Bitcoin Forum

France's finance minister is planning to push for a discussion on bitcoin regulation at a G-20 summit in 2018. How would this influence the development of Bitcoin?

Looking forward to hearing different opinions!

There is nothing bad about regulation of Bitcoin, but it`s hardly possible. I can see they ask to pay some taxes from crypto profits, but regulation?  :)  ;D

Well they want to create a new world currency to replace the dying fiat currencies, so of course they wantr to regulate Bitcoin. They should be looking at the Renminbi and the Ruble - those are much bigger threats to them.

you laugh, but regulation includes the prospect of prohibiting bitcoin mining, bitcoin services and cryptocurrency payments entirely. people laugh and say "that's not possible, derp!" sure, the state can't realistically censor all network traffic on all blockchains in their jurisdiction. but as eric voskuil‏ eloquently points out (https://twitter.com/evoskuil/status/938231758788501504):


let's be realistic. the internet doesn't run on decentralized mesh networks. businesses with global reach and massive mainstream growth potential =/= banking pariahs (like bitfinex) set up in the BVI or antigua.

bitcoin exchanges, merchants/payment processors, wallet services, etc. are highly dependent on favorable regulation. the lack thereof means shuttering their businesses or setting up shop in pariah countries (limiting growth). a global ban on mining could cripple the hash rate, threatening the network's security.

voskuil‏ went on to discuss how the state's inability to destroy bitcoin is not enough to guarantee its relevance and mainstream adoption:

In any case, even G20 decides to regulate Bitcoin or prohibit it, still will be free countries where you can mine it, exchange, use it, etc. Switzerland is an example.

I think that it will go more into the dark web if they want to censor it.

for now. we have to approach this realistically: bitcoin is unprecedented and experimental. nobody knows for sure that its incentives are viable in the long term. for years, i believe most governments either assumed that it wasn't viable or viewed it as a curiosity to be regulated as needed.

even now, the narrative is that bitcoin could be a legitimate commodity like gold, traded on the world markets alongside traditional assets. but what if bitcoin is truly an existential threat to nation-states and their monetary sovereignty, as many bitcoiners believe? if this threat were to begin manifesting, isn't the inevitable response of governments to prohibit all things cryptocurrency? switzerland included.

I think that is good news for Bitcoin Users and Cryptocurrency Users in general. Looking at Regulating Bitcoin is better than banning Bitcoin. With these move we might see Bitcoin one day as one of the best choices for a payment method. People are scared of the word "regulation" as they know it will remove the benefit of Bitcoin being an anonymous currency but it is one of the feautures we must sacrifice in order for us and Bitcoin to move forward.

It'll formalise what's already in place with exchanges and payment processors I presume. More AML/KYC stuff which should hopefully give birth to less appalling services. It's inevitable so I hope they do it well and thoroughly. There's nothing else they can regulate.

Far as i know the G-20 group has more than twenty countries at the moment, i dont know why they are still calling it the *g-20* because there are more than 33 if i am not wrong.


If this is true, then it will push bitcoin to the top again, those countries are very big influencers over all the whole world economy.

Maybe if they get interested in bitcoin and how does the blockchain works, bitcoin will start to be more famous on all over the world.

I dont know, those are just my thoughs.

Yes regulating is much better than banning bitcoin.But they too would have no other option than regulating bitcoin and let it go as it could not be entirely banned.I think that bitcoin is becoming a worst nightmare for such nations.Even the economic powers in case of bitcoin are helpless.

So, I see I’m not the only one discussing the United States gold ban (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2552381.msg26015394#msg26015394) in this context.

We live in interesting times.

Valid point. But let's say they do prohibit (large scale) bitcoin mining, then I would expect a huge drop in the hashing power and therefore a drop in  the difficulty enabling individual users to commit to small scale bitcoin mining (?). This would make it practically impossible to shut down bitcoin mining because the hashing power would be distributed over the word (this could be wrong I'm just thinking out loud).

They would discuss about the possibilities of regulating bitcoin and they may decide to imply regulations on bitcoin at the same time.But they too know that they could not stop bitcoin progress by any way.

I think they would put more tracking and tax based regulations in place.

Well we won't know for sure what kind of influence it will have on any aspect until we know what comes of their discussion. Either way, I feel like we have nothing to worry about. The G20 is a progressive group of countries, and I don't think crippling Bitcoin will be in the cards. At worst, it will be scrutinized on the level that fiat is. It's too early to be having this discussion.

This is great news, it will increase awarness about Crypto currencies and I think, but that might be just me, we will see another great price growth.

They are just scared, Their masters (the banks) don't want people to trade with each other without them being the middle man. They don't like the digital currency, but they would like a cashless society which they control and regulate. Bunch of hypocrites!

This is about taxes, at least this is France's position on it. I am not sure what the other countries of the G20 say about it.

That's a good thing since my government still forbid bitcoin because of security reason.
Hope when G-20 conference decide to discuss about bitcoin, they can become more subjective and wise since bitcoin is something that people need on digital era !

At first, some countries tried to prohibit the crypto currency, then create their own crypto currency, then they wanted to mine at the government level. Nothing succeeded. It remains only tax imposed ;D

I dont really know what the french country is planning. let's follow its development, what are the benefits or threats to bitcoin.

I have a feeling it's not going to be a very constructive discussion, based on some of their statements around bitcoin.

France is one of the first EU nations to regulate Bitcoin after Germany. The Paris attack terrorists used pre-paid Visa cards, so they cracked down on all anonymous forms of payment.

Overall, regulation is good for cryptocurrencies. The EU Central bank (ECB) has been asking for the authority to regulate digital currencies since 2014. They've been ignored by the EU parliament and most states haven't done much either. The ECB instructed banks operating in the EU to not do business with people using cryptos until they could get jurisdiction, most were happy to exclude us because it poses a threat to their cash cow. A few banks and countries ignored the EU central bank.

 There is also word they will regulate them coming January or February. I'm not sure what has changed though, the EU Parlament seems as corrupted by banking as ever. I'm not aware of any motion to give authority tot he ECB.

What is good for individuals is not always good for the state.
I'm sure that governments do not have the technical ability to control crypto-economics. Conflict ripens, this will lead to financial confrontation in any case.

If World Leaders wants to sit and have talk about bitcoin, then there is something peculiar about it that has caught their attention. The first question that comes to mind. Why would they wanna regulate it? Well, if you were to ask me, I'd say prolly because they wanna make the virtual currency a more official means of payment so that they can also milk whatever loot they can from it, simple!

It is now evident that bitcoin can't be avoided. So I will take it as a positive development. While discussing, they certainly can take up examples from Japan which is the most progressive nation on the earth and how its economy is being impacted by bitcoin adoption. I hope something good will happen for the crypto community in upcoming G20 summit. Banning bitcoin is not a solution, instead taxing on it will be beneficial for all.

Just have a look at Estonia. They're small, but they will benefit from it, because if they want to tokenize the country (lands, identities, real estates, etc...) they can do it fairly quickly. They are thinking about issuing  'Estocoins' which will help the digitalization and they're already set up a digital nationality program, so they have the resources and the knowledge, what they don't have is the consent of the EU to issue a cryptocurrency for the country

If governments can get taxes from capital gains then it wouldn't be in their interest to ban it. Hopefully their meddling will stop there...

If the countries of the Big Twenty next year will negotiate the situation with bitkoynom, this summit may become one of the fateful for bitkoyna. One country can do practically nothing with bitkoynom and greatly affect it. However, if a general decision is made on the G-20, it can greatly affect the fate of bitcoins. Here, even the issue is not in taxation, although G-20 countries can develop their own unified approach in this matter. Most likely there will be discussed more global issues, such as the influence of bitcoins and general crypto-currencies on the economies of the world, whether the crypto-currency generally threatens the normal development of states. After all, states can not not react at all to the appearance in them of some kind of uncontrolled currency, which already costs almost 20,000 dollars and it is not known how much it will cost in the near future.

If regulation really applicable, the transaction of bitcoin will be accesable by company. It will make company easy to see and apply tax. It is nothing for me but bad for some people who hide from tax.

Regulation in itself is not bad but the extent of such regulation is what will cause conflict. Today virtually every exchange sites, wallet providers, have their KYCs in place with some even going as deep as going for a Visa interview that is also a form of regulation that a lot of people in the crypto community can still put up with and its powerfully in practice. The concern here is if there is no discussion about it yet and the above is already in place, when discussion starts at the point of G20, how far would such regulation go?

The fear is that when the implementation of such discussion is rolled out, it might end up bringing to the end of bitcoin as we know it so, for those saying regulation is a welcome idea, lets also proceed with caution because it could negate the very objective of bitcoin which could then be interpreted to be hijacked and when that happens, the core developers providing support could be forced to abandon bitcoin and that is the beginning of the end.

This news is good for bitcoin. it will give more popularity however, how can they regulate a decentralized thing? or maybe bitcoin will become centralized soon?