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If you disagree with your govt. either financial policies (taxation, currency controls etc.) or political. You can use Bitcoin to maintain control your assets.

If you disagree with your govt. either financial policies (taxation, currency controls etc.) or political. You can use Bitcoin to maintain control your assets. For example, if the government suddenly decides to restrict capital leaving the country, BTC would be free from that restriction. If your govt. decides your political activity is now criminal and wants to freeze all your assets domestically as well with international partners, BTC would not be frozen. This is not a problem that most people in the US will face. But if you are a Russian or Chinese citizen then BTC's utility would be much more real.

cduzz 4y ago
That's an interesting theory. In practice, maintaining anonymous ownership of your assets on BTC is excruciatingly hard, because it's a public record. The organizations that monopolize violence ("governments", typically) have ways of compelling people that simply ignore some magic number in a distributed database. Please do a thing or we'll do a thing to someone you care about. I suspect even Satochi would happily give up the private keys to avoid a visit to Lubyanka... That's not to say that there's no value to these things, but real life violence trumps imaginary freedom.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  the idea boils down to: If the government can see what's your bank account in details, and can seize it, and the government can see what's in your Bitcoin wallet but not with full transparency and cannot seize it, which is better?
  - lolinder 4y ago
    Does it really matter that they can't seize your crypto if they can disappear you? I guess you can take some cold comfort in the fact that your assets won't belong to the government, but they won't do you any good either.
- valcron1000 4y ago
  Well, I use crypto to bypass currency controls so there's your "imaginary freedom"
  - cduzz 4y ago
    I'm not sure what is imaginary here. You believe you've done a thing in contravention of your government's laws. Perhaps you've done it and will not be caught. Perhaps you've done it and they haven't gotten around to asking you politely not to do this. Some crypto currency obviously leaves a paper trail for all to see; some states it doesn't and perhaps doesn't, but perhaps does. Autonomy to break a law and not get immediately punished for it isn't really freedom from that law. To clarify -- breaking a law is not imaginary. Maybe you've broken the law and haven't immediately faced any repercussion, but that doesn't mean that bypassing money laundering controls renders those money laundering controls or punishments for breaking the controls imaginary. (edited to add the clarification)
enraged_camel 4y ago
I don’t know about Russia, but I think if China decided to restrict capital from leaving their country, they would definitely crack down on crypto since escaping capital controls is crypto’s primary use case and China knows that. You might ask “what does such a crackdown look like?” And the answer is, they would simply round up and throw in jail prominent crypto people, make it a crime to do anything with crypto (buy, sell, use as currency etc.) and put the fear of god in everyone else so that nobody dares touch crypto.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Besides if you control the whole network, how hard would it be to filter the Bitcoin network calls and then arrest the people making them?
melenaboija 4y ago
That sounds like an empty argument to me. Besides that the only use I see so far for crypto is speculation (with fiat currencies) if you disagree with the government never ever trade these assets with fiat currencies that are backed by governments. Do the deals between your crypto things that are not controlled by governments and taxations and leave the rest of us and our economies alone.
lolinder 4y ago
This line of reasoning always seems to envision a government that is oppressive, but in a very casual way. They're oppressive enough to outlaw certain types of transactions, but lazy enough to allow free access to crypto networks within their country and to not use the public ledger to track down those engaged in illegal activity. No real world government that I'm aware of, even the liberal democracies, would pass a law that is circumventable by crypto and then ignore it when crypto becomes widely used to bypass that law. They'll restrict access in such a way that they can identify who is who (KYC) or ban the network altogether. This is what we already see happening. The only way this works to bypass the government is if it remains a relatively uncommon tool. And if it's an uncommon tool, it's not a useful currency.
- JoshTko 4y ago
  The idea is that is that you would flee the oppressive regime at one point and be able to bring your assets with you.
- Geee 4y ago
  Look at what's happening in Nigeria [0]. They have tried to ban bitcoin, but are now looking to legalize it. It's just too difficult to enforce when a lot of people are doing it. [0] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/nigeria-looking-to-legalize-bitcoin https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/nigeria-looking-to-legaliz...
  - lolinder 4y ago
    It's too difficult for Nigeria to enforce. Nigeria has a very weak government that has trouble enforcing a lot of laws that other states have no trouble with. OP mentioned Russia and China, and I would be very hesitant to extrapolate either country's capabilities from Nigeria's. I will say that this could be a valid use case: if you have an ineffective oppressive regime, you may benefit.

cduzz 4y ago

That's an interesting theory. In practice, maintaining anonymous ownership of your assets on BTC is excruciatingly hard, because it's a public record. The organizations that monopolize violence ("governments", typically) have ways of compelling people that simply ignore some magic number in a distributed database. Please do a thing or we'll do a thing to someone you care about. I suspect even Satochi would happily give up the private keys to avoid a visit to Lubyanka... That's not to say that there's no value to these things, but real life violence trumps imaginary freedom.

Bilal_io 4y ago
the idea boils down to: If the government can see what's your bank account in details, and can seize it, and the government can see what's in your Bitcoin wallet but not with full transparency and cannot seize it, which is better?
- lolinder 4y ago
  Does it really matter that they can't seize your crypto if they can disappear you? I guess you can take some cold comfort in the fact that your assets won't belong to the government, but they won't do you any good either.
valcron1000 4y ago
Well, I use crypto to bypass currency controls so there's your "imaginary freedom"
- cduzz 4y ago
  I'm not sure what is imaginary here. You believe you've done a thing in contravention of your government's laws. Perhaps you've done it and will not be caught. Perhaps you've done it and they haven't gotten around to asking you politely not to do this. Some crypto currency obviously leaves a paper trail for all to see; some states it doesn't and perhaps doesn't, but perhaps does. Autonomy to break a law and not get immediately punished for it isn't really freedom from that law. To clarify -- breaking a law is not imaginary. Maybe you've broken the law and haven't immediately faced any repercussion, but that doesn't mean that bypassing money laundering controls renders those money laundering controls or punishments for breaking the controls imaginary. (edited to add the clarification)

enraged_camel 4y ago

I don’t know about Russia, but I think if China decided to restrict capital from leaving their country, they would definitely crack down on crypto since escaping capital controls is crypto’s primary use case and China knows that. You might ask “what does such a crackdown look like?” And the answer is, they would simply round up and throw in jail prominent crypto people, make it a crime to do anything with crypto (buy, sell, use as currency etc.) and put the fear of god in everyone else so that nobody dares touch crypto.

coffeebeqn 4y ago
Besides if you control the whole network, how hard would it be to filter the Bitcoin network calls and then arrest the people making them?

melenaboija 4y ago

That sounds like an empty argument to me. Besides that the only use I see so far for crypto is speculation (with fiat currencies) if you disagree with the government never ever trade these assets with fiat currencies that are backed by governments. Do the deals between your crypto things that are not controlled by governments and taxations and leave the rest of us and our economies alone.

lolinder 4y ago

This line of reasoning always seems to envision a government that is oppressive, but in a very casual way. They're oppressive enough to outlaw certain types of transactions, but lazy enough to allow free access to crypto networks within their country and to not use the public ledger to track down those engaged in illegal activity. No real world government that I'm aware of, even the liberal democracies, would pass a law that is circumventable by crypto and then ignore it when crypto becomes widely used to bypass that law. They'll restrict access in such a way that they can identify who is who (KYC) or ban the network altogether. This is what we already see happening. The only way this works to bypass the government is if it remains a relatively uncommon tool. And if it's an uncommon tool, it's not a useful currency.

JoshTko 4y ago
The idea is that is that you would flee the oppressive regime at one point and be able to bring your assets with you.
Geee 4y ago
Look at what's happening in Nigeria [0]. They have tried to ban bitcoin, but are now looking to legalize it. It's just too difficult to enforce when a lot of people are doing it. [0] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/nigeria-looking-to-legalize-bitcoin https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/nigeria-looking-to-legaliz...
- lolinder 4y ago
  It's too difficult for Nigeria to enforce. Nigeria has a very weak government that has trouble enforcing a lot of laws that other states have no trouble with. OP mentioned Russia and China, and I would be very hesitant to extrapolate either country's capabilities from Nigeria's. I will say that this could be a valid use case: if you have an ineffective oppressive regime, you may benefit.