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Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.

by corrys 6y ago

doggosphere 6y ago
Lets clarify semantics. Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Can the government seize your bank account directly? Yes. Can they threaten you with jail if you don't hand over your Bitcoin? Yes
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Yes, it can. The U.S. government has in fact seized Bitcoin directly and sold it at auction several times. It is arguably the single largest non-exchange seller of Bitcoin in Bitcoin's history.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    It can only be taken in these events: 1) Seed phrases are discovered (ie. plaintext document or physical artifact). 2) Seed phrases are handed over by willing party. If #1 doesn't exist, then #2 is the only option.
    - elvatoloco55 6y ago
      Nobody here seems interested in actually understanding how BTC works. It looks like a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals coping with not buying early.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      This is the same as with cash money. Money can only be seized if the safe is found. And the combination is handed over by a willing party. The difference is that money is actually more secure because you don't have a public ledger telling you that it exists and who owns it and how much of it they own as you do with the public cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
      - doggosphere 6y ago
        Cash needs to be accessible to be useful. Crypto is magnitudes more accessible. I can travel to any country in the world with an encrypted usb drive of my seed words, and no one is wiser. OR even upload a file to the internet and forego carrying anything at all. A government can try to censor transactions belonging to an address, but we don't have good precedent to see how the network will behave. Miners in other jurisdictions have no reason to follow someone else's censorship.
- microtherion 6y ago
  > Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. A government could seize miners, and given that ~50% of the world's Bitcoin mining capacity appears to be located in one country, that might give them considerable leeway to rewrite the blockchain to their liking.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    Yes. The solution to this is a software fork.
    - microtherion 6y ago
      Did you mean "soft fork", or are you thinking of a different concept I'm not familiar with? Forks can and have been used to deal with isolated malicious incidents, but do you think they can be successful against an actor in extended control of a substantial part of the hash rate?
      - doggosphere 6y ago
        You can alter the hashing algorithm to one that is more ASIC resistant. Monero did this.

Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.

by corrys 6y ago

Bitcoins have been confiscated by many governments. A quick Google search reveals many instances of that.

Lets clarify semantics. Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Can the government seize your bank account directly? Yes. Can they threaten you with jail if you don't hand over your Bitcoin? Yes

gamblor956 6y ago
Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. Yes, it can. The U.S. government has in fact seized Bitcoin directly and sold it at auction several times. It is arguably the single largest non-exchange seller of Bitcoin in Bitcoin's history.
- doggosphere 6y ago
  It can only be taken in these events: 1) Seed phrases are discovered (ie. plaintext document or physical artifact). 2) Seed phrases are handed over by willing party. If #1 doesn't exist, then #2 is the only option.
  - elvatoloco55 6y ago
    Nobody here seems interested in actually understanding how BTC works. It looks like a circle jerk of pseudo intellectuals coping with not buying early.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    This is the same as with cash money. Money can only be seized if the safe is found. And the combination is handed over by a willing party. The difference is that money is actually more secure because you don't have a public ledger telling you that it exists and who owns it and how much of it they own as you do with the public cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
    - doggosphere 6y ago
      Cash needs to be accessible to be useful. Crypto is magnitudes more accessible. I can travel to any country in the world with an encrypted usb drive of my seed words, and no one is wiser. OR even upload a file to the internet and forego carrying anything at all. A government can try to censor transactions belonging to an address, but we don't have good precedent to see how the network will behave. Miners in other jurisdictions have no reason to follow someone else's censorship.
microtherion 6y ago
> Can the government seize Bitcoin directly? No. A government could seize miners, and given that ~50% of the world's Bitcoin mining capacity appears to be located in one country, that might give them considerable leeway to rewrite the blockchain to their liking.
- doggosphere 6y ago
  Yes. The solution to this is a software fork.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    Did you mean "soft fork", or are you thinking of a different concept I'm not familiar with? Forks can and have been used to deal with isolated malicious incidents, but do you think they can be successful against an actor in extended control of a substantial part of the hash rate?
    - doggosphere 6y ago
      You can alter the hashing algorithm to one that is more ASIC resistant. Monero did this.