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As long as you know your private key and / or seed phrase, you will always have access to your wallet's funds. As soon as you get network access, you can transa
by game_the0ry 5y ago
As long as you know your private key and / or seed phrase, you will always have access to your wallet's funds. As soon as you get network access, you can transact. You literally have to cut off the internet to stop crypto - that is part of what makes it so compelling.
- shafyy 5y agoNo, an authoritarian government can always make it illegal to own crypto and/or to exchange crypto to fiat.
- plsbenice34 5y agoUnenforceable laws aren't that relevant here
- smeej 5y agoBut can they make it impossible? That's the important question. The hope of people who believe in a future switch to crypto as the monetary standard are hoping the technology is strong enough to withstand enforcement of laws against it, hoping that all the laws in the world won't be able to stop it. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it's important to understand that this is part of the hope and the goal.
- game_the0ry 5y agoNearly impossible to fully enforce via tech - there are many ways around a tech ban. Decentralized exchanges, TOR, VPNs, etc. can get a round a tech ban. A policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak - if the US bans bitcoin, that implies that the dollar can't compete against bitcoin on its own merit, without the enforcement of violence.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak Every country with capital controls already does this. Most of them (e.g. Egypt, Iraq, Bangladesh and China) hand banned or heavily restricted (e.g. India) crypto. The same way they restrict hard currencies. America has an open capital account, so the threat is less present.
- rideontime 5y agoI don't understand your comment. Is there a meaningful difference between having "access to your wallet's funds" and being able to "transact"?
- cinntaile 5y agoWell the parent claimed they would be rendered penniless. If you're temporarily unable to transact you're not penniless.
- toyg 5y agoYou "just have a cashflow problem", or are "temporarily embarrassed for money". In other words, you broke.
- zhynn 5y agoOr put another way, you are temporarily penniless. As long as that situation persists (which you may have no control over) you are penniless. You will rely on the charity or labor wages for resources in whatever local currency is used.
- zzzeek 5y agoplease read the linked article and rebut what they are saying. > Both sides of the Bitcoin network would carry on working (although if there was an unequal divide, one side might be slowed so much that it became unusable). Let’s imagine this carried on for a few days or weeks before connections were properly restored. At this point we would have two divergent “branches” of the blockchain, which is not allowed. By design, there is no way to merge the branches, and Bitcoin will simply pick whichever of the two branches happens to be the longest. For the unlucky half, all transactions that happened during those days or weeks of network partition would be erased.
- rtkwe 5y agoRegimes cutting off and limiting access to the internet is nothing new and they do it all the time. Many countries only have a few connections to the wider internet. Also 'access' is meaningless without the ability to be included in blocks.