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> Surely there's an easier, legal and potentially cheaper solution open to any government that wants to shut down bitcoin: buy up each and every bitcoin they ca

by gasull 15y ago

> Surely there's an easier, legal and potentially cheaper solution open to any government that wants to shut down bitcoin: buy up each and every bitcoin they can lay their hands on. Some people won't sell. And all this would do is making bitcoins more expensive in dollars (deflation). Prices in bitcoins would adjust. No problem at all.

mootothemax 15y ago
Some people won't sell. And all this would do is making bitcoins more expensive in dollars (deflation). Prices in bitcoins would adjust. No problem at all. Great if it's not a problem: can you tell me why in a bit more detail please? :) You see, I love the idea of bitcoin, but this is the one thought I can't get out of my head. Say the government drives up the price of bitcoin, as you suggest. Every hour of every day, deflation takes place... but the government aren't selling any of theirs, and if nobody else is selling, it sounds like we rapidly head towards a stalemate where bitcoin becomes ridiculously hard to exchange in either direction.
- gasull 15y ago
  Bitcoin is divisible to one tenth of it, if I remember correctly. Prices in bitcoins can be adjusted to reflect the deflation. Merchants are already using MtGox API and ticker so they set a price in dollars, and the displayed price in bitcoins is updated as the BTC/USD exchange goes up or down in MtGox, automatically. Extending your argument, the Government could try to mess up buying up a lot of bitcoins, to force deflation, then selling them all to force inflation, and so on. Good luck with that, because that would be very expensive in dollars (buying high and selling low). And if the Federal Reserve did this with out-of-thin-air dollars, it would just weaken the dollar in the long term, what would be good for Bitcoin. Some people say the Fed has being trying this price suppression with gold. I don't know if that's true. But apparently nothing has stopped gold to go to the roof in the last 10 years.

by gasull 15y ago

mootothemax 15y ago

Some people won't sell. And all this would do is making bitcoins more expensive in dollars (deflation). Prices in bitcoins would adjust. No problem at all. Great if it's not a problem: can you tell me why in a bit more detail please? :) You see, I love the idea of bitcoin, but this is the one thought I can't get out of my head. Say the government drives up the price of bitcoin, as you suggest. Every hour of every day, deflation takes place... but the government aren't selling any of theirs, and if nobody else is selling, it sounds like we rapidly head towards a stalemate where bitcoin becomes ridiculously hard to exchange in either direction.

gasull 15y ago
Bitcoin is divisible to one tenth of it, if I remember correctly. Prices in bitcoins can be adjusted to reflect the deflation. Merchants are already using MtGox API and ticker so they set a price in dollars, and the displayed price in bitcoins is updated as the BTC/USD exchange goes up or down in MtGox, automatically. Extending your argument, the Government could try to mess up buying up a lot of bitcoins, to force deflation, then selling them all to force inflation, and so on. Good luck with that, because that would be very expensive in dollars (buying high and selling low). And if the Federal Reserve did this with out-of-thin-air dollars, it would just weaken the dollar in the long term, what would be good for Bitcoin. Some people say the Fed has being trying this price suppression with gold. I don't know if that's true. But apparently nothing has stopped gold to go to the roof in the last 10 years.