I'm not saying that the government can't ruin your day if you're trying to buy things with bitcoin and they ban it in your country. I just don't think that doi

I'm not saying that the government can't ruin your day if you're trying to buy things with bitcoin and they ban it in your country. I just don't think that doing so will have much effect on its perceived value, globally speaking. Consider BTC-backed debit cards, which give the illusion of paying in bitcoin where only fiat is accepted by converting the tokens at transaction-time. For a government to prevent things like that will require that government's citizens to bear costs that other citizens don't: - pay the regulators to keep crypto disconnected from fiat - pay the payments companies to hire people to comply with the regulators - tolerate the necessary censorship and subsequent unrest when it is abused This kind of nonproductive spending will hash out as a drag on that government's currency. It wouldn't be crazy for its citizens to start stocking up on crypto (perhaps illegally) as a hedge against local fiat-collapse. Surely a downward spiral for the local crypto user experience, but a problem for BTC as a whole? I don't think so.