Bitcoin Forum

I personally think that the idea that the world governments would attack cryptocurrencies is somewhat of a conspiracy theory but it seems that it is possible. Recently I read an article that was stating that bitcoin could be destroyed by governments who buy up a large amount of bitcoin over time and then sell all of the coins they own at the same time. This would cause a panic and even more people would sell their coins. The governments would then buy up these coins and do this over and over till they owned enough bitcoin to absolutely destroy its value.

While I think this is extremely unlikely I found it very interesting and would love to hear what others think.

What would stop governments from doing this?

Is crypto safe from governments who want to destroy it?

I think they could try but I think it would be an attempt that would fail because you see of all the BTC out there roughly two thirds of is held and never been sold. They could only accumulate the other one third and that is if they bought every single bitcoin! I think it is far fetched but a fun theory to discuss still.

According to this theory, governments will buy up bitcoins using their own money. In order to control the majority of the bitcoin market you have to spend a lot of money now. If governments then dump their coins to destroy it, then they are basically burning their own money. If they want to destroy crypto, they will try to do it via bans or restrictions, but not by buying the entire stock and then destroying it.

You're missing the incentive.  Governments have no decent incentive to attempt to "destroy" a cryptocurrency.
The only incentive which a government possibly could have to try and "destroy" a cryptocurrency would be to prevent its use on darknet markets, but a decrease in price would not prevent this use much at all, so they certainly would not do this.
That hypothesis is irrelevant, but if they wanted to attempt an actual attack (like a 51% attack for example), it would be extremely costly and time-consuming for something so trivial.  That's the purpose of the PoW system - to make it economically unfeasible for any single entity to attack the network.

That is so impossible to happen that it's actually very funny. Not only would it require an overwhelming about of money, it's also technically impossible to happen.
First of all what exactly would you define as a 'large amount'? The maximum supply of Bitcoins is 21 million, with some of them having been permanently lost and the majority of them being out of exchanges, where they cannot be bought or sold by anyone. How would the government buy these?

If I took all Bitcoin from trade listings in all exchanges and dumped it, the price would skyrocket and wouldn't go down very much.

Well op I agree with you. PoW system do prevents such events to happen. And even staying for months here in the forum you have enlightened me.
But what's bothering me was the big manipulation that just happened recently. Even though I have read about systems protecting Bitcoin it is still confusing. Leaving questions about what just happened. But grateful that I have strong hands.

But this will always happen, there is nothing new with saying that governments want to destroy cryto currencies.

They have been trying to do it until a few months, but now most of them are trying to develop their own crypto, they just discovered all the features that they could use to take advantage of their local economy.

A simple example is Russia, they were talking shit about cryptos and bitcoin by itself, they almost banned bitcoin in there, and now they want to develop a new (centralized) coin which is based on their own fiat money.

This whole thing is insane, i dont know why they are always trying to spread fud because it is always the same, the price will keep going up because they can not stop advertising bitcoin, doesnt matter if they spread fud, or if they said beatiful things about bitcoin.

They won't reach that point since Bitcoin community members have considerably enough consciousness and while bitcoin is getting more popularity and support from people , governments can just stay far and look to this high powerful currency getting stronger and stronger . I think Bitcoin is so strong to be destroyed by governors

government is waiting way too much, 312 bln of money cant disappear in nothing, 312 actually and government still waiting, maybe is just a natural progression of the currency.

Governments do have incentive though. If Bitcoin became the currency of the future, governments would no longer have control over money like they always have. Cryptocurrencies are threatening governments power.

I think many of you are not understanding my argument. I admit its probably my poor explanation of it.
The government would not try a 51% attack nor would they try to buy up ALL the bitcoins they could at one time. This could happen over years. They could mine bitcoin for years and accumulate that way. They could simply buy up available bitcoin on exchanges. NOT ALL AT ONE TIME. This could literally happen over years till the government would own a substantial amount of bitcoin. Then they could manipulate the prices and try to damage bitcoin.

It really depends. Some governments do not want multiple currencies that compete with the currency it controls. It threatens the governments financial control. On the other hand, some countries could care less, especially the ones that are not tecnologically advanced.

The increasing mass support will definantly prevent bitcoin from such attacks, may be some government will be in favour of bitcoin and they will have such evil thinking about bitcoin, but i am sure that they will not be succeeded in such attempts, I think some countries are also giving support to bitcoin and their number is now increasing from time to time. In future i am hopeful that all the countries will accept bitcoin as legal currency.

It all depends on the kind of community bitcoin has. Bitcoin has reached $10.000 and is hitting headlines on all finance media. It's not just YouTubers that talk about bitcoin, or specialized news sites like Coindesk or Cointelegraph, we have CNBC, we have Forbes, we have Financial Times, etc. This causes FOMO (fear of missing out), and a lot of shaky hands will now get into bitcoin. If the majority of the bitcoin community is build with panic buyers, then of course we can see panic sells. I love adoption, and I'm glad people are getting into bitcoin, but I hope they understand what bitcoin is. Otherwise what you said could be true, and it doesn't need to be governments doing it. Anyone who is rich, can try to influence the market and cause panic sells.

Of course that if our community is strong, and well informed, then that cannot happen. They buy and we appreciate, they sell and we just keep holding and don't really care, because we know the potencial of bitcoin, and we still want to use it.

Governments can attempt to destroy crypto all they want, but they will never destroy them. Maybe they can take down the centralized ones, but it will be harder to take down Bitcoin because it is decentralized. Truly decentralized in every sense of the word. All other networks have a centralized aspect to it and this is always a point of failure in the long run.

That was the case with the Venezuelan government when they decided to crack down on those that were mining bitcoins in the country,  even with all their efforts,  people are still mining bitcoins, nothing can really bring down completely even in the case where they ban it and the value plummets,  it sure to rise up again.

Well said, if the bitcoin community is educated it would make price manipulation much more difficult/impossible.

Banning a currency and manipulating its price are two very different things. It is nearly impossible to successfully ban something that by nature is decentralized. But if they tried to actually destroy the currency then that is possible but like I said earlier, very very unlikely.

I only started this topic to see what others thought of this idea.

The world governments have already tried their best to destroy bitcoin by other ways.But i think that no government would try to buy huge volume of bitcoins paying such a huge price.

Even if they suddenly dump those bitcoins after buying,there is no guarantee that the bitcoin price would crash since more people through out the world know about bitcoin's potential and there is a huge buy wall which stopped bitcoin's crash earlier.

So,that would be a stupid idea to implement.Instead,they could imply very strict regulations over the bitcoin exchanges which would slow down bitcoin progress.

Really? Do you have an examples? I mean yes there have been some bumps along the road caused by governments (Such as China) but I haven't seen any governments set on destroying bitcoin. They simply disapprove.

Crypto is kind of safe from the Government trying to shut it down because there is people that are hosting nodes for Bitcoin transactions to flow smoothly.

Are they really "burning" their own money? They can simply print more via the central banks. That's the essential problem with pricing extremely limited commodities like Bitcoin in fiat currencies. Those fiat currencies are and can be endlessly inflated.

Accordingly, it's theoretically possible that governments could collude to accumulate and dump the markets as the OP suggests. It seems very unlikely, though, because of geopolitical realities. Governments are in stiff competition with one another. Those governments that see the writing on the wall -- that cryptocurrencies are here to stay -- will do everything they can to facilitate commercial advancement in cryptocurrency sectors. If a government can't destroy crypto, their best option is to leech as much tax revenue from it as possible.

Mate nodes can do no shit, stop believing some people saying that nodes are the only needed part of the Bitcoin network to completely function.

@OP, they are accumulating right now, I just need everyone to know something, when wall street fuckers dumped Bitcoin in a day back to @$6000

And pumped Bitcoin cash up to @$7000 if you follow their example, Bitcoin is destroyed then. if they are printing paper money to buy all of your coins

You should buy gold, if price of gold increased suddenly, it means they have no real gold to back their paper money.

This is what Banks, Hedge Founds do on stock exchange, commodities (mostly gold and silver contracts) and on currencies exchange(Forex)..
The "big whales" play in this way, they collaborate buying in the same time and selling in the same time to re-buy. Almost all the times when this happens the small fishes on the market are moving in the opposite direction. (check gold price and Silver price after Brexit and you will notice that something "weird" happened with Silver.... These are the big whales, but that doesn't mean that will destroy Bitcoin. Maybe in the future they enter strongly in Bitcoin market to move the market in the direction that they want (Buying a lot BTC and then Selling all to create panic and to sent price in very low levels) but this is life... last thing: From this big fluctuations that may happen in the future we can also earn , buying BTC with a low and under-estimated price.

The only way that Governments can harm BTC is by regulations... In my opinion has almost 0 chances to happen that. Even JPMorgan that publicly was against Bitcoin calling it a fraud is investing on it.

Governments can easily control the supervision of bitcoins by controlling core nodes, so that bitcoin can't escape the fate of supervision by governments~ :).

Governments already control Banks and they supply the rules by which these financial institutions operate. Why would they want to bother with something as small as Bitcoin? The market capitalization for all Crypto currencies is currently at roughly $300.5bn. Of that amount, bitcoin's market cap represents about $158 billion.

This is relatively small in comparison to most entities that are controlled by Governments. JP Morgan Chase's capitalization amounted to around 311 billion U.S. dollars this year. <That is just one Bank>

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264905/top-10-banks-by-market-capitalization/ < Bitcoin is no threat to them, while they have the Banks and the major companies in their pockets >

Your view of this is very short sighted. Yes bitcoins market cap is a minuscule fraction of all fiat money. But bitcoin is only in its infancy. What happens when bitcoin is worth several trillion and it is no longer something to be ignored?

I get your point. Clearly realizing or I just slightly forgot how manipulating, taxing, banning and destroying are completely different from each other.
Do doubt that government can not destroy Btc.
Knowing that the decentralization involves every country allowing and starting to use bitcoin. A single government ( country) suggesting to destroy bitcoin is not enough to be equal with the number bitcoin users in the world.

Government here in our country are now warning us that they will shutdown bitcoin because of its risk to the people, I don't know what they are doing, all I know is that they are judging people without knowing it first, scammers online are the reason why the Government thought that bitcoin is a scam, but we all know that it is not.

Please consider this as my own opinion,
Governments cannot destroy cryptocurrency, they would only attempt but it is impossible that they will shutdown bitcoin. Because bitcoin is secured. It is time consuming for them.

this news is no stranger to me, it seems the government wants people no longer focus on bitcoin but rather focus on local government banks (in payments, investments, etc.). it may be that the government is also afraid bitcoin will dominate the world economy.

Well, I think that depends on how you would take government bans. They clearly want to destroy Bitcoin in their own country. Their jurisdiction ends there so we don't really know if they want to quash Bitcoin for good.

One thing to note is that with the birth of state-backed cryptocurrencies, they may want to destroy Bitcoin for good. It's competition, and it has such a huge lead that the only way to beat it would be to destroy it. We'll see though. Bitcoin has been incredibly resilient and bans don't really affect its value anymore. I doubt it can be taken out entirely at this point.

They will and they are doing it,government see this cryptocurrencies as threat on the money,banking and other stuffs connected on financial issues concering government.They see this threats becasue people are avoiding taxes specially if they are doing business

That is the reason the government, they do not want the chaos of the economic system in the country. but if they do the right regulation then Bitcoin can improve the welfare of many people. This is being discussed now, how important a regulation to be able to implement Bitcoin to be a safe and comfortable to use by various parties. The government must do a task force and form a team to be able to analyze the impact of Bitcoin use legally. sooner or later, this should be done immediately. Our era already has a wide range of sophistication and Bitcoin is a growing form of technology owned by humans.

I wouldn't put anything pass them. It has been their trait, from the begin of time, to manipulate their citizens by any means necessary to ensure they remain completely reliant on them. In that way they can twist and turn them to their liking because in the end it is all about maintaining power.

i can't believe this idea government attempt to destroy bitcoin i think this is punch into the moon have many country in the news want to destroy bitcoin like the idea of banning but bitcoin still now ontop as first digital cryptocurrency as i heard if i'm not wrong have one country want to accept again the bitcoin in their country after few months of banned it means bitcoin are have an important rules in every nation accpeting bitcoin because have a big help to economy, the government official of the country realized the important of crypto's.

the thing you first need to think about is that what would be the purpose of the government for this?
generally those who spread this "conspiracy theory" or as i like to call it "FUD", say government wants to destroy bitcoin. but buying and dumping so the price drops will only affect the price. so lets assume they did that. the price crashes. and then what? bitcoin won't disappear. it will still go on. crash it again? bitcoin will still go on. of course it will damage it but it will still go on. meanwhile that will cost a LOT of money!

not to mention that bitcoin is not the only thing out there! if we assume by any chance they do really crash bitcoin price, altcoins will rise. and besides government is not concerned with bitcoin price, they are concerned with where crypto currency is being used. and things like anon coins are being used anonymously and illegally. they are more focused on them than on bitcoin.

that is why i say this "theory" is more of a "FUD" for price manipulation than having any reality to it.

If government really want to destroy Bitcoin they ban Bitcoin. But buying all Bitcoin and then destroy is not a good idea it is just waste of money and time.

Deutsche Bank has 46 trillion of derivatives on its book.
Assets of the top 100 banks go over 100 trillions.
Fx markets are doing 5-7 trillions day.

The bitcoin market cap is irrelevant here.
Take a look on how it went up and down by 30 billions with a trade volume 1/4 of that.

No government (if we exclude NK as god knows what's in their head) is planning anything against Bitcoin.

The moment one will make a direct move against bitcoin, trust me, you're going to know it. Just pray it won't be a G7 member.

I think what the reason the government spend a lot of money to destroy crypto currency.. many things more important from that, the government should to be more concerned on their country and improve the problems in their country..

I have also seen a lot of them, and they are afraid of people being cheated and risky, they want us to not pay much attention to bitcoin and the market.

Maybe they tried, but stopped, because they learned, that buying large amounts drives the price up like crazy.

The only case to my knownledge is China, they shutted down millionare exchanges, so ... seems it was affecting CHina's economy by that move.

That logic or theory is flawed because government don't work that way. Rather, the target of governments usually is to protect their citizens and their investments and it is common knowledge that citizens of most countries are investing in bitcoin or at least buying it. There absolutely is no incentive for any government to want to attack or destroy bitcoin. Even countries like China and Russia that rolled out anti crypto policies did it to protect their investors from loss. Japan did the same but later rescinded on that decision after they have studied the pros and cons of adopting the crypto market. Today they are hailed as trail blazers in crypto regulation.

Even if any one government or an alliance of governments try it. Buying up all the bitcoin in circulation will be a tough call. The effect rather would be pushing the coin prices to record high. And there won't be any assurances that bitcoin won't be able to recover from a major dump such as that. It may only just affect prices temporarily. Considering that most holders view bitcoin as a long term investment, I do not see how that is going to change the situation much. Dumping will cause the less confident in bitcoin as an asset to panic. The long termers will continue holding it even after a slump with the hope of correction and recovery.

Another reason that logic is flawed is that there are people in government and positions of influence who are aware that Blockchain is a technology that cannot be waved aside. They know that this is not just all about bitcoin but something bigger and perhaps better that what many of us have known in a long time. Blockchain is as big as the internet and no sane government wants to be left behind.

Technically, I don't see any power in the hands of governments that could destroy Bitcoin or any blockchain based currency but if they really want to destroy it then they have to delete it from each and every computer at a time on which blockchain exists.

However, governments can try to regulate the BTC/Fiat currency conversions by asking for the KYC database of the users to the exchanges. If it is trying to completely ban Bitcoin/fiat conversion then there is a possibility of the rise of the black market.

I don't know how can they do that. I think the thing they can do is either regulate it and/or ban it. I think there are 8 or 10 countries that banned bitcoin and there are also numbers of countries where Bitcoin is legal and regulates cryptocurrency accordingly to protect its users.

why do you think that the cryptcurrency could somehow bypass the government? it's like for some kind of experiment that the government is doing to see the reaction of the people...no rulers would allow anarchy...it's too dangerous now

Government attempt to destroy cryptocurrencies will not be successful on my opinion if they will do it by marketing strategy like buying the majority of bitcoin to freeze it in the market and get rid of it in the end. I think the best way they can do this is by implementing reforms on laws restricting directly the use of altcoin in the market. But why will they do that, there is no legit reason why they will try to attempt such crackdown on cryptos, besides this is the future of marketing transactions that may help the government economy.

I don't think in such way government can destroy bitcoin and by buying large quantity of bitcoin will only trigger the value to increase even much higher for me there's no way government can destroy bitcoin permanently it will stay in the market no matter what and all they can do is to prevent their people in supporting bitcoin which is as today is impossible to happen, the market is growing and the demand will continue to increase in the future.

May be it can be true for the cryptocurrency but I don't think that they can get success to access bitcoin technology , Because bitcoin have technology which is more better than another technology in the banking system , As we can understand that money should be at priority safety , so how much the security is better of the banking sector and how much the technology of the bitcoin can be , we can understand easily .
So here we should put the factor of destroying bitcoin by the government at another side , and also we should put the factor that government will hack and sell again and again and make dump , it is not possible because people knows that what is the potential of the bitcoin and if they can make buy of the bitcoin at low rate then how much they can make in the future easily , so people will also buy bitcoin and in that case bitcoin can't be dump easily. .

yes i think that government has attempted to kill the crypto but it couldnt stop the crypto currency the govt is willing to stop the crypto because the transaction done by the crypto currency cannot be hacked and get the transaction details