and their existing business, as well being too slow to react to anything.

If the CEO know what's good for his business, he would create a skunkwork division and plans to sell off everybody else to all the other banks once the skunkwork division is profitable.

Companies like Apple and facebook wants to make lot of money, not create an ecosystem. As long as they're fixated on making their own walled garden with high fees, we have an advantage.

If we accumulate a coalition of companies into a Bitcoin army, then even apple and google can't stop us. Moreso, if any of the biggest tech company decides to join the army.

We need to become so attractive, that they rather join us than fight us.

the most likely scenario is that companies like Apple and facebook come up with a centralized virtual currency, that to the uninformed public, offers 99% of the advantages of bitcoin.  Like MintChip 2.0.  they will convince their buddies at Starbucks etc to take theirs and not take bitcoin, and bitcoiners will be seen as outcasts.  Kind of like the people who use Usenet today for unfiltered news.  just not a mainstream thing.

The way to counteract this is to grow bitcoin as fast as we possibly can, before the big companies can react.  We have been working every day towards that goal by focusing on business adoption.  Others are out there every day trying to get new users one-at-a-time.  It's a winnable game if we keep moving forward.

I say: damdamdamdam... SATOSHI the grandmaster of bitcoin!

Pls Mr. Satoshi, dont return! Your iconic figure and mysterious genious is bolstering the bitcoin myth. A second coming of yours as its creator and voice would undoubtedly draw away the magic and let bitcoin fall prey to your public perception and criticism. There is nothing that could be improved by it, only harmed. Pls stay in the background and enjoy the appreciation you are valued within the community.

I think government is the only real threat to Bitcoin because it doesn't have to play by the rules and always can invent new. There wouldn't be any conspiracy behind government attacking Bitcoin, instead it would be a natural process that happened many times before. First, government will try to control and regulate bitcoin transactions, but they can't just magically make it happen they will need means to enforce those regulations, and as we all know, so far there is no feasible way to do so in a cost effective manner, even FBI report points to that. Second, when the first approach won't work they will try to impose even more regulations and restrictions, and will continue to do so until they have control over Bitcoin or it would become impractical for people to use it.
There is two possibilities how Bitcoin can overcome that. First one is fast and painless, I really hope that would be the case, Bitcoin would spread and gain popularity so fast that government wouldn't have enough time to react. I estimate from 6 to 12 months before they would attempt to regulate Bitcoin, at first it would be very subtle though. Second possibility is that despite draconian restrictions or even being illegal Bitcoin would be so useful that people will ignore government and use any way.

Bitcoin is an opportunity for the next Bilderberger/Rothchild wannabe to grab the brass ring. Someday the paranoids may be talking about the Vladimir/Matthew conspiracies.

Bitcoin is not a threat to Banks, Banks are a threat to themselves.
If you think about it, what is a bank? Its a glorified spread sheet.
There is no proof of work behind digital money. The balance of your bank account is just a field in a database. That's it. There is no magic.

Any threat that is perceived by bitcoin simply comes from the lack of complexity by those "offended" by it.

The entire global banking system is based on 1960's technology, sure its been upgraded since, but they are just upgrading the same basic framework. No fundamental changes have been made.

My theory is, bilderbergs/rothschilds/rockefellers wouldn't see Bitcoin as a threat in principle. They don't create the waves, they just know how to ride them.

Corporations are not the same, they have to be in bed with the governments, which are in turn under the thumb of the State, which is sponsored by the corporations. The good thing is, this structure doesn't have a clear decision making system and is clumsy. The whole thing is more like an elephantine kludge than a living thing. Bitcoin has a lot of time to grow before the bureaucrats figure out a way to properly address the situation.

Why would a government attack bitcoin?  A Fed or central bank would attack bitcoin not a government.


Like JP Morgan building a giant mining farm for pure profit?

How about Pirate/Giga/Others creating a BitCoin central bank and managing over 51% to control the currency? (The central bank of bitcoin)

And other conspiracies...

Options A, B and C are the same. So I think this is the correct answer.

The biggest threat to Bitcoin is its very own creator, who is so much of a coward, he must remain anonymous. For all we know, he could be a United States government insider, hired to create this as some sort of "one world government" experiment. In that case I better be careful, because that's a very powerful group who knows what they're doing. I might be followed by mysterious characters after this post and may end up missing soon.

The only threat is COBRA and Skeletor  

Seriously though, I think the biggest threat Bitcoin has is having the idea stolen by Master Card/Visa and being kept centralized and highly commercialized.  Until you can easily buy Bitcoins online in a cheap and secure way, have a stable price for merchants, have a user-friendly system that your mom could use, and have at least one major company use them (Amazon, Walmart, ebay) then Bitcoin might just die off from annoyed miners that are angry about losing money and time.

Lots of us put a lot of time and money into it, but really, if something more profitable pops up we'll all be jumping onto that endeavor.  If Bitcoin is overshadowed by Visa-Coin or Google-coin, no one will care about Bitcoin, and worse yet, no one will trust it.  I think this problem is overlooked under the entire 51% argument.  Mobile payments and online currencies are coming.  The only question is who will make it first.  Apple is already developing a system, and they'll be locking out other payment sources.  We could easily get pegged into an ebay/paypal situation where even if you HATE the service, you can't use it well without adopting a suck ass corrupt payment system.  Just imagine how awesome paypal would be with extremely low percentage cuts ran on bitcoin.

Anyone able to do a 51% attack