Bitcoin Forum

Is there a possibility that states will interfere with the bitcoin developer team? What happens if the bitcoin developer team gets jailed?

getting jailed not a concern. because you cant stop bitcoin by taking a dev away.

however, giving them an employment contract with terms and conditions to do x,y,z is

States like the republic of the Congo? What states do you mean?

state = country

It won't make any difference because bitcoin is an open source project and If the current developers go , others will come to contribute and continue the development , obliging them to do something in the other hand could be hard since miners most of the time will have to upgrade too.

i dont think so it will happen ever.... i think it is very silly question......
what problem will have a state with an online currency ?????
it is just like a real currency........

like coindesk CEO barry silbert
who have ownership stake in gmaxwell(blockstream)
who have ownership stake in pieter wuille(blockstream)
who have ownership stake in bobby lee(BTCC pool)

and oh look at who are really pushing for segwit.
oh look at the only main pool that jumped in favour of segwit the very week it was released.

oops i mentioned a company and name... lets now see the trolls jump in to defend the person and not think rationally about the code changes

Yes Bitcoin is an open source project. But how many people know exactly the Bitcoin protocol? Is it easy to find alternative people that can replace the developer team when there is no current developer team?

It doesn't really matter due to the fact that they only develop the wallets and so, they aren't running the entire operation and it's not of huge consequence if they get jailed. The entire network will still be able to propagate and there will be no issue beyond further versions of the client being delayed.

Why on earth would you think that they would even bother to do that?  ???

If the State were to jail people unjustly the people can revolt. It's called protest. It works. Every Government that has ever ended has ended at the hands of its people. Do not fear.

1. jailing people does nothing. you cant stop bitcoin by taking a dev away. you change bitcoin by bribing a dev to change it for the worse. it has happened
2. protests happened on trumps inauguration.. trump still became president
3. protests happened against wars in middle east.. the bombs and wars still happened
4. protests happened against UK gov selling of parts of NHS, and other puplic services.. they still got sold off.

protests dont work

5. saying do not fear and at worse do a protest. is like saying let bad things happen and then stand in the street having a tantrum. .. a bit late!!

strikes - avoid using/working for a service that is doing bad things
get personal - research what the actual code does, dont just read the glossy scripted roadmap imagery/empty gesture promise leaflets
dont sit in the corner - dont sit on your hand while kissing someones ass out of fear of causing ripples

;D Getting them jailed is no one's concern because you cannot stop bitcoin because of that for sure but there will not be any updates regarding the software too and the core has to patch the issues that arises with time and for that you need a core team,the possibility to interfere with the team are not a possibility at the moment ,only time will tell.

you need many TEAMS

by the way core can be interfered with.. go ask the core devs where their blockstream funds came from.
go as cores unpaid interns if they are being loyal in the hopes of getting paid by blockstream one day.

bitcoin needs diversity.
if you think bitcoin only needs ONE TEAM then you have already eaten from the centralist controlled spoon

Rather than catching bitcoin developer, state may/should interfere the shitcoin development and should put all involved dev in jail.
How much people have lost with DAO and how many of the shitcoins have scammed millions in past  ??? they should be in jail.

The threat of interference will not come from governments, but rather from private companies with financial interest in the technology. They < companies like Blockstream > will push code changes that are in their favor, above the needs of the community that use that technology. They are profit driven and they will pay people to drive that agenda.

So rather look at that as a threat and not what governments will do, to interfere with development.

Microsoft couldn't stop Linux and Micro$oft has a lot more disposable income than most governments do. LOL

If anyone does something wrong the person would be punished, don't forget that Bitcoin is an open source project and anyone can make a significant contribution to the space

Well Bitcoin is big at the moment and any attempt to thwart its development will fail be it jailing the developers or banning the coin completely from the world because the development of Bitcoin doesn't rely on a single person or group of persons and so a new development team will spring up after jailing them.

I think it is very impossible that the bitcoin developer team will get to jail because I think they are not using any identification because that is one specialty of bitcoin, to use it with animosity! And even the state will intefere, it will be hard for them to catch the bitcoin developers!

I think that even if important developers have their participation compromised, there will still be a possibility that new developers will join the team. And if the problem is in the jurisdiction of a certain country, this may not be a big problem, since Bitcoin can get support from developers from all over the world.

If there is a country does not agree with bitcoin that can be done is to banned the use of bitcoin. No government from any country that could jailing the developer bitcoin. There is no legal basis for any government to jailing developers bitcoin. They can only take action by banned bitcoin, other than that there is no way that can be done.

Developers can be replaced. Bitcoin will continue to survive because new developers can/will be able to cover for them. But it will be a different story if a country bribes developers to do their bidding for them. If this happens and somehow it got consensus, then it might have a negative effect on bitcoin.

First of all the states need to know about the development and it is also sure that states do not interfere directly through their ministers but they hire some expert for any thing in which they want to interfere and if they will want to interfere in bitcoin they will hire some bitcoin expert like the developers so they will do nothing bad with bitcoin but will support it more.

didn't one of those 3 letter agencies asked Gavin Andereson for questioning about bitcoin once or twice in the past?! ;D

anyways i said that to say nothing is going to change about bitcoin, it will remain as it is, you can't shut down a peer to peer network that easily.

Those were early days, now they just infiltrate the companies involved with exchanges and wallet providers and payment processors.

If governments really wanted to shutdown Bitcoin, they would just ban it outright. They obviously see some advantages {tax} and

tolerate it's use through proper regulation.  ;)

Even if they do it so, it will create no difference.If once a dev is jailed, another dev will take his place and continue the job.Some countries already tried to ban bitcoin and failed.They already know that bitcoin cannot be destroyed by just arresting the dev.Bitcoin has been programmed in such a way.

Got it. In that case the country that issues such a law will simply be cut out of the future of money.

GMax should be jailed.  He has ruined the network with his takeover attempt.  People and companies are fleeing away from Bitcoin because it no longer is a low-to-zero fee system.  Inflated fees are proof that contrived congestion is only to server Blockstream. 

GMax and Hillary should be in jail now!

What benefits should any state or country can get jailing bitcoin dev? Nada...
They can't stop bitcoin that's for sure not even jailing the so called dev or core team
The only reason I can think if such country would ban bitcoin is that if they themselves are making a new currency and they don't want bitcoin to interfere or to rival their new currency.

What will they be charged with? Profiteering from industrial sabotage or Capitalism? You do not participate in a experiment like this for the passion of the project. Developers work for money, and this money will have to serve some goal to make even more money.

The investors behind Blockstream did not dump a lot of money into Blockstream for the fun of it, they want a return on their investment. The result, SegWit & LN.

Business is Business ^smile^ 

There is no such a thing as bribing or forcing in a consensus system, people simply offer some changes and while all options are on the table the majority of miners and nodes decide which one to pick. governments only could use their almost unlimited resources to overpower miners and nodes and include new changes to main source code(aka centralism) it's their habit. also bitcoin isn't even version 1 yet and has a long long way to develop and reach it's true potentials.

States won't interfere with the developer team, because top management developers and enthusiasts have got positive signals from the Trump government. Several enthusiasts were given positions into the Trump's team for a bigger and better development.

If ever they are and the developers are put to jail, there is always a guy to step in to continue the development.  More probably this will come from the country that is not influenced by those authority who hunt down bitcoin developers LOL.  This is the beauty of open source.  Anyone can participate and contribute. 

There are two things that will happen to bitcoin economy when the bitcoin team developer was imprisoned. First possibility, there will be new developers that will replace the imprisoned team. Second, if all team developers including the new comers will be imprisoned then bitcoin will run in its current state without evolving or developing.

It is not the same as Microsoft's desire to stop Linux, and the government's desire to stop Bitcoin.
Microsoft is a private company. The power of the states is much more than the companies. Microsoft must comply with the laws of the United States Government. The American government has the power to enforce laws.

Do not confuse companies with states.

That has a very small chance to happen because the Bitcoin developer team is unknown to anyone except.. Them. As soon as they're anonymous nobody can do anything. The only thing that can happen is them revealing their own identities.. Which I highly doubt it will happen.

Read up on "political action committees" to see who actually controls the US government. I think you'll find that mega-companies like Micro$oft are the government.

Well, without direct interference, without anyone pointing a gun to the head of some lead BTC Core developer, there may be some kind of influence already.

The CIA, Russia or Iran may already own (or control) a pool of miners which support, or doesn't support, SegWit.
And some Chinese miners supporting BU may be under the control of the Chinese government.

We don't know, actually, but everything's possible.