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There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin they would make it illegal to exchange Bitcoin. But then people would

There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin they would make it illegal to exchange Bitcoin. But then people would exchange it and just not report it anywhere, and they’d lose tax revenue. I don’t think there is much they can do, except shut down companies like coinbase. That would also just lose them tax revenue.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
If you don't report your crypto exchanges because crypto is outlawed, it becomes a tax crime (The People vs Al Capone) [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  Yes, that was implied, but there is no easy way of finding out who is committing that crime, at large or small scales.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I have no doubt the IRS can pay technologists to implement such chain surveillance, in concert with other government agencies also interested in such data feeds. Money talks (no pun intended). If I were to see such an RFP, I'd bid on it myself.
    - wxnx 6y ago
      The IRS, in terms of of maximizing their tax collection, would almost certainly be better off using that money on (admittedly expensive) enforcement action against those who use traditional tax avoidance techniques. As you say, money talks.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - wolco5 6y ago
      I'm sure they could watch a few known wallets but how do they watch everyone globally while identifying and connecting Americans? Now throw in different kind of coins and what you are assuming is possible is not possible.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/ is a company who has demonstrated such analysis is possible. Nation states have effectively unlimited resources. Any crypto exchange in a country with a financial regulatory system can and likely will be required to report transaction data.
        wolco5 6y ago
        I had a look at the website. They are looking at a limited number of accounts and trying to go deep connecting real world data for high profile cases. Scaling that to every taxpayer or even every taxpayer in the largest apartment in Boise would be impossible using the same techniques.
        mr_woozy 6y ago
        >Nation states have effectively unlimited resources. I hope you realize this is utter nonsense.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
anewaccount2021 6y ago
All they need to do is make it illegal to complete an enforceable contract with crypto. In other words, you can sit and stare at your coinbase account all day, but you can't ever legally get hard currency to spend it, and you can never pay for services or products with it. All of this is trivial for world governments. And the underground economy is a rounding error, if BTC is relegated to the dark web, it will lose 99% of its value.
this_user 6y ago
You could ban companies from interacting with crypto currencies, which would kill off the entire ecosystem, and make them unusable for the majority of people and purposes.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  I addressed this in my OP. It would kill off the legal ecosystem that earn them tax revenue but would have little effect on the illegal ecosystem they intend to stop.
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    is people using bitcoin for legal purchases in any significant way?
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      All the crypto traders using legit tax-conforming platforms like coinbase, likely hundreds of thousands of people.
      - RobertoG 6y ago
        I mean, for buying stuff. And by stuff, I don't mean other cryptocurrencies.
        CyberRabbi 6y ago
        Why does buying stuff matter? Relatively very few if any buy stuff with gold.
- PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  What stops somebody from interacting with a foreign company that exchanges crypto and $LOCAL currency? Sure, the entire ecosystem would take a hit, but also note that many US companies have actually bought Crypto, people recently bought crypto on margin, and, those who still own crypto, can exchange it outside $COUNTRY, and convert currencies.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin I think you underestimate how much pressure the US government can put and how centralized the web is. If: No legitimate business will accept Bitcoin. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit ban all mentions or advocacy of Bitcoin All public Bitcoin exchanges are shut down. This would severely curtail Bitcoin and likely actually cause a drop in value. Yes it is probably impossible to ever get rid of something, but for the government, reducing something to a fringe can be beneficial and is definitely something they can do.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  The majority of illegal actors would still use Bitcoin in that scenario. The long term value of Bitcoin is irrelevant to them, Bitcoin just needs to keep a rough short term value and not be forgeable to be usable for illegal purposes.
- wolco5 6y ago
  You hurt the traders and actually make the network super cheap and fast that it can be used to buy drugs again.
  - sekmet 6y ago
    :)
  - noxer 6y ago
    It was never fast and never will be. Block time is 10min since ever.
    - wolco5 6y ago
      Confirmations can take a day.. 10 minutes would be like an etransfer.
      - noxer 6y ago
        Confirmation isn't defined you can wait however many blocks you want to be added after the block with your Tx. The chance of your Tx being changed/removed gets smaller and smaller but there is no end. This also never chanced so its irrelevant Bitcoin is still as slow as on day one, if you wait for the same number of blocks before you consider it "final".
OminousWeapons 6y ago
> I don’t think there is much they can do, except shut down companies like coinbase. This is exactly what they would do. They would make it illegal to operate an exchange and go after foreign exchanges with threats against the banks that serviced them. At some you need to get your money into the banking system as government backed currency for it to be generally useful, and they could at least force that to be a multi-step, onerous, and less anonymous process (eg get crypto --> buy physical goods with crypto from the few people that accept cryto for payment --> sell physical goods to get actual money).
- prichino 6y ago
  > At some you need to get your money into the banking system as government backed currency for it to be useful At some point this will not be true. See Weimar, Venezuela, etc...
sroussey 6y ago
Force ISPs to ban known miners in China. Block port 8333. Run an ip blacklist of all miners. The government can do plenty.
- coralreef 6y ago
  This seems fairly trivial for anyone to get around.
- gruez 6y ago
  >Force ISPs to ban known miners in China. Block port 8333. Run an ip blacklist of all miners. both can be bypassed with tor.
  - sroussey 6y ago
    Mining Bitcoin over tor is an interesting idea
me_me_me 6y ago
Excuse me Mr. Smith, where did that 50k that just appeared in your bank account came from? Where are you sending your money to? The IRS at el. will be all over this in no time. There is going to be an terrorist attack made using BTC as funds - a new patriot act and suddenly touching crypto makes you a suspected terrorist.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  Yes I agree with you.
  - nradov 6y ago
    IRS audits aren't the only concern. US banks are also required to submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) when they see evidence of money laundering. Don't tell the small fish to break those laws, the consequences can be severe. https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination/bank-operations/financial-crime/suspicious-activity-reports/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination...
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      That’s a great point.
pmastela 6y ago
I agree. Some would even take it further and argue that there is _no_ way to stop the Bitcoin network. The technology is like, as Nick Bostrom puts it, one of those balls that humanity pulls out of the urn of invention which once pulled the ball can never go back in [1]. Let's just hope that Bitcoin is not one of those bad balls but rather one that pushes humanity forward. Perhaps, Bitcoin is the [2] "sly roundabout way introduce [good money] that [governments] can't stop [2]." 1: https://www.wired.com/story/technology-could-end-humanity-how-stop-it/ https://www.wired.com/story/technology-could-end-humanity-ho... 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYhEDxFwFRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYhEDxFwFRU
- bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
  The Pandora's Box of cryptocurrency has been opened and nothing the world's governments do can stop it... Though some will surely try at the ISP level at least.
- noxer 6y ago
  Its totally absurd to think there is _no_ way to stop it. All it takes is money. There may be no legal ground for a state to do this but technically it sure is possible. There is also no need to ever attack the network itself. All that matters is the price. By buying BTC and creating a bubble a state could crash the price so dramatically that it would be very unlikely to recover. Imagine if the price would just go up from no on until lets say 1 million USD per BTC that's +3000% maybe over the span of 1 or 2 years. Then sell and let it crash probably -99.9% I'd still be worth 1k USD but at the same time no one but the original crypt anarchist would care anymore. Would that cost a shitload of money? yes millions, but technically a state could print that money so it doesn't really matter something like tether could do this basically for free. Also since they know when they let it crash they can recover a huge chuck of what they put in simply by shorting the top. Way simpler and cheaper than building mining farms that would be worthless after successfully destroying BTC. Remember the goal would not be to technically turn it off just render it irrelevant. Thats what people got wrong. They think the state would want to shut it down but putting it back to where it was 10 years ago would totally be sufficient.
  - 6y ago
FuckButtons 6y ago
Some people would - but many wouldn't, bitcoins outsized value is almost entirely due to speculators who wouldn't otherwise invest in it if transacting it was illegal.
ardy42 6y ago
> There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin they would make it illegal to exchange Bitcoin. But then people would exchange it and just not report it anywhere, and they’d lose tax revenue. But that would be good enough to kill it for almost all purposes. Unlike illicit drugs, there's very little natural demand for Bitcoin to motivate people to risk it if it were illegal, which cuts it off from deriving value from the legit economy. It's also not very stealthy, so it would not be very desirable for the illicit economy, either [1]. A network that only has die-hard ideological cryptocurrency dead-enders on it is dead for all practical purposes. [1] Right now, it has some marginal use at the interface between the legit and illicit economies (e.g. dark net markets), but if it itself became illicit, I think that would stop.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

If you don't report your crypto exchanges because crypto is outlawed, it becomes a tax crime (The People vs Al Capone) [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion

CyberRabbi 6y ago
Yes, that was implied, but there is no easy way of finding out who is committing that crime, at large or small scales.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  I have no doubt the IRS can pay technologists to implement such chain surveillance, in concert with other government agencies also interested in such data feeds. Money talks (no pun intended). If I were to see such an RFP, I'd bid on it myself.
  - wxnx 6y ago
    The IRS, in terms of of maximizing their tax collection, would almost certainly be better off using that money on (admittedly expensive) enforcement action against those who use traditional tax avoidance techniques. As you say, money talks.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - wolco5 6y ago
    I'm sure they could watch a few known wallets but how do they watch everyone globally while identifying and connecting Americans? Now throw in different kind of coins and what you are assuming is possible is not possible.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/ is a company who has demonstrated such analysis is possible. Nation states have effectively unlimited resources. Any crypto exchange in a country with a financial regulatory system can and likely will be required to report transaction data.
      - wolco5 6y ago
        I had a look at the website. They are looking at a limited number of accounts and trying to go deep connecting real world data for high profile cases. Scaling that to every taxpayer or even every taxpayer in the largest apartment in Boise would be impossible using the same techniques.
      - mr_woozy 6y ago
        >Nation states have effectively unlimited resources. I hope you realize this is utter nonsense.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

anewaccount2021 6y ago

All they need to do is make it illegal to complete an enforceable contract with crypto. In other words, you can sit and stare at your coinbase account all day, but you can't ever legally get hard currency to spend it, and you can never pay for services or products with it. All of this is trivial for world governments. And the underground economy is a rounding error, if BTC is relegated to the dark web, it will lose 99% of its value.

this_user 6y ago

You could ban companies from interacting with crypto currencies, which would kill off the entire ecosystem, and make them unusable for the majority of people and purposes.

CyberRabbi 6y ago
I addressed this in my OP. It would kill off the legal ecosystem that earn them tax revenue but would have little effect on the illegal ecosystem they intend to stop.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  is people using bitcoin for legal purchases in any significant way?
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    All the crypto traders using legit tax-conforming platforms like coinbase, likely hundreds of thousands of people.
    - RobertoG 6y ago
      I mean, for buying stuff. And by stuff, I don't mean other cryptocurrencies.
      - CyberRabbi 6y ago
        Why does buying stuff matter? Relatively very few if any buy stuff with gold.
PartiallyTyped 6y ago
What stops somebody from interacting with a foreign company that exchanges crypto and $LOCAL currency? Sure, the entire ecosystem would take a hit, but also note that many US companies have actually bought Crypto, people recently bought crypto on margin, and, those who still own crypto, can exchange it outside $COUNTRY, and convert currencies.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin I think you underestimate how much pressure the US government can put and how centralized the web is. If: No legitimate business will accept Bitcoin. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit ban all mentions or advocacy of Bitcoin All public Bitcoin exchanges are shut down. This would severely curtail Bitcoin and likely actually cause a drop in value. Yes it is probably impossible to ever get rid of something, but for the government, reducing something to a fringe can be beneficial and is definitely something they can do.

CyberRabbi 6y ago
The majority of illegal actors would still use Bitcoin in that scenario. The long term value of Bitcoin is irrelevant to them, Bitcoin just needs to keep a rough short term value and not be forgeable to be usable for illegal purposes.
wolco5 6y ago
You hurt the traders and actually make the network super cheap and fast that it can be used to buy drugs again.
- sekmet 6y ago
  :)
- noxer 6y ago
  It was never fast and never will be. Block time is 10min since ever.
  - wolco5 6y ago
    Confirmations can take a day.. 10 minutes would be like an etransfer.
    - noxer 6y ago
      Confirmation isn't defined you can wait however many blocks you want to be added after the block with your Tx. The chance of your Tx being changed/removed gets smaller and smaller but there is no end. This also never chanced so its irrelevant Bitcoin is still as slow as on day one, if you wait for the same number of blocks before you consider it "final".

OminousWeapons 6y ago

> I don’t think there is much they can do, except shut down companies like coinbase. This is exactly what they would do. They would make it illegal to operate an exchange and go after foreign exchanges with threats against the banks that serviced them. At some you need to get your money into the banking system as government backed currency for it to be generally useful, and they could at least force that to be a multi-step, onerous, and less anonymous process (eg get crypto --> buy physical goods with crypto from the few people that accept cryto for payment --> sell physical goods to get actual money).

prichino 6y ago
> At some you need to get your money into the banking system as government backed currency for it to be useful At some point this will not be true. See Weimar, Venezuela, etc...

sroussey 6y ago

Force ISPs to ban known miners in China. Block port 8333. Run an ip blacklist of all miners. The government can do plenty.

coralreef 6y ago
This seems fairly trivial for anyone to get around.
gruez 6y ago
>Force ISPs to ban known miners in China. Block port 8333. Run an ip blacklist of all miners. both can be bypassed with tor.
- sroussey 6y ago
  Mining Bitcoin over tor is an interesting idea

me_me_me 6y ago

Excuse me Mr. Smith, where did that 50k that just appeared in your bank account came from? Where are you sending your money to? The IRS at el. will be all over this in no time. There is going to be an terrorist attack made using BTC as funds - a new patriot act and suddenly touching crypto makes you a suspected terrorist.

CyberRabbi 6y ago
Yes I agree with you.
- nradov 6y ago
  IRS audits aren't the only concern. US banks are also required to submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) when they see evidence of money laundering. Don't tell the small fish to break those laws, the consequences can be severe. https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination/bank-operations/financial-crime/suspicious-activity-reports/index-suspicious-activity-reports.html https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination...
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    That’s a great point.

pmastela 6y ago

I agree. Some would even take it further and argue that there is _no_ way to stop the Bitcoin network. The technology is like, as Nick Bostrom puts it, one of those balls that humanity pulls out of the urn of invention which once pulled the ball can never go back in [1]. Let's just hope that Bitcoin is not one of those bad balls but rather one that pushes humanity forward. Perhaps, Bitcoin is the [2] "sly roundabout way introduce [good money] that [governments] can't stop [2]." 1: https://www.wired.com/story/technology-could-end-humanity-how-stop-it/ https://www.wired.com/story/technology-could-end-humanity-ho... 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYhEDxFwFRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYhEDxFwFRU

bitxbitxbitcoin 6y ago
The Pandora's Box of cryptocurrency has been opened and nothing the world's governments do can stop it... Though some will surely try at the ISP level at least.
noxer 6y ago
Its totally absurd to think there is _no_ way to stop it. All it takes is money. There may be no legal ground for a state to do this but technically it sure is possible. There is also no need to ever attack the network itself. All that matters is the price. By buying BTC and creating a bubble a state could crash the price so dramatically that it would be very unlikely to recover. Imagine if the price would just go up from no on until lets say 1 million USD per BTC that's +3000% maybe over the span of 1 or 2 years. Then sell and let it crash probably -99.9% I'd still be worth 1k USD but at the same time no one but the original crypt anarchist would care anymore. Would that cost a shitload of money? yes millions, but technically a state could print that money so it doesn't really matter something like tether could do this basically for free. Also since they know when they let it crash they can recover a huge chuck of what they put in simply by shorting the top. Way simpler and cheaper than building mining farms that would be worthless after successfully destroying BTC. Remember the goal would not be to technically turn it off just render it irrelevant. Thats what people got wrong. They think the state would want to shut it down but putting it back to where it was 10 years ago would totally be sufficient.
- 6y ago

FuckButtons 6y ago

Some people would - but many wouldn't, bitcoins outsized value is almost entirely due to speculators who wouldn't otherwise invest in it if transacting it was illegal.

ardy42 6y ago

> There is no easy way to stop the Bitcoin network so if they really wanted to kill Bitcoin they would make it illegal to exchange Bitcoin. But then people would exchange it and just not report it anywhere, and they’d lose tax revenue. But that would be good enough to kill it for almost all purposes. Unlike illicit drugs, there's very little natural demand for Bitcoin to motivate people to risk it if it were illegal, which cuts it off from deriving value from the legit economy. It's also not very stealthy, so it would not be very desirable for the illicit economy, either [1]. A network that only has die-hard ideological cryptocurrency dead-enders on it is dead for all practical purposes. [1] Right now, it has some marginal use at the interface between the legit and illicit economies (e.g. dark net markets), but if it itself became illicit, I think that would stop.