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> The simple fact is that the developed world could shut down what little utility cryptocurrencies (and NFTs) have tomorrow if they chose to. China banned minin
by LMYahooTFY 5y ago
> The simple fact is that the developed world could shut down what little utility cryptocurrencies (and NFTs) have tomorrow if they chose to. China banned mining and mining was gone immediately (largely moving to Kyrgystan it seems). Defenders will say you can't shut down the network and that might be true but it's irrelevant.
How is it irrelevant? The ban in China did not affect the operation of the network.
With regard to the "move", this is plagued by the same flaw the energy consumption statistics are: you don't know where the miners are. Not acknowledging this limitation is somewhere between disingenuous and stating a falsehood.
This does not demonstrate that developed nations "could shut it down tomorrow".
- ninth_ant 5y agoIf Western nations enacted policies on bitcoin similar to China, this wouldn’t shut down the network entirely but would drive it underground. This would limit the usefulness and presumably value of the network, at the very least.
- Hjfrf 5y agoBanning miners would send them to the next-most corrupt country with cheap energy. A more meaningful move would be to ban exchanges, so that miners can no longer take exit liquidity at the expense on retail "investors".
- skybrian 5y agoIt’s a good point that so far, major changes for miners haven’t affected operations. I’m not sure it’s true that nobody knows where they are. There are rankings by country. They need Internet access and power. Many operate openly. Large data centers aren’t invisible. Also, miners were kicked out of Kyrgyzstan. Many machines were confiscated. It seems a lot of miners moved to the US because, even if they are eventually shut down, at least they will still have their machines, hopefully. Governments could greatly reduce the hash rate by cracking down on miners who operate openly, and then Bitcoin would be considerably less secure against a takeover. Suppose, after getting kicked out of many places, many miners move somewhere without strong property rights, and then the government takes control of the machines and runs them? Or maybe the miners keep running, but the government tells them which transactions to block?
- Yetioko 5y agoThey just stop it as they don't know how to use it and they also don't care about it anyway. Only the corrupt ones might accept a bribe.