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If major countries started making its use illegal, its value would plummet and so would the incentive to mine. Not saying I hope that happens, just that it’s on

If major countries started making its use illegal, its value would plummet and so would the incentive to mine. Not saying I hope that happens, just that it’s one route to stopping it.

capableweb 6y ago
According to who? If we assume normal supply/demand rules apply (because why wouldn't they?), the countries which ban bitcoin will have to buy bitcoin for a larger sum, to take into account that the trading is now illegal. Because the demand won't disappear just because you make it illegal, we've already seen how this works in practice with illicit drugs.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mytherin 6y ago
  Drugs have a purpose beyond trading. Currency does not. I fail to see how these are comparable.
- nostrebored 6y ago
  Because drugs aren't a speculative good.
sktrdie 6y ago
You could make it illegal, but there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it, and have no way for anybody to know that you performed a transaction (not even governments). So fundamentally, sure making it illegal will make the hype less attractive, but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. But it's fundamentally unstoppable, that's its main selling point.
- riffraff 6y ago
  > there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it only if you stay within the ecosystem, but then the moment you want to spend money in real life you need to basically resort to money laundering. Now, that may not be a problem for some users, but it'd be a serious one for most people, and the price would plummet.
- viraptor 6y ago
  There are other ways to kill that market - heavy regulation on crypto exchanges and regulation on high energy usage via environment laws. Users will go away if it's both unprofitable to use/mine and if they can't find a reasonable exchange.
- imtringued 6y ago
  > but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. You're confusing Monero and Bitcoin. Those are completely different cryptocurrencies.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  The reality is that most Bitcoin users don’t use the blockchain and they don’t care to. They buy Bitcoin in their exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, they watch the price in the exchange, and they sell in the exchange. Transaction fees are currently in the $8 range. Losing your password or having it phished away will irreversibly lose all funds. The average person doesn’t care about being their own bank. They only care about seeing the number go up, so they stick to exchanges. If the exchanges were cut off, Bitcoin would still exist. But the demand would disappear from average people, and the price would fall.
is_true 6y ago
I think the main use rn is to flight capital from countries with restrictions like China.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
If it's environmental impact justifies making it illegal what else could potentially be on the chopping block with the same logic? Videogames also run GPU hardware full pelt, so does creating the majority of what you see on the screen for a Marvel movie. How much of the worlds resources are burned daily encoding video for social media.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Bitcoin is unique in that the system itself is designed to inefficiently burn energy doing deliberately useless proof of work. We can “whatabout” other energy consumers all day, but the bottom line is that everything else is incentivized to use a little energy as possible. Even your GPU example would only benefit from less energy consumption (less heat, faster clock speeds) Meanwhile, Bitcoin consumes more and more energy all of the time, without ever producing any more transactions.
PurpleFoxy 6y ago
There is no reason to make Bitcoin illegal. Just set up a carbon tax at the amount it costs to remove carbon from the air and build renewables. At that point who cares what happens or how people use their resources.

If major countries started making its use illegal, its value would plummet and so would the incentive to mine. Not saying I hope that happens, just that it’s one route to stopping it.

capableweb 6y ago

According to who? If we assume normal supply/demand rules apply (because why wouldn't they?), the countries which ban bitcoin will have to buy bitcoin for a larger sum, to take into account that the trading is now illegal. Because the demand won't disappear just because you make it illegal, we've already seen how this works in practice with illicit drugs.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mytherin 6y ago
Drugs have a purpose beyond trading. Currency does not. I fail to see how these are comparable.
nostrebored 6y ago
Because drugs aren't a speculative good.

sktrdie 6y ago

You could make it illegal, but there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it, and have no way for anybody to know that you performed a transaction (not even governments). So fundamentally, sure making it illegal will make the hype less attractive, but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. But it's fundamentally unstoppable, that's its main selling point.

riffraff 6y ago
> there are ways to be completely anonymous and still use it only if you stay within the ecosystem, but then the moment you want to spend money in real life you need to basically resort to money laundering. Now, that may not be a problem for some users, but it'd be a serious one for most people, and the price would plummet.
viraptor 6y ago
There are other ways to kill that market - heavy regulation on crypto exchanges and regulation on high energy usage via environment laws. Users will go away if it's both unprofitable to use/mine and if they can't find a reasonable exchange.
imtringued 6y ago
> but it will continue being used for illegal activities and/or anybody who wants to transact without the government knowing. You're confusing Monero and Bitcoin. Those are completely different cryptocurrencies.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The reality is that most Bitcoin users don’t use the blockchain and they don’t care to. They buy Bitcoin in their exchange like Coinbase or Robinhood, they watch the price in the exchange, and they sell in the exchange. Transaction fees are currently in the $8 range. Losing your password or having it phished away will irreversibly lose all funds. The average person doesn’t care about being their own bank. They only care about seeing the number go up, so they stick to exchanges. If the exchanges were cut off, Bitcoin would still exist. But the demand would disappear from average people, and the price would fall.

is_true 6y ago

I think the main use rn is to flight capital from countries with restrictions like China.

whywhywhywhy 6y ago

If it's environmental impact justifies making it illegal what else could potentially be on the chopping block with the same logic? Videogames also run GPU hardware full pelt, so does creating the majority of what you see on the screen for a Marvel movie. How much of the worlds resources are burned daily encoding video for social media.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Bitcoin is unique in that the system itself is designed to inefficiently burn energy doing deliberately useless proof of work. We can “whatabout” other energy consumers all day, but the bottom line is that everything else is incentivized to use a little energy as possible. Even your GPU example would only benefit from less energy consumption (less heat, faster clock speeds) Meanwhile, Bitcoin consumes more and more energy all of the time, without ever producing any more transactions.

PurpleFoxy 6y ago

There is no reason to make Bitcoin illegal. Just set up a carbon tax at the amount it costs to remove carbon from the air and build renewables. At that point who cares what happens or how people use their resources.