Bitcoin Forum

Is it possible that Bitcoin will be regulated? And if it will be, then how would we know ??? I have heard stories, speculating that if someone holds 51% of the total amount of BTC they will have kind of a monopoly position and can make or break the coin alltogether. Is this true?

It is nearly impossible for anyone to "hold" 51% of all bitcoins and if they did it would mean little.  It would cost 100s of trillions of dollars to buy 51%.

What you may have been referring to is a 51% attack:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

oh ok, so it has to do with the computing power, not the total amount of bitcoins. makes sense to me

Yes. :-)  And even that is unlikely for many reasons.

No it is not possible that bitcoin will be regulated and if it was, there would be no way to know about it. It is like in China right now.

Of course it is possible and almost certain that governments will regulate Bitcoin. They're not just going to let people use and launder money without paying taxes on it.

the market cap is currently around 10 billion.. how would it cost hundreds of trilions to buy up 51% of the coins?


strongly disagree. look at what china has done to BTC, it's regualted them. governments can do as they please. maybe they can't completely stop BTC, but they can slow it down and ruin the price/liquidity of BTC.

You would have to 'regulate' the entire internet to stop bitcoin, making the internet much less free and anonymous for everyone, and even then it might not be possible. No one except statists and totalitarians want to regulate the internet, and fuck those freedom hating assholes. They can try. China is trying, and China is failing http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/btcchina/btccny (http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/btcchina/btccny)

Only a small part of the coins is actually being traded. You can't go anywhere near 51% by just buying up all the exchanges and as soon as you start buying on and off exchanges, people will start asking more and more for their coins. Slippage.

hundreds of millions is 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 the value of what BTC is worth today. i dont' know exactly how the math would add up if one entity were to buy them all, but that would be 10,000 the value of the cap today.

if you were to factor in the bitcoins lost, that number would likely be something like 5 million bitcoins to own half.. very unlikely, but then again, there is a lot of parity and one address (satoshis') holds 1.5 million coins itself.

Bitcoins could be outlawed like gambling with jail time.

Is it possible that Bitcoin will be regulated? Of course it's possible because it's already happened. AML/KYC regulations are already being used against Bitcoin businesses in the US.

You are mixing up a lot of different concepts in your head that you've heard or read about Bitcoin. A 51% attack is not about buying up controlling interest in all the coins. That is about one individual or cartel controlling all of the mining power. ASICS have pretty much made that impossible. It was once believed that pool operators could control the network with superior numbers (voluntary bot army so to speak). Large ASIC farms are being spread across countries and will keep this from happening.

I get tired of refuting you guys over and over again.

The authorities can tax those they identify, and then they can make those they identify culpable for all activity on the coin since mining to present, unless those individuals will present the id of those they bought from and sold to.

Thus with this approach, everyone will be forced to give up their id.

Thus for sure they can regulate it, because anonymity is not strong in Bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=231410.msg4158542#msg4158542). Only a minority need to fall, for the rest of the dominoes to fall.

Let's not start going back to trading chickens just yet. I guess there is still enough profit to be made from bitcoin and many other currencies like it  ;)

Investing 50 millions to gain the same amount of hashpower the network currently has is not that unlikely.
But the they don't care about bitcoin yet , they don't see it as a threat and until now , I don't see any reasons why they should.

Well, I can see how being wrong so much would be tiring.
There are so many loopholes around regulations of bitcoins, I'll just say this: With a few simple steps to protect your anonymity, no reasonable court of law would be able to prove the actions behind multiple bitcoin accounts were 1 human being.

It will be regulated.

The government already tracks down people through the blockchain.

If you only ever stayed in the blockchain and only sent transactions P2P you will still be found.

Most people have to put cash from their bank or from somewhere into their wallet address, which creates that link. You have to be a true fool to think Bitcoin is truely anonymous. Nothing over the internet will ever be truely anonymous, everything can/will be cracked, everything is hackable, everything has flaws and always always will. Nothing in this world has ever been perfect ever.

When you look at this from a perspective of history + reality, then you already have the answer to your question. It will be regulated because all governments create regulations on everything and always will.