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What could a government do to prevent or alter Bitcoin? Shut down the Internet?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gnaritas 11y ago
You miss the point, they don't regulate Bitcoin, they regulate citizens. Just because you can't stop something completely, doesn't mean you can't outlaw it. Bitcoin, like all commodities now and in the future is taxable under current law because the law taxes all income of any form except things we say you can deduct. That means it covers new forms of assets as well as existing ones. Not paying your taxes is illegal and is more than enough threat—as it always has been—to make citizens obey the law.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  You miss the point. Bitcoin is not necessarily income. It's simply a chain of integers bound through certain mathematical operations.
Synaesthesia 11y ago
They cannot destroy it but they can hinder it in major ways and drive it underground. For example if major governments announced that they're banning bitcoin it would drive off a lot of users and we would have to find ways around their legislation. Major exchanges will have to go underground, it would be a lot harder to buy bitcoin, maybe the value would drop.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Exchanges are peripheral noise. What would 'banning bitcoin' even mean? All that is required is the computation of a number and its transmission to the blockchain. It's impossible to block such a message without blocking all other communications.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > What would 'banning bitcoin' even mean? All that is required is the computation of a number and its transmission to the blockchain. It's impossible to block such a message without blocking all other communications. Government prohibition of an act rarely involves blocking all instances of the act (in fact, if the government could effectively make an act impossible, it wouldn't need to prohibit it.) So the question here just seems to miss the entire idea of legal prohibitions.
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    likely, "banning bitcoin" would take the form of barring companies from accepting it. It definitely changes the value proposition if Amazon, Target, Overstock, Subway, TigerDirect, Home Depot, etc. can no longer accept bitcoin as payment. There's no need to mess with the blockchain if you can simply eliminate mainstream use and force it onto black markets.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      On what basis could a company be banned from accepting it? No physical items are exchanged. It's simply a record in a long chain of integers.
      - lotharbot 11y ago
        Engineers like to use lines like "long chain of numbers", but that doesn't really hold weight. Stolen credit card numbers, digitized child porn, and terrorist communications all also qualify as "just a bunch of numbers". So does the majority of NSA surveillance, which most HN'ers oppose. The government is pretty good at figuring out justifications for banning things. I wouldn't rely on reasoning as flimsy as "it's just numbers" for why it couldn't happen. (I'm not saying I expect them to, just that if they did, it'd most likely take the form of a merchant ban, "just numbers" would not be an adequate justification, and all the big retailers would comply because none of them want to risk a big legal fight.)
        11y ago
grey-area 11y ago
Make it illegal? Break down our door and take your computer and coins? Raid the service that holds your coins? Put you in jail if you refuse to give up passwords?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

You miss the point, they don't regulate Bitcoin, they regulate citizens. Just because you can't stop something completely, doesn't mean you can't outlaw it. Bitcoin, like all commodities now and in the future is taxable under current law because the law taxes all income of any form except things we say you can deduct. That means it covers new forms of assets as well as existing ones. Not paying your taxes is illegal and is more than enough threat—as it always has been—to make citizens obey the law.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
You miss the point. Bitcoin is not necessarily income. It's simply a chain of integers bound through certain mathematical operations.

Synaesthesia 11y ago

They cannot destroy it but they can hinder it in major ways and drive it underground. For example if major governments announced that they're banning bitcoin it would drive off a lot of users and we would have to find ways around their legislation. Major exchanges will have to go underground, it would be a lot harder to buy bitcoin, maybe the value would drop.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Exchanges are peripheral noise. What would 'banning bitcoin' even mean? All that is required is the computation of a number and its transmission to the blockchain. It's impossible to block such a message without blocking all other communications.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > What would 'banning bitcoin' even mean? All that is required is the computation of a number and its transmission to the blockchain. It's impossible to block such a message without blocking all other communications. Government prohibition of an act rarely involves blocking all instances of the act (in fact, if the government could effectively make an act impossible, it wouldn't need to prohibit it.) So the question here just seems to miss the entire idea of legal prohibitions.
- lotharbot 11y ago
  likely, "banning bitcoin" would take the form of barring companies from accepting it. It definitely changes the value proposition if Amazon, Target, Overstock, Subway, TigerDirect, Home Depot, etc. can no longer accept bitcoin as payment. There's no need to mess with the blockchain if you can simply eliminate mainstream use and force it onto black markets.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    On what basis could a company be banned from accepting it? No physical items are exchanged. It's simply a record in a long chain of integers.
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      Engineers like to use lines like "long chain of numbers", but that doesn't really hold weight. Stolen credit card numbers, digitized child porn, and terrorist communications all also qualify as "just a bunch of numbers". So does the majority of NSA surveillance, which most HN'ers oppose. The government is pretty good at figuring out justifications for banning things. I wouldn't rely on reasoning as flimsy as "it's just numbers" for why it couldn't happen. (I'm not saying I expect them to, just that if they did, it'd most likely take the form of a merchant ban, "just numbers" would not be an adequate justification, and all the big retailers would comply because none of them want to risk a big legal fight.)
      - 11y ago

grey-area 11y ago

Make it illegal? Break down our door and take your computer and coins? Raid the service that holds your coins? Put you in jail if you refuse to give up passwords?