Bitcoin Forum

Hi Guys,

So I was reading an article about net neutrality (NN) in America the other day and about the FCC trying to bring down NN.

In the unfortunate event that the FCC one day win and NN becomes distant memory, do you think BTC can survive?

Will it impact the mining community or do you think they will absorb the costs of paying for the highest quality internet service and pass the costs onto fees?

Is BTC still reliant on mining to the point that its severely threatened if mining is lessened or because people aren't spending it atm and are mostly trading it instead do you think the impact won't be so great as it once might have been when BTC was in its ultimate infancy?

Do you think we, as non-miners in the BTC community would have to pay for higher quality internet service to avoid lag-time on live charts and market movements?


This isn't intended to be a FUD thing btw  :D I am backing BTC all the way, just curious on other peoples views. Even more so because I am in the UK and I am unsure how the FCC enforcing the removal of NN would impact those beyond the US borders as well as those within the borders. :)

Of course Bitcoin is dependent on mining. Without mining, bitcoin would instantly become unusable. Bitcoin is also dependent on nodes reaching each other so as to propagate new blocks. So Bitcoin is vulnerable to any such Internet traffic policy as it would be unable to route around.

interesting thoughts. i guess it's all speculative but there will always be some countries that still uphold net neutrality - this will then be a big business for VPN providers within these countries. IMO there will always be a way around it and bitcoin will survive. thats my 2 pence :)

I agree with that with the exception of the Internet part. There are already peer to peer networks arriving that bypass the current Internet structure. Whether they will be good is a different matter. A network run by Microsoft, Amazon or Google may have disadvantages for Bitcoin users.

Yes. It'll continue to thrive the same way as it is now.


Mining doesn't consume much bandwidth. Anyone can run a miner with a decent internet connection. All the computational power comes from the ASIC chips only. Hence you don't need "highest quality" internet service.


The network is highly decentralized now. There will be difficulty adjustments if the overall mining power is lessened but that doesn't quantify any threats.


No, we don't. Although there might be possibilities of companies such as Coinbase availing for faster lanes than other exchanges in order to gain more user-base but that's in theory for now. Will have to note how things pan out in due course.


That depends on how effective the enforcing will be. In any case, that will have very less impact in the Bitcoin community.

You seem to be about a month and a half behind:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html)

Realistically, net neutrality is potentially a problem in Western countries, but I suspect that it won't be a significant problem unless a government or ISP has a specific vendetta against cryptocurrency - and if they did, they would have already attempted to take some active steps against it.

A lot of countries already don't have net neutrality laws, and even in most of those countries, people can still comfortably use crypto.

Well, once the Net Neutrality should get destroyed, I can envision a scenario where as some point the Bitcoin network becomes inaccessible for most of mankind.

It's all about the mining process it's the backbone industry of bitcoin. If bitcoin will be a source of digital payments without any backbone industry maybe right now bitcoin won't exist.

Bitcoin will still be available to use, someone will find a method to make Bitcoin exchangeable via Mesh.

Only if these ISPs have a very specific vendetta against cryptocurrencies. It could be a threat, but a rather minor one. You can already bypass ISP limitations by using VPNs and Tor. Heck, ISPs are actively against illegal torrenting in the US, and they still can't stop it. It would be more of the same with crypto.


Miners don't decide the fees. Users pay voluntarily. I realize certain online wallets don't give users the choice of how much they want to pay so some people don't know, but you even have a choice of not paying.


Maybe. There's always the option of using a VPN, which costs like $5 a month and adds a layer of security into not just your crypto activities, but whatever you're doing on the internet.