Bitcoin Forum

Just like the title says, is it possible to block crypto currencies if the government decides to?

They could enforce the ISP to block online payments made or something like that, is it possible?

Yes it is, and very easily in fact.

All they need to do is block websites related to Bitcoin, such as online wallets (i.e. blockchain.info) and also block exchanges.

This alone would kill any hope of Bitcoin becoming popular in a country as the only people who would go out of their way or risk buying would be hardcore Bitcoin enthusiasts, or criminals looking to use it for illegal purposes. This is one big problem Bitcoin has compared to gold, which cannot be easily controlled by the government.

Nope. It is certainly impossible for government to block cryptocurrency use in the country. Although it can be controlled and censored effectively by putting ban on major exchanges. Now suppose if a government decides to ban porn, does it delete files from your computer or server? Exactly not, it simply ban popular sites. But people easily access them via vpn, proxy, etc.
Similarly in case of cryptocurrencies, these can still easily be send/receive using vpn, proxies, etc but buying/selling would become nearly impossible except face-to-face trade.

In fact, the most important thing is whether it is possible to declare a coin in the tax. For example in Russia there is no regulation for bitcoin, but you could declare profit of trading bitcoin and pay taxes.

Peep to peer decentralized networks such as bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies are designed to circumvent blockage.

In my opinion it is not possible in every country to block bitcoin (or even all crypto) but depending on the state within the government that does not want bitcoin to break in their official currency ( bank )

Yes , I think so. I know about a exchange which was blocked by our country because bitcoin wasn't being monitored by the government then and there were huge cash flow through that exchange to banks .

No I don't think it is possible what they can do is block few bitcoin web wallets in their country but they can't block whole bitcoin network because it is distributed all over the world and it is hard to get all IP of those bitcoin nodes used by wallets. Also anyone can run their own node/wallet in their PC this will make this process even more tedious.

Even US government haven't thought about this till now because they know how complex this is.

Yes, it is possible. Bitcoin is illegal in Ecuador, Bolivia, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan and if I were living in those countries I wouldn't dare to use it because they have severe laws so that would be very risky to violate those laws.

Oh well, that's better then. Even though they can block online wallets and blockchain viewers, they can't block the entire bitcoin network itself.

Even if they blocked those services, they can be easily accessed through several means like using VPN or proxies.
 
Thanks for the elaboration!

thats posible but the question is their success. You see, people can get around anything as long as they really want it by any means possible,
but with the current trend in bitcoin, i dont think government would do that since bitcoin are gaining more and more popularity and support so its possible but they wont. (my oppinion ;))

Legally any government can ban bitcoins since they have control over the internet in their state. But I don’t think so any government will take such idiotic step when they can earn a lot from bitcoins. Governments are going to put taxes on the bitcoin transactions because people are not going to leave bitcoins soon.

impossible
Because each country has its own authority in determining whether or not its citizens may use bitcoin.tapi it all back to each country if my country is still given the freedom to use digital media but still there batainya provided that not out of course we will safe

Accoeding to me, its not possible for the government to baan crypto currency. Its not actually that easy. millions of people use cryptocurrency including bitcoin. its not possible to shut them down. Goverent cant check each and every cell phone, laptop, pc, etc fpr cryptocurrency. And also there should be a valid reason to baan bitcoin along with cryptocurrency.

The network is quite large so I do not think they can block all online transactions. They can block some cases but not all.

it will be possible if really the government are serious of not accepting bitcoin anymore in a certain territory or country and it will be chaotic for some bitcoiners to accept it. I hope it will not, I am hoping they should provide some good opportunities about bitcoins..

"block" no.
"make illegal" yes.

they can never prevent people from using bitcoin or any other system that is peer to peer. there will always be a workaround. there is no server to raid, there is no IP to block, there is no "1 or a couple of master nodes" to raid and shut down.
and this last one is actually one of the many concerns about bitcoin cash! with the 8 MB blocks soon the number of nodes will fall and in a year or two it will become centralized. of course this won't happen if the blocks are never full and area always about 200 to 500 bytes!!! but then again that would mean they forked for nothing!

It depends at what level block is. If somehow they can block it at ISP level then it would be hard to surpass. Im not sure if they block it at ISP level, an VPN would work. In theory it would, because the VPN would come after the ISP.

Real IP -> VPN IP -> exchanger

This would allow you to bypass the tyrannical governments blocking stuff in theory.

But they can block VPNs, TOR or anything else by passing laws... in that case I don't see any way out.

This is obvious. The point is, if a country were to ban exchanges and the most popular Bitcoin-related sites, there is no question it would lead to the demise of cryptocurrency.

There is no way this goes mainstream without the government being involved. With that said, with the recent BTC-e fiasco it seems the government is trying to build up their crypto portfolio, so the chances of this happening anyway are slim.

It honestly surprises me a bit that so many people here don't really know this now :D
No, it is absolutely impossible, in theory or in practice, to block any type of knowledge.

Bitcoin is a protocol, based on mathematics. it is a concept, it can exist on paper or using a calculator for help. It exists on Internet and Internet has a long history of attempted censorship. None of it worked for too long. People learn how to bypass it, you can't follow everyone at all the times. You remember the terror attacks on France not that long ago? EU started banning all kinds of encryption to prevent terrorist from talking to each other, but police reported that they played some first person shooter like CS or CoD and were shooting messages on the walls with bullets. Try stopping that... :D

Projects like Tor exist for years now and they have been doing an amazing job so far. Many countries banned Tor, some use to ban Bitcoin as well.
China still tries to block Tor, but Tor bridges still work. I believe Bitcoin Core runs by default on Tor if you have it installed, if not, it is one check box to set it up.
Not only did Bitcoin exist before centralized exchanges existed, by it grew as well. People used to get together in a town square and exchange bitcoins, the so called Satoshi squares. By now, even decentralized exchanges exist, like Bisq (former Bitsquare). You had hidden services on Tor for a vary long time, many have fallen, but they always came back even more advanced.

So no. Don't worry. You can't stop a revolution, you can only give more incentive for people to join it by trying to stop it.
Bitcoin will have help from the goverment in the end, because people always run the goverment in the end. It is process that has been going around the world for thousands of years, the democratization. Bitcoin is just a part of it.

True what you say, there may be a country that blocks bitcoin, but whether it can be when in this country there are many who use bitcoin and crypto for human survival. ;D

I think that in every government of any state there will always be sensible people to understand that it is necessary not to prohibit the crypto currency, but to use it for profit. Why destroy the chicken that carries the golden eggs. In some states, they will certainly try to impose all kinds of restrictions on the circulation of the crypto currency, but they will not bring much success since the crypto currency is difficult to control

No its not possible.we can use VPN proxy for change IP and can easily use those site.its never possible to stop using bitcoin by only stooping block website.In my country Porno video is not allowed so government block all website (porn site)but here people using VPN,proxy for watching porn videos. so its very easy to use block chain and using bitcoin.

Everything is possible. If a country want to block bitcoin and any other type of cryptocurrencies, They can make laws to ban their citizens using cryptocurrency. That's easy!

The question is, can they block it, not can they outlaw it. They can't stop it. It is a bit ironic that your signature ad actually boosts about the use of Tor (they did write TOR instead of Tor tho).

Yes it can! A government has a full control of the regulatory and legality of Bitcoin. And if it chooses not to allow Bitcoin in their country, they can easily block the sites that is associated with the usage and transaction of Bitcoins. This is just like blocking social medias in countries like North Korea and some parts of China.

The reason why the government of that country wants to block Bitcoin is because of the possible threat that it may cause when it will fall. The Economy of country can be affected when something goes wrong which will affect all the businesses of that country.

Yes, you can get around blocks, but the thing is that if the government was to force ISP's block addresses of major exchanges and required protocols it would hinder the whole system in that country enough for it all to just remain within the grasp of those technologically savvy. And let's face it, even without any extra hurdles BTC is still somewhat hard concept for the layman to understand and use, so even a small distortion could have great negative impact.

What about proxy and vpns? Even if the goverment will block such sites, who need to buy and trade bitcoins or altcoins wil find a way easily. It would be the same situation as with piratebay ;D Nobody cares about goverment website block :)

You would be surprised how many people in China use VPNs and Tor. Usually everyone has someone to set it up for them, since you only need to set it up once. It is just like when people don't know how to use cracks for programs and video games or even torrents. They just ask someone who knows. It really isn't that hard, is isn't programing or nothing needing skill or education, it is a normal function of an OS. Same as people setup WiFi or anything else that is not an everyday task.

Im not so sure this would happen,
think of all the bad stuff online that people have access to, Why is that not blocked already?

The only thing that is actively being pursued is not paying for T.V packages and illegal streaming. Because that hurts big business!
All those Soccer stars being paid Hundreds of Thousands on a monthly/yearly basis have to be paid, and it aint gonna happen if more
and more people are illegally streaming.

We over here in our crypto corner are not on the radar [yet] generally speaking.

Yes, of course. Any country can block bitcoin if they really want bitcoin to stay away from their country. As a matter of fact, there are several countries where bitcoin is illegal. Who would then try to spread bitcoin in a place where bitcoin is too alien a concept?

And some countries that are now open to bitcoin used to discourage the use of bitcoin.

Bangladesh banned bitcoin in 2014 under anti-money laundering law and using it is a punishable offense, up to 12 years in jail. There are a few other countries that banned bitcoin around 2013 - 2014, at a time when bitcoin adoption was in its very early stages.

Countries can ban bitcoins by proclaiming it illegal, but still it would be a bit tough to enforce this ban. It ain't 2014 anymore, bitcoin has tremendously grown in popularity. When countries like Japan, Australia, India, Russia, US etc are in favor of bitcoin, developing or underdeveloped countries wouldn't outright ban bitcoin, neither lilegal nor banned.

With its store of value aspect, similar to gold, and a safe haven during political, economical, and social uncertainties, neither belonging to any particular country nor correlated with other assets/conventional currencies. All these makes bitcoin a good alternative world reserve currency. Rather than banning bitcoin, I think in future most countries would be competing to cash in on bitcoins reserve qualities.

No,i think its hardly difficult for a country to ban bitcoins completely.If it had been possible to do so,china and russia would have done it much before.What they could do is just block some popular sites to avoid trading.The two main reasons for which most governments fear bitcoin is that they would not be able to control illegal activities funded with bitcoins and they would not be able to impose tax on bitcoin earnings fully.

Hello,

    Let's think about a solution outside of the context of a regulatory ban or outright denial of service.

    Here's the hypothetical.  Let's suppose you wanted to broadcast a transaction but didn't have a node which was caught up with the network for one reason or another.

    If you're lucky enough to have just an input or two in the transaction; then the transaction will be very small (in bytes).
    In a disaster situation where there are people helping people, it wouldn't be hard at all to imagine a scenario where some guy with a paper wallet finds some guy with a HAM radio.

    It would be very easy to modulate a small signed transaction even in Morse code; so that it could be verified and broadcast over the network.

    This probably only works easily to get your Bitcoins *out* of the disaster zone.

    Another way could be through steganography.
    Let's suppose in this case, the ISP has a something equivalent to the Sandvine traffic management filter which was used to kill Bittorrent P2p networks... such that the wire protocol was inspected and Bitcoin nodes weren't able to operate in the clear because forged TCP RST had been sent to the remote end of the connection.

    Maybe you can't run the full node, but you could get a signed transaction out to someone who does.  It is doubtful that in the same parallel dimension where Bitcoin is blocked that posting images or sharing music would be blocked too...  otherwise, why have an Internet?  There would then be easy ways to encode your signed transaction steganographically into some image you uploaded in a new facebook post.  A contingency where you pay someone in a safe country to watch your facebook posts to see if the images contain a concealed transaction -- is definitely far from ideal, but technically a possibility.

    With the growth rate of the blockchain and the 1MB blocks; it wouldn't even been too imaginative to consider a situation where the same street markets which sell pirated DVDs and CDs could have a "July 2017" bootstrap.dat for you to import all of the blocks that you missed since the end of June 2017 (on DVD or Blu-ray) -- so that your "offline node" is still able to have a valid (albeit latent) copy of the blockchain and verify that the Bitcoins you had sent covertly had indeed been broadcast to the network and included in a block.

    I guess in short -- censorship of the Internet or legislative blockades to Bitcoin will in all actually only slow down the ability for the determined to transact in Bitcoin.
    I don't think it would ever be able to make transacting an impossibility.

    Remember the BGP hijacking in the Arab Spring when Egypt cut off most Internet and cell phone service?
    How successful were they in totally blocking all of that reporting... (hint: not so successful)

    What are some of your Sci-Fi Cypherpunk Bitcoin Hero hypotheticals?
    How would you get a transaction broadcast -- how would you go about keeping a node going and ensuring the copy you have is the Best Chain?
    Would it be a team effort or the story of a solo practitioner; would you just say, "Fugget About It" and then be a good boy working in the labor camp?

Best Regards,
-Chicago

How can they block Bitcoins, when the blockchain is decentralized? The only option is to impose a blanket ban on internet (that will be extremely difficult, with satellite phones available on every nook and corner of the earth).

Sometimes it is not possible because Bitcoin is not paper currency, everyone has the right to register in any exchange where we can trade.
But will insist them not to use the Bitcoin but people who invested will still, using the Bitcoin buying and selling.

Some countries block the whole internet for most of their populations, like North Korea. No internet, no bitcoins.

Some less drastic resolutions: make Bitcoin illegal and punish everyone caught using Bitcoin, block all connections related to Bitcoin nodes for the whole country

It is actually possible. They will just block sites which support bitcoin payment or exchange. That is not so hard if the government developed in this sense. It is going to be the same as the government make some porn sites or online casinos unavailable if they hold politic against this.

No, I believe it is not possible to block bitcoins because its decentralized and people need only connection to get this crypto currency, buy and sell it everytime without any issue.

You can accumulate it and then spend it online. How would they know? If you buy something online, nobody asks you how you

paid for it. You just pay the import duties and taxes with Fiat, then they are happy.  ;D The other option is to spend it on a Bitcoin

holiday in another country, where Bitcoin is accepted. Japan will be a shopping Holiday of a life time.  ::)

Yes, f it was possible then I believe it would have already happened somewhere in the world. In this era where technology is advancing day by day, it is impossible to keep people blind and to stop them from dealing with bitcoins. Moreover, to block something you need to own it. But bitcoins have decentralized nature. Apparently it is impossible to stop the storm of this digital currency as far as internet is working.

Exactly
 You could use bitcoin in jail if you wanted to, it would just require access to someone on the outside that is willing to make transactions for you. This is the beautiful thing about btc, you are only really trafficking in information. I've known folks behind the Great Firewall that don't have a problem, and no one government has implemented this yet, so it doesn't seem feasible/efficient. The easiest way to restrict bitcoin is to make its conversion to Fiat illegal. It's waaaaay easier to track Fiat ;)

i do not think it may be so easy to bain  bitcoin or stop it in a particular area, because if it was possible the some countries may already done it. but i think it is not possible that they can stop bitcoin in a particular area.

Yes I think its possible, the government in a country can choose to have all websites in relation to bitcoin to be blocked. They have the power to do so. They can probably even prevent all exchanges to have bitcoin exchanged to their local currency. A government can declare bitcoin or cryptocurrency as illegal then users will have to find ways to transact under the market and public eye.

I think it is impossible for the government to actually prohibit the use of bitcoin, in the sense that making bitcoin is not used by prohibiting, prohibiting could have been applied by the government but bitcoin is decentralized and is on the internet, where no one can intervene

Bitcoin is blocked in a few countries at the moment, but people can still use it because the governemnt doesnt know about this, for example in the united states, you cannot buy bitcoins in any exchanger, you cant invest in forex if you live in usa, or even crypto-exchangers.
I dont know why, but nowadays a lot of countries are legalizing bitcoin, it is the currency of the future.

i think its be a problem because as long as internet connection is not block and people can still used the connection, people will find the way to use bitcoin. especially if they want to make money from bitcoin, they will search from other way and maybe they can use vpn to connect and using bitcoin again.

Yes it is possible to ban people from that country to use the sites related to bitcoin or cryptocurrency but still people will find a way to access it. If there are laws implemented that will have severe penalties then people will find a way like using VPN to access it. They will just avoid getting caught but if bitcoin has a good effect in the country then the government will not ban it and a possibility of supporting it.

The sad truth is yes, they have the power to block or to prohibit people from Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency involvement. But surely, they won't do it without a reason, it might be bcause it is used in illegal transactions or anything that disobeys the Law of a certain country. Let's just hope that it won't happen to every country in order for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to grow.

They will not block bitcoins because for sure government also using bitcoin.  ;D
It is hard for them to block this cryptocurrencies especially bitcoin is international currency.

I think it might be done by the government, by blocking bitcoin like sites related to bitcoin, such as exchange, and so on. Of course this will give bad impact to bitcoin. Therefore I really do not expect that the government provides a policy to ban bitcoin.

It is posible that the government can stop bitcoin and the other crypto currencies, by first, stopping all mining done in Japan. But no body will like bitcoin to be stopped in the technological society.

Yeah, I wish them good luck with that. Why would a county want to ban Bitcoin tho?

Government can block the web sites and all possible resources  which you can use when accessing or trying to make transaction. They can block all websites with online wallets, every Bitcoin client connection and web exchanges. But it's not an issue for most countries  to use VPN to have access to any website some countries not allowing to use VPN also but I think they already found how to deal with that issue accessing this web sites

It's not easy to block bitcoins ,but they can always make some strict withdrawal limits to panic

yes when a country feels that her coin becomes threatened specially after the new pic of the bitcoin can block it to stop or make an end to this new revolution and even make laws to punish.

Possible yes, but it cant be blocked entirely. They may block some sites related to bitcoin but not all and if they block the ip we can always use proxy. So i think it is difficult to block it and why would they block it?

It is impossible to block BTC or whole cryptos within a country, but they can censor it pretty effectively, if they prohibit the usage of cryptocurrencies companies and shops wont be able to accept them, but there can be exchanges among citizens. Finally there could be a block of major exchanges but that is easily solved via a VPN.

I think its hardly not possible for a country to do so.Bitcoin could not be completely banned unless internet is banned.If it had been possible to ban or block bitcoin,then countries like china,russia would have already banned bitcoins instead of regulating it.Almost all countries are aware of the fact that bitcoin could not be banned.Only thing they could do is to just regulate bitcoin exchanges in the country which china and russia has been doing now.

i think it is possible for a country to block bitcoin if the government want to do this because its very easy for them to make it happen as they have everything that we don't know. government can block bitcoin from being used by the people and they can banned bitcoin in that country and if this is happen then bitcoin can not grow in that country.

You are saying that as if it is impossible for people to circumvent that, and we know that is not the case, bitcoin is very similar to illegal downloads, it is illegal but everyone does it and almost no one is prosecuted by it, so not it is not going to work and it is way harder to block bitcoin than what you imagine.

I don't think it's feasible for a single country to do this unless they agree globally to switch the internet off and stop using internet around the world and even with that there could arise black market networks and international networks that will still connect computers so I doubt if it's possible at least in the near future.

i also do not think that it may be possible because there are so many other sites that government have already lock but still people are using the.  so i can say that it many not be possible that government will block bitcoin.

Yeah it is possible for government to banned the sites and the Bitcoin usage, the government can banned the exchanger and wallet and other Bitcoin related sites, but people will find the way to break it, it is quite hard to stop people to used Bitcoin because Bitcoin is easy to setup and it is hard to track

I do not know whether politicians also have their hands on bitcoins. May be secretly they have also bitcoin wallets. Governments always wear a mask in front of its public. If we talk about the blocking of crypto currencies, it can't happen. People use different proxies to break such restrictions.

Well at my perspective if I was assigned to block all cryptocurrencies in my country I would simply disable all wallet providers for all cryptocurrencies rendering their services unavailable for my our citizens. With than being said it won't totally block the exchange and transactions of cryptocurrencies in my country because many new wallet will be available for them to be use by.

Bitcoin has no physical location to assault. On the off chance that there we to obstruct every one of the sites that individuals can download Bitcoin wallets from, new ones will come up and a few people will incorporate their own wallets from source code - Bitcoin resembles Bittorrent is that regard.There is no single association or individual that controls Bitcoin and exchanges don't experience a focal clearing house there is truly no chance a controller can prevent individuals from downloading Bitcoin wallets and sending each other bitcoins.  In the event that they close down the web, individuals will send each other Bitcoin through SMS and on the off chance that they close down the power supply, individuals will utilize sun powered and battery-fueled arrangements.

Blocking is not really the right term, the government and banks could actually control the flow or transactions using bitcoin. Bitcoin is so spread and popular enough for the government to ban or block it, they cannot just stop all transactions using bitcoins

It is very easy to do by the government to block the bitcoin wallet and its trade. Maybe if a country indicates a big problem with bitcoin use and the amount of money laundering in that country with bitcoin mode .. maybe that could happen. Criminality caused by bitcoin transactions to the detriment of a country. It will cause the state will not allow bitcoin to flourish in that country.

Maybe not all countries will block on bitcoin, for example my country. In my case bitcoin is not prohibited but not legalized. So all risks borne by the users themselves. The government will not interfere with interests in cryptocurrency. I think it's better than banning bitcoin

Not really doable.

cryptocurrencies are designed to counter this sort of government intervention in transactions. There is no central point of failure, for a country's government to say no to bitcoin completely they would have to shut down every single node that runs bitcoin which is impossible. This is in stark contrast with centralized payment processors such as LibertyReserve and e-gold which all got taken down very easily.

Your idea about ISP blocking online payments will firstly spark public outrage and secondly, probably wouldn't work very effectively as workarounds can be implemented quite easily. And plus, how are they going to block bitcoin transactions in the first place? I'm not aware of any obvious ways of doing that.

The only way I can imagine a government blocking transactions could be if they got their own mining equipment and use it to try to get 51% of the hash power and then reject all transactions except their own but that will be very costly to do for any government.

Any country that attempts to do that has to be kidding. Bitcoin is anonymous for christ’s sake so how would you plan on blocking it when you don’t even know who is carrying out the transactions.

Its possible to block some sites that do related on crypto or any other services related to it but its impossible to block it completely or restrict people on engaging on it. We do know there are lots of ways to access without being traced or blocked. Theres vpn services specially on using Tor too, you can access anytime without their awareness no matter how hard they try to block. Its impossible to isolate such thing.

In what matters or problem why would the government is blocking bitcoin in your area? As far as i know the government doesn't care about much for bitcoin as long as it is not causing any trouble for any certain areas.

For the record if the government will ever going to do that i think there is already a chaos happening because if they did block it like what you said 'block the IPs/ISPs' there's a serious business going on that matters about the crypto currencies world.

I think you were just thinking too much or beyond because first and foremost why would they have to block it anyway? People can always find a way to access the internet even if you have to block their ISPs or IP addresses, so it doesn't make sense at all.

I think it's possible for the government of a country to block bitcoins or all of the other cryptocurrencies but whether they will be successful in doing so is doubtful. They have tried to curb so many illegal things which can be done with the fiat in the past but haven't been successful in abolishing them completely, people always come up with a way or two to make governments efforts in blocking something ineffective and keep on doing things they love and make money with so it's useless for governments to block bitcoins rather they should try to legalize it.

it is not as anonymous as you may think although it can not be completely blocked. but causing a lot of troubles is easy, just announce it illegal and people will simply stop using it!

yes if they want it they will hold or block it, i think every country has the right to do it and every country has the department to do it, and they can regulate people on when and where they will about to surf if its in bitcoin or in other sites. but as long as they didnt prohibit bitcoin to its countrymen then it is good.

Maybe they do not have a direct way to block bitcoin, but if they find a way to differentiate between normal traffic and bitcoin traffic they could try to block it, or they may try to block websites that talk about bitcoin like this forum and exchanges.

It's possible. For example, if there are no exchanges that would accept your btc and convert it to cash then it's useless having bitcoins in that country. All of the sites that are connected to btc are banned is also the worst case scenario if your government is really serious to prevent them from the market. You might need to go to other country so you can use them.

It's actually not that hard.The chinese firewall for example might do the trick with some tricks added.
Right now bitcoin uses for default port 8333 and the number of users actually capable of forwarding a port might be less than 0.1 % of this board.

But if they were totally against bitcoin and try to make an example of it they could do it far easier.
Declare it illegal and then have 50 or 100 people executed in a stadium like they did a month ago with 13 drug dealers.
Are you going to risk your life for bitcoins? Doubt it.

Why Bitcoin would be useless if you could not convert it to cash. You can use Bitcoin, it's enough. You don't need to convert to fiat money. Just use Bitcoin.
If websites connected to Bitcoin are banned by the governement, you can always use a VPN to bypass their censorship. Really nothing to worry about...

The EU for one is thinking hard about blocking it.

Yes it is, but its going to be very hard to be fully enforced. Since bitcoin guarantees you anonymity then you can be sure that even if the country puts down twenty laws against that nothing is going to happen.

No, it is not possible for the government to fully block crypto-currency usage in the country, because the citizen could always use a vpn service and access crypto-currency related site, the only thing the government could do is to regulate the exchanges that deal with crypto-currency, by enforcing rules and regulations on users to submit proof of identification for using the exchanges services.

That would in effect seriously hamper if not inhibit using bitcoin. My .02$

Well, I don't think any government can block bitcoin completely since they would have to shutdown the internet to block bitcoins cause like what @Barcode_ said if they shut down crypto exchange sites, you can still access them by using Proxy/VPN or VPS. Governments can only make it illegal but they can't ban it completely.

You would only need to do that if you plan to buy something physical with it, but if you want to buy digital products then the only thing you need to have is the website that accepts your bitcoin and if a government went as far as blocking those websites then you will probably need to use the option that you recommend, move to another country to use your bitcoin.

Yes it is possible to block online payments such as exchanges and banks but what if people are using vpn's, proxies or any other tunneling connection to bypass any government restrictions. The only way they can do that is to prohibit the use of internet connection just like in north korea but that could cause a country to be like drop it's economy in terms of business as people nowadays uses internet as gateway or communications to any investments all over the world just like Bitcoin.

Yes. The situation could be where a country is banning every local crypto exchanges and will not accept btc and altcoin as payments. So even you have btc, it has no  use because no one will accept it on your place or even convert it to fiat.

no think country in terms is government cant block bitcoin or cryptos, because i think every time we surf in this world we can see there are many new site  about bitcoin, like wallets, or like exchanger, i think government can block with ban the site of bitcoin and some people can access it because of VPN or proxies, so i think its hard for government to block bitcoin and anything else

Why not? If they could block gambling websites and more, then blocking the crypto industry entirely is not really out of the question but is that for the good of the country is another story. Didn't certain countries think to ban crypto sales to the normal average people in hope they reduce the amount of losses? Some were thinking to ban crypto until the government can understand well enough to regulate the industry? Then again, I would say take the numerous articles with a pinch of salt.

If repression reaches that point then you have greater problem than not been able to use bitcoin, at that point something like that happened in my country I will probably move out and never come back, it will be hard but I think I will be able to pull it off.

No Bitcoin cannot be block, the  internet is a  chain that connect country to countries,except a major global decision,taking  a  stand  against  cryptocurrency,Government does not have access to  block Bitcoin, except they come up with a law against all forms of trade against BTC.
Bitcoin and other  Altcoin will bring to reality the  cashless policy enacted by government in the global market

Correct, governments may try to block certain types of communications but there are always going to be a way to bypass them If you know how the only thing that will work is to block all communications but by that time our greatest issue will not be bitcoin but our freedom.

I think it's possible. As you can see, the main color of the coin market at this time is red, that is the result of China government will ban cryptocurrency in their country. You should believe that it's possible. Do you know North Korea or maybe Democratic People's Republic of Korea ??? In this country, people do not allowed to watch even a movie from other countries, if they founded, they will be killed and of course nobody in this country know and earn Bitcoin.

It is not possible for governments to block bitcoins or the other cryptos, because simply its decentralized currencies, and even if the government ban the sites or marketplaces selling or trading bitcoin, people always still able to use Vpn and proxies to access this sites easily.
But governments can making the deals with Bitcoin harder by illegalizing this currency.

well China is not blocking bitcoin, but they are trying to ban it from their system, making the currency very weak....
People will still use in China but the acceptance will go down... and The value could drop so that this currency has no value anymore...
May be it's really time to sell all owned BTC ???

Yes the government can block it in their country, but people who are the hardcore fans of Bitcoin will actually start making use of VPN services that let’s them their VPN to a different and be able to access the blockchain. So whatever happens, there’s always a way out.

It depends on the country If a country is under a communist type of government like China they can definitely block the cryptos because they dictates their people what to do and they can control their community specially in their financials their government is the one handling the income of the people living in China as well in other countries with the same government type.

Its ok if you are the one paying bitcoins for services, but how about those people rendering services to earn bitcoin for living. Remember not all local merchants are accepting bitcoin as mode of payment and actually they are still few comapared to number of users, thats why for me it would be useless if that happens.

it is not possible to banned bitcoin.Bitcoin is run by peer to peer network. there is no centralised control of bitcoin.at best government can block some website which is related to bitcoin.but people can open new website and infact people can send bitcoin using sms service.so government can block website of btc but they can't banned btc.

I don't think so. Bitcoins is a distributed network of many computers across the world so it is impossible for a country to block it. Unless the shut down the whole Internet  :P

I am not sure something like this can happen. Even if the country bans it, that ban can never really be that effective. Does that stop people from finding their way around it? Highest they can do is find a way to control the usage of it. However, I don't know if country can effectively place an I.P restriction on certain sites which I think I have read somewhere it is possible. However, VPN can easily solve this issue.

Sad a lot! It is really sad news because if a country is trying to ban bitcoin it means they are rejecting the profit and the betterment of their economical state according to me the bitcoin currency is one of the most positive facts of the bitcoin because! In my country a lot of people were unemployed before bitcoin but now people know bitcoin and they are earning through it including me so thanks God it is not going to be blocked or ban in my country.

You do not know about that, if they can identify bitcoin traffic then they will find a way to block it the same way that torrent traffic is blocked by some ISP, if they change net neutrality then that could be possible in theory but I’m sure we will find a way around that.

I knew about a trade that was blocked by our country because the bitcoin was not government-controlled and had a huge cash flow through exchanges for banks. But the question is their success. You see, people can get around anything as long as they really want it by any means possible, and should also have a valid reason to save bitcoin along with cryptocurrency. I hope they should offer some good opportunities on bitcoins ..

Yes there are possibility that one country decide to block bitcoin or all crypto coin but it is not a necessary that bitcoin will die or even the other crypto. Example china north korea they block bitcoin one country decide no one can stop it.