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> An asset that cannot be confiscated by the government It might be intractable to confiscate bitcoin by attacking the math, but why wouldn't governments just

> An asset that cannot be confiscated by the government It might be intractable to confiscate bitcoin by attacking the math, but why wouldn't governments just put people in jail until they pay up? With adequate control over the internet, governments would be fairly able to track who's transacting. Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate.

rawtxapp 6y ago
What would be the reason for imprisoning someone who holds Bitcoin? Don't we live in a free society? And even if they imprison you they won't be able to access your money: https://amp.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3120852/german-who-mined-68-million-bitcoin-others-computers-and-was https://amp.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3120852/germa...
- peeters 6y ago
  Presumably GP is talking about coercive imprisonment (e.g. contempt of court). If the court has ordered you to give something up, and you don't, they can imprison you to coerce you to obey.
throwaway20875 6y ago
>Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate. Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system.
- ruined 6y ago
  >Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system. Sure they would. If bitcoin continues to exist much longer, you'll likely see the larger governments define a set of rules for domestic miners, perhaps including requirements to only process transactions from registered accounts or signed by specific keys, or otherwise authenticated. Any international agreement on such a system reaching significant hash power would fork the ledger into legitimate and illegitimate versions, and generate obvious consequences
  - throwaway20875 6y ago
    What you're suggesting is a fork, which would not be Bitcoin at that point.
    - ruined 6y ago
      the "real" bitcoin among forks is culturally determined, and institutions with power right now have the most control over that
shiado 6y ago
I imagine the US government would do something similar to what they did in the past and it would push Bitcoin underground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

rawtxapp 6y ago

What would be the reason for imprisoning someone who holds Bitcoin? Don't we live in a free society? And even if they imprison you they won't be able to access your money: https://amp.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3120852/german-who-mined-68-million-bitcoin-others-computers-and-was https://amp.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3120852/germa...

peeters 6y ago
Presumably GP is talking about coercive imprisonment (e.g. contempt of court). If the court has ordered you to give something up, and you don't, they can imprison you to coerce you to obey.

throwaway20875 6y ago

>Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate. Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system.

ruined 6y ago
>Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system. Sure they would. If bitcoin continues to exist much longer, you'll likely see the larger governments define a set of rules for domestic miners, perhaps including requirements to only process transactions from registered accounts or signed by specific keys, or otherwise authenticated. Any international agreement on such a system reaching significant hash power would fork the ledger into legitimate and illegitimate versions, and generate obvious consequences
- throwaway20875 6y ago
  What you're suggesting is a fork, which would not be Bitcoin at that point.
  - ruined 6y ago
    the "real" bitcoin among forks is culturally determined, and institutions with power right now have the most control over that

shiado 6y ago

I imagine the US government would do something similar to what they did in the past and it would push Bitcoin underground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102