Bitcoin Forum

Have you ever thought about Bitcoin becoming centralized someday? The ever-growing mainstream adoption of Bitcoin worldwide will only lead us closer to such scenario. To our surprise, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. The more popular the cryptocurrency becomes, the more countries will be tempted to follow El Salvador's footsteps. Imagine governments making their own mining facilities, or even buying pre-established mining companies in order to gain a piece of the pie. If they manage to control more than 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate, the cryptocurrency will effectively become centralized. That, and the fact that they already control centralized exchanges is a very alarming situation for the future of Bitcoin.

Of course, the only way governments worldwide will be able to control 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate is if they unanimously agree on using Bitcoin is a "One World Currency". This may all sound crazy, but we cannot ignore it from happening in the future.

What are your thoughts? Will Bitcoin be able to remain decentralized for the foreseeable future? Or not? What do you think will happen if governments fully embrace Bitcoin as the replacement of Fiat? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. :)

This will never happen to Bitcoin and governments won't waste time mining and taking control over Bitcoin that is 90% mined already,
they can just create their own centralized digital junk currencies with infinite supply and with shutdown button for anyone who is not obedient.
Look what is happening in the world now and you will see that is the way they are going.

I am not so sure that this ever become a real issue.  First off the United States isn't anywhere close to having bitcoin become any sort of currency for its citizens.  With the dollar being the worlds standard, they'd honestly be crazy to jeopardize that in any way.  Secondly by the time that they would enter the market I don't believe they would even be able to purchase that much in order to make it centralized in any way.  Just my 2.

They can if Chinese government, example takes over all the hashrate from miners in China. I don't think it will happen. They can not do such thing in dark ways and don't let the world know about that. They will slap on their faces by doing this.

However I don't feel surprise if governments in nations that are sanctioned like Iran, North Korea have run Bitcoin mining farms. They have nuclear power and the Internet. What they need is ASICs and here they go with Bitcoin mining.

What you ask is not impossible but I don't think it will happen in near future. Moreover, if it happens, we might see reaction from the community. Governments are always behind the community with creative idea.

I can imagine bitcoin becoming less decentralised if it gets large and stable enough for energy producers to mine it (but then I also think there are many more producers of renewable energy now than there were/are of coal/oil producers so we might not see that happening much).

I don't think a government would care too much to find a way to destroy crypto,  and sure someone like china, Russia or the US might want to take it down/control it just to prove they can but what happens when the algorithm changes and all the devs vote on it as well as a rewind (one government gets left with a bunch of equipment they can't use and the chain continues)? Also, stopping bitcoin from working stops bitcoin from working, it won't stop eth or other chains so what if all the btc is temporarily moved to another coin for a while as a token (even if it crashes "making it crash" and "completely blocking it" are two different things)?

A government adopting Bitcoin, and then paying through the teeth to have enough resources to maintain over 51% share of the mining power is even more silly than using a currency which you can infinitely print. Though, this hasn't stopped them in the past to be fair.

Nah, in all seriousness the expense required to maintain that sort of share in the network would greatly outweigh the benefits. It would be a better idea to try, and convince the mining pools that they need to follow some sort of law which gives the government control of their pools, and even that is far fetched.

Basically, dkbit98 said it above. If they consider Bitcoin a threat to their existing model, they'll likely evolve that system into a sort of government backed cryptocurrency, which will have all the same limitations or minor variations to what fiat is today, except their marketing plan will be far greater than anyone else's. So, in simple terms they wouldn't centralise Bitcoin, because in all reality it's impossible to do. Instead, they would attempt to replace it with a similar system, but something they can control.

I mean, most people are already converting to digital finances which will make the transition easier.

Edward Bernays taught us you don't have to destroy anything, instead you convince the people that your solution is a better one, and with the government's marketing budget, they''ll be able to easily convince the general public.

He also suggested that lack of acknowledgement usually brings more harm than good, and you can see that several governments, in fact probably at this point most governments in the world have acknowledged Bitcoin, and set certain regulations such as taxes.

BTC as One World Currency ;D Why would they even think of that in the first place? Each country will always prioritize their own national interest and will continue to protect their own currency. Hard to think they will ever unite just to control Bitcoin when they cannot do it to fiat for decades/centuries. Of course, there is a slim chance but that would probably take an alien invasion.

China had made this thing first and they create Digital Yuan after Bitcoin. They'll make themselves protect their own benefits and have nothing to share with others, and this will happen to the other countries someday. And maybe, all the countries will make their own digital currencies just for the sake of not to replace with crypto. Like, no matter what we do, no matter how powerful the country they are, this could never happen and Bitcoin will remain decentralized.

Not the way you imagine, but pause for a moment and think, isn't Bitcoin somewhat centralized even today? I do not mean exclusively where most crypto miners are located (which is difficult to determine precisely), but the fact that several globally positioned crypto exchanges hold several million BTC in their possession. Governments can always reach for a measure to seize all that BTC, for some reason they can invent at any given time.


As others have already said, it is a little too late for anyone to play with these things, because not only about 90% of the BTC is mined, but in less than 10 years that percentage will reach 99%. In addition, it is inconceivable to me that the US, China, UK, India, or Russia will one day declare a common currency - all these countries are very fierce in defending their national interests, and among those interests is the domestic currency.

The EU has a common currency, but some countries that have been members for a long time do not want to give up their currencies (Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic), so even though we are very pro-Bitcoin here, it is more than it is foolish to expect that such a scenario would materialize even in the distant future. I tend to believe that in some 150 to 200 years, money as such will cease to exist - but again, I may be watching too much science fiction (Star Trek) :)

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But didn’t China ban all crypto miners a few months ago, and most of them left the country? Maybe they just want us to be convinced of it, and at the same time, they are planning a 51% attack? ::)

It depends on what goals the leadership of a particular country will pursue.

But what you say, I think, is applicable only to capitalist countries. If a country like China really wants to harm the Bitcoin machine, then it will not spare resources to do it. But this is extremely unlikely, since such actions do not promise China either financial or strategic prospects. In addition, the moment is missed ... since significant mining capacities have already been exported from China, not to mention the fact that miners will not destroy their source of income.

I think its price will drop several times or maybe it will not be of interest to anyone at all, because the very concept of bitcoin and its history has always been based on its decentralization, I would say this is a formula for success, which should always be together with bitcoin.

They won't and they can't do such a thing to make bitcoin centralized, there will be much more and energy and power for it and that's what they don't have, the only thing they can do is to keep trying to ket control over their worthless fiat currencies and keep these currencies centralized otherwise they can just trying running away from bitcoin by banning bitcoin just like What they do in China because they are sure that they cannot make it centralized or take control over it which is still pointless.

Bitcoin on the whole is not just a currency but more than that. There lies economics, programming, mining, exchanges more and more so only if they are able to control all these, Bitcoin will become centralized. Nowadays, most of the famous centralized exchanges are demanding customers for KYC in order to trade to prevent any kind of mis-happenings like funding for drug trafficking, terrorism etc and in one form or the other these exchanges are indirectly controlled by various governments in the world.

Secondly, the Bitcoin source code is open source and controlling or centralizing the source code is near to impossible, so I'd rule out that one. Mining and Economics are already being controlled by various wealthy individuals and these wealthy individuals are already in control of the government as well (like Elon Musk is more powerful than a developing country itself). Through this we can infer that, just like Internet which is being controlled by wealthy popular companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple - The price action and Economics of Bitcoin will also be controlled by wealthy individuals but other than that the source code and the whole network will remain decentralized which is the fact to be considered.

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El Salvador isn't a bigger country to say and they adopting a volatile currency for the transfer of goods wouldn't be more of a headline news to other countries. If a first world country is able to adopt (which will never likely happen as they will be coming up with their own centralized stablecoin instead), then centralization might be achieved at some point of time in future. Bitcoin becoming the Internet of Money is happening but it being the World currency will never happen anytime as 95% of the governments will end up in bringing their own stablecoin rather than adopting a volatile currency. Bitcoin will never rule out government currencies but will co-exist along with them in the Internet.

Well, I have seen couple of reassuring messages on this forum that miners won't have that kind of power to affect the Bitcoin Network. That used to bother in the past hence my suggestion that decentralized mining should encouraged.

In regards to Centralized "Bitcoin", it can't be considered Bitcoin or true cryptocurrency any longer once it become centralized as it is meant to be decentralized by decentralized Global participants. It's as bad as being called a fiat currency once centralized by government. And there have been line drawn concerning the centralization of Bitcoin that no one can dare cross.

I do not believe a true Cryptocurrency can be used by government as One World Currency. It's going to be Fiat Currency because of the need to control it by Tyrannical World ruler

Nope, not really.
A 51% attack is what the name says, an attack and it's not a total control of the blockchain, one miner can choose to mine his chain in secret and when it's convenient for him to release his longer chain. But when this is over, it's over, the chain goes on and he must again mine in secret and release his longer chain back to the public over and over. But even if theoretically an attacker could do this continuously, he will not be able to control your coins, he will not be able to spend them.

Why would somebody do a thing like this which would obviously make the coin lose all value? There is no financial incentive for this, and the result would not be control, it would be destruction.

But I disagree with people saying that the movements will not waste money mining bitcoin..because...
Wait a f minute, just a month ago everyone was congratulating Bukele for starting his vulcanode and now mining is a waste of money? We have companies throwing millions in mining gear orders, the best revenue per TH is ages and suddenly mining is a waster of money? Common!!!

Very interesting, but as said before the government will care fully for the remaining percentage of mining which is currently almost 10%? obviously the government is just going to do its lot of alternatives to try to match Bitcoin even though it will never be the same.
There is always the possibility that the largest country will go on a massive expansion to adopt Bitcoin totally for 100% legal payments like El Salvador. Don't even use other alternative payments.

Let's see, that there is an opposition that is ready to launch an attack, El Salvador has it too and that will not be extinguished by the defense that the opposition does not like Bitcoin. This balance will make Bitcoin not fully centralized but will remain decentralized.

China takes the alternative route by placing restrictions, and laws to prevent its use. That however, usually has a detrimental effect in the long term, once the people start getting tired of being censored. However, I think the point still stands, China wouldn't benefit attacking Bitcoin by taking the majority of network hash rate, since there's cheaper ways to try, and prevent people from using it.

It's one thing achieving the majority, but maintaining it for any period of time where it would contribute considerably to their goal would be rather unrealistic, and unsustainable. Hence why we haven't seen it, Bitcoin has many enemies, yet there hasn't been that many significant attacks. Bitcoin is getting stronger as time goes on due to increased adoption, the optimal time to attack was the first opportunity that they learned about it. Though, I guess back then it didn't have as much faith in it as it does today, though that's the counter balance really, it isn't going to be sustainable for anyone for a long period of time.

I also agree with you here. With most world Governments still not giving that green light for cryptocurrencies to be traded freely in their countries, I don't think that they are likely possibility that something like this can happen, and with people like Hillary Clinton warning nation-states to pay attention to Cryptocurrency Crypto Has Potential for “Undermining the Role of the Dollar as the Reserve Currency” (https://blockworks.co/hillary-clinton-crypto-has-potential-for-undermining-the-role-of-the-dollar-as-the-reserve-currency/) why would a country like the US even think of that as you said. I know people will continue to think if there is a likely possibility of some moves that some Government can do to control or bring down Bitcoin and other cryptos but I think this can be one of them.  

Pure fantasy, it's not that easy to go and check bitcoin, maybe one way (MAYBE) if all the world agrees, I think such a thing is impossible. You cannot manage these flows, El Salvador has made good use of bitcoin, I have read that the president plans to create 20 schools to study cryptocurrencies.
Surely as some say they could create a new cryptocurrency or use existing ones and adopt them ... the world has changed and will continue to change, bitcoin for life

I don't think bitcoin can become centralized. Even if the government manage to do what you just said, you can always use some other crypto. They cannot go after all of them. There will always be some independent/decentralized projects out there. My second choice would be monero probably. I think it would be a great replacement for bitcoin and it has an awesome feature which bitcoin lacks, anonymity.

bitcoin is already centralized

1 - many rich people hold many bitcoins

2 - exchanges ask for KYC and real data when people create accounts

3 - for people to buy bitcoin they use bank accounts

4 - most people (I'm one of them) withdraw bitcoin to bank account

5 - Most people are always happy with things like Bitcoin ETF precisely because they want big investors and regulatory markets to come in and start using or trading bitcoin

about mining? Oh electricity is from the government so where is the decentralization?

They're very late if they decide to make it centralized.. And for sure for them its a waste of time since the value of bitcoin price itself is very high, so for short its useless.  But you know if they're really interested on it wherein if they have plans to implement such decisions perhaps at the first place they already execute that thing.. But the fact that most of them were very against in crypto, reason they ignored it and want to ban it instead. Lol so don't expect a good decision from them when it comes crypto because they don't like such thing ever since before., and for that reason it's impossible to happen as well in the future..

Once there is a country who can prove its beneficial in their government, one or two government will sure to start to follow but since making Bitcoin centralized is against on its purposed that’s why some country did not tend to focus on it as they see more ways that it will not be helpful in their government or will not make money for them like China is  focusing on implementing their own crypto and banning cryptos that will make their people out of paying taxes to them.

However, it must be decentralized, as long as you use an exchange or use some centralized medium, your funds are completely decentralized in the Bitcoin blockchain. No one has the power or ability to seize or freeze your wallet's funds unless you disclose your private key. "Decentralized" and "Anonymity" are different things, Yes nowadays it is less anonymous but still fully decentralized.

Each country does have particular takings about Bitcoin and most of them do falls on the negative side which they are trying to centralized or regulate things around which do involves bitcoin which it isnt surprising that they would come up into that idea because talking on centralizing it directly or technically couldnt really be possible and for sure they had able to try it out since from the beginning
when bitcoin is starting out to make out some popularity and making such bigger adoption as years passed which it wont really be that surprising that they would really be
testing out different ways on just to follow on whats up into their mind.

Can be possible if they will buy the entire market and put everything in their hands. We sometimes think that prices are already manipulated by whales, by influential people, and yes, we could admit such a thing. But it just stops there, that is the only thing they could do, and still, they can't control the entire market knowing that they don't hold this. And I know that no country has the courage to take it all in order to have this control and risk money with this volatile market. It never makes sense anymore and they could not benefit from this then rather have their own currency instead.

This, governments do not play following the rules of someone else, they are the ones that get to make the rules so I doubt they will try to subvert bitcoin in that way, they will just create their own currencies that look like bitcoin but which run on the opposite ideals and promote them heavily on the media, people then will just adopt them thinking those currencies are a better form of fiat and will think they are better than bitcoin as they have the backing of the governments, only a few will realize the trick and will get the real thing, which is exactly what is happening right now.

To begin with, the Chinese nation has an exceptionally subtle mentality, it is a kind of closed community that has developed for several thousand years in parallel with the rest of the world. Yes, they also have corrupt politicians and mercantile people, but the Chinese first of all take care of each other.

Therefore, you can forget about the long-term prospects, because what their government has done will ultimately benefit only the Chinese. I deviated a little from the topic, but it was just about strategic interests ... If China really saw an enemy in Bitcoin, we would see a lot more attacks no matter how many years ago there cyber department learned about the existence of Bitcoin.  :P

if bitcoin becomes the world's currency then that's pretty crazy, which is a good idea, but we have to realize to be like that and what we hope to be requires a very hard and rigorous process. For that we can hope and declare something crazy for the future, but we should not forget the process..! I think there's some hope for bitcoin to be centralized, but it's impossible in my country, because they still think bitcoin is the enemy of state banks, so it's very difficult.

It wouldn't so far fetch if all governments ban mining for they only make it for them, they are the only ones allowed to mine. So they would have to ban it first and then pass a law that only the government can have a mining farm. This is close to being centralized.

Today, they start the news with an energy crisis in which they would have to monitor the energy usage of all house hold. But it could be in reality they'd be monitoring if anyone is mining. Just a conspiracy theory.  ;D

First and foremost, people need to understand what the word centralization is. Knowing and understanding what centralization is, will help people from believing or having an assumption that the government has any chance of making bitcoin centralized. Bitcoin will forever remain a decentralized asset and digital currency.  It's quite unfortunate that people still have doubts and don't understand what decentralization and blockchain technology is all about.

Doubt this will ever happen. There's nothing to be had in mining a coin in which its supply is almost exhausted. Plus, suppose they were successful in overpowering the network and taking control of the chain. Its value will plummet almost immediately rendering their efforts useless, or the network will just fork off and the people will recognize which is the chain that is controlled by the government and which one is not.

IMO, the government is better off creating their own coin rather than meddling with bitcoin, or any other established coin for that matter.

You either don't know what centralized means or don't know what having 51% of the hashrate means.
Owning hashrate won't centralized bitcoin, they won't even be able to censor bitcoin transactions because the remaining 49% will still mine your transactions.
Besides you are forgetting that bitcoin is a global currency not only operating in one country. If one government started building up its hashrate, others will do the same too so we could essentially end up with multiple governments each owning a tiny portion of the hashrate like 10%.

Same arguments about hashrate but additionally centralized exchanges have nothing to do with bitcoin!

Now, many countries around the world are starting to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, but many are also against it. A further concern for Bitcoin users is that Bitcoin becomes more controlled if a country can hold the 51% of Bitcoin currently circulating in the market, but achieving that in my opinion is difficult because Bitcoin mining revenue is always halved every 4 years. I think Bitcoin will remain decentralized even though many parties want to control Bitcoin but it will be in vain. Whereas Bitcoin cannot replace fiat because fiat is protected by the regulations of each country so it is impossible for fiat to be replaced by Bitcoin.

I also think that bitcoin and government will not unite. however, there are many things that bitcoin has in its possession but challenges the government.
however, if the government intends to have more bitcoins so that bitcoins become centralized, I think it's still quite difficult. given that the price of bitcoin is unstable. if the government owns 51% of bitcoin, but the rest is still very much free to trade. it will only make bitcoin like being held by the government, and the government also has the same impact as us. imagine, if the bitcoin adoption rate were to decrease because of this, it could have an impact on the price going down. and if the government has a higher percentage, then the losses received by the government can be very large. Well, the only way around this is for the government to allow bitcoin as a payment alternative, and adopt bitcoin privately.

I think that very little will change dramatically. Perhaps they will have to pay taxes, but they have been wanting to do this for a long time.

Speaking as a southeast Asian for whom China and the Chinese are a part of out lives no matter how we want the situation to be, I agree. I always feel that the stuff I read about what the world thinks of China or how it will move/progress is a little too much like what China would like them to believe.

China has never, not in a thousand years, preferred to be obvious. Soft power, subtle advances, economic strengthening elsewhere. This is how they flex their muscle and influence.

So if they did see Bitcoin as an enemy, it wouldn't react by attacking, but by learning, infiltrating, copying and subverting.

I don't think this is going to happen, and that Bitcoin will get more centralized than it already is. If one country makes a big move on Bitcoin, attempting to take control over it, others will follow. Also, this will increase the demand and thus the price will rise, making taking every new bit of control more difficult, if it makes sense. Mining is in the hands of big companies, and I don't think they'll get sold to governments. Moreover, I don't see any government that would be willing to attempt taking control over Bitcoin like that and be resourceful enough to do it. So even if fiat started being replaced by Bitcoin (and that is not happening now), Bitcoin would still remain decentralized.

I believe at the end cryptocurrency will dominate the governments' power. Since civilization starts we made the wrong choices about financial control mechanism and I believe with the nakamoto we found the correct path. Thanks to nakamoto, he/she/they gave us the real freedom. This freedom which nakamoto gave is like double side sword. If you want to control it you will damage yourself. Instead of try to controlling; if we use it how much we need it, we will be totally free :)

This is the scenario that we have been talking about for years.... and I think the sentiments and thoughts about that was that if this might happen, then people will sell their coins and move over to another Alt coin... or develop a new coin that will suit the need of the people moving to the new coin.  ;)

These governments will have a very stormy relationship with the tax payers, if they have to continuously buy more and more hash rate to "dominate" the mining power of all these coins.  ;)

Dude, you need to control your emotions and don't think it's weird to be the currency of the world with bitcoin, this idea has been used on a very small scale for a long time but it is very fragmentary and now we are just assembling these small parts together to form a full scale and launch before the world. The obstacles are still the decision power belongs to the user or the government, will be in the form of centralized or decentralized, and most of us are fighting for the decentralized master, less in favor of bitcoin's centralization due to the brutality of governments in their regulatory regime

Bitcoin cannot be centralized by any government in the world because they can only centralize someone they have power over ad the last time I checked the government has understood that Bitcoin is inevitable and cant be control by them. However, they can only manipulate or regulate the centralized exchange site.

Bitcoin can't be centralized, what'll happen if more than half the mined coins gets accumulated within the wallets of very few corporate firms. Governments fear for its decentralised functioning, at times the manipulative power within the hands of corporates can turn to be a disadvantage for bitcoin network in the future.

I think it is possible to see more and more government of a country considering adopting bitcoin in the future and this may have been discussed many time before but I believe only a few percent of countries in the world would agree. But we should also know that government will not be able to fully control the bitcoin network just because they want to turn it into a centralized asset. The government will create its own fully centralized digital currency instead of legalizing and adopting bitcoin as a legal currency.

I can give an example that currently there is a discourse between the government and Bank Indonesia to create their own digital currency which can then be legalized as a means of payment while they will still prohibit bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from being used as currency. This idea will probably begin to be adopted by many other countries because the government know bitcoin will not be easy to control. So I'm not so worried about the loss of bitcoin decentralization just because of this increased adoption.

Y’all should stop with all these one currency crap please. By the way, nothing like what you have said here is going to happen. If the governments has any plans at all, it is nothing more than creating their own digital currency and forcing people to stop making use of decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. And in a few countries, they are already doing this; trying to stop people from making use of these cryptocurrencies, while they release their own digital currencies, such as the Chinese digital Yuan.

As for Bitcoin, there will be nothing like becoming centralized, except for the centralized exchanges who would be a tool for the government to an extent. But that doesn’t mean that bitcoin is centralized, it still remains decentralized.

A government can control Bitcoin and it is easier if they regulate the market and any exchange running in that country will provide ever transaction details to the government, so it is not a strange thing. They might not control the entire market but they can control what is happening with the transactions in the exchanges that is registered with them.

I think it completely destroys the purpose on why BTC was created in the first place.

Satoshi imagined BTC as a form of alternative currency where it eliminates the need for a third-party consensus in making payments. By making it centralized, it will function relatively the same as fiat which would destroy his vision on why it was first originally created. The reason also on why BTC's price is so high in the market is due to its decentralized factor where only the blockchain is the source of its transactions.

the answer is impossible i think since at first bitcoin decentralized and form the hype right know more people adopting it and more node spread controling bitcoin will impossible you need to create super node with 51% is crazy amount of money and off course the electricty it self

Exactly. There are many big players holding a large stake in Bitcoin today. This brings inequality, which goes against Blockchain technology's value proposition. The more centralized exchanges hold large stakes of Bitcoin, the less-decentralized the cryptocurrency will be.

A contingency plan would be to increase Bitcoin's total supply. But that would break Bitcoin's scarcity. Mining pools introduce another risk of centralization, as big miners gain all of the benefits in the long run. Solo mining is a much more decentralized option, but extremely unprofitable to perform on Bitcoin. Imagine what would be of Bitcoin if governments create their own mining facilities. A large portion of the network's hashrate will be controlled by them, effectively putting decentralization at risk. I hope that doesn't turn out to be the case in the long run, in order to provide censorship-resistant money to the world. Just my thoughts ;D

I think that if every country accepted Bitcoin as a means of payment, it will be still distributed around the world that means that it will be decentralised. The danger is that if all countries accepted Bitcoin and one country, for example, US seized more than 50%, it will mean that US government really take over the world. As they will be able to control process of transferring money in all countries.

Why would the government make BTC centralized? It's impossible as they didn't have the control of the transactions nor the "central core" wherever it is now or if it does exist. However, regulated crypto wallets and exchanges can be controlled and we don't have the full custody despite low trading fees and fast transactions.

For now i never think about that, or maybe bitcoin will replace fiat. Maybe what to be focus is how bitcoin can adopt by more people, or who made bitcoin illegal, can be make it legally although only to be as an assets. If a lot of country legalize bitcoin, in case like when people have bitcoin is not a crime, then we can think about bitcoin as payment all over the world.

You make a good point and what you said about corporate firms is what I have thought about long ago. However, it will lead to the manipulation of the market, not Bitcoin centralization.

I'm surprised you believe a government can control something that's way too big for them and the last time I checked the government also agreed that they can't control Bitcoin but only regulate the CEX which is quite different to control Bitcoin.

Governments making bitcoin centralized for starters this is not possible! As far as i know Bitcoin is on auto pilot, its not like we have a control room where somebody is pressing some buttons here and there to influence its behavior.  
As far as control goes, the only thing that our governments can do is have some influence over it in form of regulation anything besides this can not affect it...the closest they can do to centralize it, is to make it legal tender.

I guess the bet is that they won't. That their CBDCs will be enough.

Are you sure? They'd earn the majority of the bitcoins that are mined everyday. And in fact, a government already entered mining which makes me curious if the rest will follow. El Salvador may not have bad intentions, but I have no idea of the others' intention. It's attractive to own a great share of the network.

They could potentially attack it, making it seem useless so we can turn round to their digital currencies. It wouldn't cost that much.

Why? why are you thinking like that?
Bitcoin will never ever become centralized, why? Have you heard there's someone who modified the code of bitcoin which has a unique protocol that only bitcoin has? It is impossible to be centralized because bitcoin has its own unique feature and that is decentralized.

Besides, why do governments need to be centralized bitcoin? They have their own currency that can be used in a centralized way, not bitcoin.

this is my thought, if the government embraces the government then the value will be the same as fiat, that sounds boring. as long as the identity of satoshi is not known then bitcoin will not be controlled by the government and its value will continue to be volatile and that is the beauty of bitcoin.

Well they are all tried , yet it's like a mission impossible and we as a crypto enthusiast can only laughing at them. facebook itself as a huge corporate tried that and they received a lot of shit from government while they are also developing the same shit lol.

especially thesedays where crypto popularity are on top and even getting hot.

Just answering a lot of question about people who keep asking about bitcoin replacing fiat, or bitcoin supported by government, or centralized bitcoin, people keep asking about it because think that bitcoin ready to be used like that and government itself wouldn't ever to centralized bitcoin like what you said and guy above me who said it is mission impossible. I think beside focus on that, maybe better we focus for more adoption, reach more people so more demands can be created no matter bitcoin itself will be used for what.

This will never gonna happen. As much as the government wants to take control of everything, they just can't with bitcoin, given its decentralized functionality. It will just become a little regulated, but not to the extent they can do anything with it such as manipulating its prices or even producing more of it like what they usually do with fiat money.

The government do not want something so complicated when they can have a better option for their own agendas. In addition, each governing body of a country has a responsibility and duty to boost their economic growth as well as to let their local currency bloom together with the overall state of their country. So the thing that you say 'one world currency' would be impossible. Also, I don't think the central organization would allow such speculative entity to take over and be dominant all over the world. With the features of bitcoin, they would not really like for it to be used globally unless of course it will benefit them. But then again, why would they want something complex when they already have the thing they need to have power? It's like digging their very own graves. The moment the fiat monetary system ends will be the same moment they won't no longer experience and enjoy the things that they are enjoying today (assuming that the government officials are greedy).

But to answer your question, even if it is really veryyy impossible to happen, bitcoin would lose its essence the time it will be centralized. The original purpose of why it was invented and established would be defeated. We can no longer do what we are used to do if ever it will be regulated because surely the government will intervene in every processes and transactions. This could possibly have benefits to our community, but it has a big repercussions as well. Let's just accept that there are certain things that needed to be left as it is to avoid future complications to both parties.

The possibility of Bitcoin been centralized is by far really narrow, Bitcoin has gone a long way and gained so much recognition to be centralized.
But let's assume it's possible, Bitcoin would loose it's value because top Investors would all withdraw from the system.

The government can only try to regulate Bitcoin but not to completely manipulate it.

Naturally, they could print an infinite amount of money to acquire necessary mining hardware to perform an attack on the network, or they could bribe or coerce the miners to work for the benefit of the State. However, the thing is that the uncontrolled printing would make their national currency hyperinflated and almost worthless, especially if compared to a disinflationary currency such as Bitcoin. The whole economy may collapse. I don't think they will take such a risk if there is no guarantee of success. Anyway, what is the point of making Bitcoin a centralized currency? It won't have these helpful features as CBDCs do.

As a side note, a centralized decentralized digital currency sounds like an oxymoron. A centralized Bitcoin doesn't make any sense: it either stays decentralized or cannot be called Bitcoin.

If they really wanted to nationalize and centralize Bitcoin, they would simply order their citizens to hand over Bitcoin to the State. If citizens refused to follow the order of the State, they would find themselves in jail for disobedience. It is not that hard to issue an order, I don't know what stops them?

It seems to me that you are recycling an old discussion. ;D
In reality,there's no point for any government to invest(or waste) billions of dollars into buying or building mining facilities.
What's the point?Getting revenue from transaction fees?Don't make me laugh.
In theory,if such thing happens and some government takes control over 51% of the hashrate,two things will happen:
1.First.The vast majority of the Bitcoin community will abandon Bitcoin Core and choose an alternative.
2.Second.The Bitcoin price will collapse to a really low value,which makes the entire operation unprofitable.

What's gotten in return from centralizing bitcoin ?
Ion think this is a good move to some government,but some are without selfish interest,not having full control over bitcoin and giving a green for bitcoin activities to be carried out, a simple example is that of El Salvador.

This is the exact reason why, a bitcoin 51% attack from the government in a bid to bring in centralization into bitcoin can never work. Countries on the world can never be united on any course. Not even within a continent. The idea of a general currency within a continent have been established but up to this moment, its been unachievable.
With nations looking out for selfish gains and interest, which nation should control what and who owns what, bitcoin is off limits for centralization by nations of the world. The best they could attempt is what they've been trying to do since. Creation of a digital currency that would be pegged with fiat and it haven't gotten them any further into what cryptocurrency really is.

Just like what they've done with the vaccine when they won't force people to get vaccinated but they made some rules for the people who are not yet vaccinated. They can lock down an entire country with just some rumor of a new Covid variant and when they create their own bitcoin, I'm pretty sure that they can force someone to sell it or to make it look bad so that they can get it back. Just look what is happening to the billionaires in China. If the whales are known to the public, their government will take advantage of them.

Exactly. El Salvador was the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender, so it should only be a matter of time before other countries follow suit. There's the risk of centralization, since governments could easily control mining operations and centralized exchanges in order to manipulate Bitcoin to their own will. Besides, the cryptocurrency has an unequal distribution of its supply these days. Most big players have a large stake in Bitcoin, while the little guy is left out of the system. If this keeps up, Bitcoin will reach centralization faster than you'd imagine.

At least, the project's open source nature will keep it going for a long time. In the event Bitcoin becomes centralized, the community could simply create a new fork with a different consensus algorithm and a more equal supply distribution. Let's hope decentralization prevails in the long run for the good of crypto/Blockchain tech. Just my thoughts ;D

I think it's good, even if it really happens I make sure everyone will make bitcoin a very promising investment in the future, everyone will buy bitcoin at an expensive price they will want to buy it. So it's a good step to invest in the future..!!

That was an abuse of their authority, I guess. The government supposedly will help the community but instead, they become helpless in the way that they will take advantage of their power to manipulate all the things around and make the people follow them forcefully. Now, I was thinking that there is a bigger chance for them to make Bitcoin become centralized and take control of its prices. Like what happens to the country where they are imposing strict rules, it was clear to design that someday it fall into their hands.

The cooperation or relationship between government and bitcoin is far. Is like Combinating bitcoin and government together for fight, and in other way round it's also like the process whereby putting lighting matches and fuel so close, so to expatiate this to our understanding, never will it happen, that government adopt bitcoin and bitcoin also become centralized, do you realize that when we say centralization, we are making reference of regulations by organization or a particular sector if bitcoin happened to be centralized. Which i know vividly that bitcoin will remain in decentralized platform.

Since many countries are still against bitcoin because they are not the one controlling bitcoin which is try to be more popular than fiat money in the country. Bitcoin will remain decentralized currency that anyone can use to invest and start making profits from your investment. Bitcoin cannot become a centralized currency because the country to be the one to control the decentralized currency will be a challenges to the countries.

I don't think something like this will ever happen, the price of bitcoin is now too high even though it will be even higher but there is only a little left because most of it has been mined and of course the government doesn't want to bother making something like this happen right now.
on the other hand I feel that bitcoin will still be bitcoin like now there will be no system that supports the government to make btc centralized

I don't think BTC can become centralized. For this to happen, someone must buy more than half of all issued BTC, and if we are talking about the mass adoption of BTC, it turns out that it becomes even more decentralized, as the number of BTC owners increases. In turn, complete centralization occurs when someone alone owns an asset or most of it and thereby influences the market and its development. At the moment, many holders have BTC and it is available for purchase without restrictions.

Yup, exactly. These reasons alone are sufficient to argue that centralization is not going to work. It will not work and it is because of exactly this that the cryptocurrency that drives away from centralization was born.

With such a large market demand and already setting off as a decentralized example, Bitcoin will never be controlled in a centralized manner no matter what governments try.

If you mean theoretically, then yes. They can do it. However that's one of their worst case scenarios. They don't need to print anything; they already have enough money to attack the network. It's not going to cost more than a billion dollars.

There's no guarantee of success? Their success is you abandoning bitcoin and using a far more “secure” digital currency whose centralization is assured. If you ask me, I won't keep using it as a cryptocurrency if it got a 51% attack.

They don't have to retain it. They just need to empty all the past few thousands of blocks. That will be enough for the community to throw up their hands.

So this achievement you gain by using this forum and using Bitcoin? Very pathetic.
Although Bitcoin can never be fully centralized because more than 90% of Bitcoin has been mined and its spread has increased a lot. If Bitcoin will ever be centralized then can you tell me what is the difference between fiat money and centralized bitcoin? People can't rely on fiat money so look for alternatives so they can keep their assets safe. that's why they are investing in Bitcoin cause it is decentralized and safe heaven to store our assets.

even centralized, it will still be the BTC!  BTC continue to live on!

OP, I just think that the government is only capable of controlling users rather than making bitcoin centralized. The thing that most support this assumption is that the government will not want to invest as much just to control bitcoin and make it centralized including controlling mining. They would rather create their own crypto than waste time in an endeavor that doesn't guarantee success, but I just believe that the government has been successful enough to control most users so far to comply with existing regulations with KYC and AML.

I won't worry about this in the future as I feel that the current government adoption and so on still won't change the decentralized nature of bitcoin but they could centralize its users.

It will bring huge impact in the price of bitcoin. It will became trusted a by many of the governments. The price of bitcoin is not purely on adopted altcoin.Can the centralization will bring new people to the investments of crypto tradings.If more people get into investments,the price of bitcoin will increase automatically and gives you more profit.

What will you do your profit if you don't have any control of it? do you know what decentralized actually is? Decentralized system means no one has control of your funds except you. If govt able to freeze your coin and seize your profit and take unnecessary tax then what you will do with your profit? Investors will never trust such kind of centralized system.

It doesn't mean that once we are in a centralized market we don't have control of our funds, it has been said that the government will take control of the price where they can pump and dump if they want. The only advantage of being in a decentralized state is that the market moves freely but because of the whale's participation, we are no longer that fully decentralized status, price can still be manipulated by them.
But in terms of security, it is too weak than being back-up by the government.

True, decentralized or centralized it may still be controlled, and currently, the government may not have the authority to centralize Bitcoin but it is definitely backed by whales, therefore, regardless whether if it is centralized or decentralized, the market and Bitcoin is still owned by the whales, I'd still go for a decentralized system but you can never rely on a single currency, the market is as huge as the ocean.

Yeah, the whales of the market holds a big volume of the entire bitcoin mined. This gives them the authority to have control over the market. At times the Whales manipulation makes the market look like an centralized platform. However beyond certain limit they weren't able to make big impact. The whales create disturbance, but it is the users who make the market go down or up based on the level of panic at times.

if its possible they will do it and bitcoin will crash that's it nothing else.

 

There will be big whales that are capable to manipulate the market, but the price of crypto coins will greatly depend on the community that are supporting it. And i don't think government will waste their time on controlling on such coins that are fully decentralized. It will never really happen because in the first place, bitcoin is decentralized so it will never come to the point of making it centralized.

However, bitcoin may be less decentralized in the future because of its massive adoption, but it will never be fully centralized in the making. Satoshi had made bitcoin for the sake of freedom that people don't have when it comes to controlling their own money.

The government can only make bitcoin centralized through their regulation, if they will implement strict rules on bitcoin, then eventually people will feel that bitcoin is no anymore decentralized as a payment method and digital currencies made by the government is easier to use.

Bitcoin has only become an investment haven, but due to its popularity, the government might be forced to make their own digital coin so they will still dominate and bitcoin users will be mostly the investors who are just trying to hedge their money on the possible hyper inflation.

It is a difficult thing if not impossible if the government will make Bitcoin centralized. Bitcoin cannot be controlled by anyone, including the government and the state. Banks are also the real enemy of Bitcoin. Bitcoin gives us monetary freedom that the government has not given us so far. It is therefore impossible that the government will interfere or take part in the development of Bitcoin.

I'm thinking of any way that the governments can centralized Bitcoin but I can't think of any (or just that I'm not that good at thinking :D).
Anyway, first they didn't create the coin. Second how can they get all those 18,881,100 BTC that are in circulation right now because if you want a currency to become centralized, you must have a full access to it and to start that you must have all or  if not most of the coins.

I don't think that this is ever possible but they can try if they want to. I mean companies are using a huge portion of their money just to mine crypto coins and get profit so the government can do it too.

It is interesting, of course, what will happen in this case. I think that traders will still bypass this control.

I agree with you bro. I also think it is never possible. Because if we want to centralize a coin we must have full access to that coin. I think the government will never be able to have full access to Bitcoin.

If its possible to be modified then they have done this a long time ago and would able to prevent on what it had attained or reached as of this moment when it comes to recognition and adoption.

They could make all coins that they do like but it would really just the same as fiat which is "centralized" as always as it should be and they wouldnt really be tending to create
things which is out of their control.

This is the main reason on why Bitcoin did really come this far because it cant be something be controlled nor be traced up.

With how centralized exchanges are holding large amounts of Bitcoin, it's easy enough for governments to centralize the Blockchain in its entirety. There's unequal distribution in Bitcoin's supply as we speak. At least, Bitcoin's mining hashrate is widely distributed thanks to China's full government crackdown. The more miners we have from different areas of the world, the better it'll be for Bitcoin's decentralization. El Salvador already announced a Bitcoin mining initiative using Volcanoes as a source of power. As long as governments don't control more than 51% of the hashrate, Bitcoin will do fine for many generations. Just my opinion :)

If I had to trade instant government trust with bitcoin being centralized then I personally would reject things like this because I really think when they become centralized it means it's the same as fiat today and bitcoin won't be anything unique anymore.
but this is my opinion which is what i feel will be.

on the other hand now the bitcoin adoption rate is getting better from year to year and there is no need for government intervention to make it happen because from the start without any government intervention bitcoin can become what it is now

It's true that if the government wants to make Bitcoin centralized, it makes Bitcoin no different from fiat. This means that Bitcoin's original purpose
as a decentralized currency has changed, and I don't think that's what Bitcoin users want. After all the government will not be able to make
Bitcoin centralized, the government may only limit the use of Bitcoin, by not legalizing Bitcoin completely. Then governments will create their
own cryptocurrencies, which makes the most sense, rather than centralize Bitcoin. Although there are still many rejections of Bitcoin from
several countries, the Bitcoin adoption process continues and Bitcoin is increasingly expensive. So Bitcoin really can't be stopped by anyone,
and will get bigger in the future.

They can create centralized virtual currencies as much as they want but never in the case for bitcoin. Being decentralized for bitcoin is what makes it more appealing and makes the people to stay in it away from the hands of the government.

I know they can still pursue in making bitcoin centralized but I don't think if it will succeed in the long run. Probably, most of the people still prefer bitcoin to stay decentralized.

Never.
Bitcoin cannot be centralized.
The government will only be able to regulate other parties related to Bitcoin like the exchanges and other platforms. They can make centralized systems of the exchanges, but not for Bitcoin. It is too complex to centralize Bitcoin.
Although some government don't like with this condition and force to regulate Bitcoin, in fact so far, they cannot do it directly.
but, let's see later how they will make some regulations related to Bitcoin again. But not meaning for centralization probably

If bitcoin becomes centralized it will be hand cap, because a lot of artificial and external authority will come up by the government and it will be overwhelming by government also, i dont think it is acknowledgeable to agree that bitcoin should base under centralized currency like fiat, yes bitcoin will get it value but it won't be strong like before.

Let's assume it was really possible for bitcoin to get centralized maybe an adoption as a one world currency and government taking over mining pools. Did  you consider the amount of bitcoin already mined by the decentralized miners ?. Its just obvious bitcoin can't just go centralized at the moment the government are handicapped and all the can do for now is try to stop further mining or ban bitcoin in their country and also impose their centralized digital currency on their citizens and nothing more

Good thing that bitcoin is decentralized already and there's no way they could make it centralized by cheating or hoarding coins, it would totally make no sense even if they wanted to, bitcoin had far started more a decade ago, government would take action at large as late as today.
Take for example China, we all knew that they're trying to control cryptocurrencies or atleast make them an overseer or middleman about the transactions, but look at China now, they have given up already and took a legal action to ban bitcoin across mainland China.

Yes, they have leave bitcoin behind and end up creating their digital yuan that is fully centralized. Just like China, if other countries will also try to adopt bitcoin and make it centralized, i doubt if they will succeed on it. Bitcoin has been here for a decade being decentralized and that people have seen its value and worth already as a decentralized coin so probably, they won't also let such governments to make bitcoin centralized as they will lost their full control on their bitcoins and eventually, lost their expected profits too as everything will be fully credited to the government.

That's right, even without government intervention bitcoin will still be green and will continue to do so, so why force them to accept bitcoin in the near future, especially by making bitcoin centralized this is something I can't accept.

even though we still need legality, but to do something like that is a loss for me personally because I am very sure that sooner or later adoption will continue to go in a better direction and like it or not if the government does not want to be left behind they must be able to make regulations on bitcoin legalization and I'm sure it will happen

And I don't even trust that move by the Chinese government. Do you really think they don't possess any Bitcoin? I just can't believe that. China is a big player in literally any important game all around the world and just think about the idea that they gobbled up loads of Bitcoin when it was between $500 and $5000. 200k BTC at $5000 is just a billion USD. That's pocket money for them. Now think about the idea that they started way earlier than that. There is a real possibility that they own enough Bitcoin to certainly not miss out on the incredible potential it has financially and perhaps even geopolitically.

Lots doesnt have that trust on the government specially on banning something but they do actually possess something which it isnt really that surprising for that kind of behavior.
You couldnt really trust up on any decisions that they would make and of course they would do actions that they would benefit them out and wont really be tending to go
to the path on which they do seems that it will really be a disadvantage to them.
Making bitcoin centralized? We know it is technically impossible thats why they do focus on platforms that is attached to it.

How governments can make decentralized system centralized? To make this they perhaps need to have one center. You know, if a conspiracy theory about one world government and “golden billion” will embody than BTC really can become one world currency of one huge country on the Earth controlled by center by some law. Can you imagine such huge reconstruction of the world? As for me, it sounds fantastic but no one (among ordinary mortals) knows what is really planned.

I belive that Government won't and they can't do such a thing to form bitcoin centralized, there will be much more and vitality and control for it and that's what they do not have, the as it were thing they can do is to keep attempting to ket control over their useless fiat monetary forms and keep these monetary standards centralized something else they can just trying running absent from bitcoin by forbidding bitcoin a bit like we take case What they do in most dveloped contries but since they are beyond any doubt that they cannot make it centralized or take control over it which is still inconsequential.

With wider adoption the mining system becomes more robust, so in the event of mass adoption, I wouldn't be concerned about miners being centralized to one area, theoretically there'd be more around the world. Using volcanoes as a power source sounds like some PR strategy oppose to a legitimate source of energy, but nuclear energy technologies are rapidly being developed and I expect nuclear powered mining facilities to be a real thing in the future.

Well, though there are too many countries trying to do that it has been always contradicting to the bitcoin nature, the decentralized nature of bitcoin will hardly become a centralized one. Government has its own centralized currency and I don't think this is necessary that they will have to pursue centralized bitcoin which is heavily regulated by them. However, in fact, bitcoin can be regulated by the government but not directly on it, they can do that on their citizen.

I think you are saying that more than 200 countries are uniting to control Bitcoin's computing power, which is hard to imagine.

I think, not all countries can think like the country of El-Salvador which legalized bitcoin as a legal currency. every country has strong fundamentals and of course every country has a different philosophy. so to become one world currency, it is really impossible except to make bitcoin a legal digital business in every country and not as a legal currency to be transacted.

Well, my opinion on the matter of government centralization of Bitcoin is that even if they were to control the right amount of hashrate to take control, why would they do so for a currency which is already mostly mined and the attempt of centralization alone will only incentivize people to switch to a different crypto on another blockchain, thus plummeting the value of Bitcoin and making it something that nobody wants to use.

The attempt itself would be a huge waste of time and funds. In the end, a fruitless endeavor.

this sounds really hard to happen but it never hurts to fantasize about it for a while. What makes bitcoin special is that it is decentralized. but if the government made it centralized would people still use bitcoin? seems to be slowly abandoned and the price will drop drastically.

Although I don’t see how that is going to be possible for the government, but let’s just imagine that the government in one way or the other succeeds in making Bitcoin or the whole crypto currencies become centralized, would people still make use of it? My answer to that would be a yes. And of course we are not going to like it that way, but people will still make use of it.

We are not going to be happy that it has become centralized, but I don’t think that would be enough reason for us to abandon it and stop investing in it. Even if such things should happen, people will still continue to invest their money in Bitcoin. But then, I believe that it is not going to be possible that the government would turn Bitcoin from decentralized to being centralized. I am open to any opinion that can prove me wrong on this.

Have you ever heard about WBTC? No one can centralized the Bitcoin in a De-Fi world.

Even if a government do owns a cryptocurrency and they regulates the whole structure and frameworks, it wouldn't mean that they can amass supporters who will invest on it. Personally, people nowadays are into cryptocurrency because of the reason of liberty and a secure space that no one is a boss, and because it is a decentralized platform. If government will continue this one, who would actually support them if the reasons and facts are against it.

You can think of every government have its own crypto alternative to fiat currency but this model won't be so easy to implement. Consider if a rich county buying all the cheap coins of a poor country and virtually overcome it.
Even if this happens, bitcoin will still remain popular and people would not stop investing in it.

I don't think that will happen. Of course, cryptocurrencies will remain in their nature, although currently many governments are creating their own digital currency, but when it is still centralized, the government doesn't seem to want to leave fiat currency, doesn't want to lose control.

The government will only grant their own digital currencies, and then they will try to force people to make use of their own currencies instead of decentralized cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. But, we all know that it is not going to be possible for them to stop people from making use of bitcoin and other truly decentralized crypto currencies that we have now, because no matter how much they try people are still going to continue making use of these currencies, and there are so many ways that this crypto currencies can be used without the government finding out that people are using it, which is the good part of it.

The only time that the government will know that you are making use of crypto currency is when there are middle men involved, such as coinbase.com and the rest of them that are centralized.

I am one of those who think that governments would find it impossible to centralize Bitcoin, it would be something that is not within the ranges, a government or several governments could not control all the supply and demand of btc, if not even the richest in the world can have the control of the market, a government or several cannot agree to do so, it is as if the whales agreed together with the institutions to decide the movements of the BTC market, then in a case out of the real world, if it happened In the case of centralism, I believe that governments could not control such power.

I do not see that happening in the future. Bitcoin can not be centralized. No amount of regulation can make it centralized.

Government can't control the bitcoin network, but they can still control you with regulation. See now, the government has managed to control the majority of bitcoin users by making regulation on KYC compliance on a centralized exchange for all users. Anyone who uses this exchange service then they must comply with the rule. They don't create a centralized bitcoin network like bank, but they can regulate bitcoin users living in their jurisdiction. This happen in most countries and mine is no exception.

But the funny thing is that the regulations they create are only for their own benefit.  For example, if they implement a KYC policy to find out who the user from the address on the exchange is, but on the other hand they forget to set policies such as an integrated complaint service for those who are exposed to scams.  So what is the use of KYC in the public interest?  just bullshit in the end right?

If government can make bitcoin centralized to the world, it will improve a lot of things in the world economy. But with 100% sure government cannot make bitcoin centralized because bitcoin is a digital currency which is not control by any government officials in the world. Even though it is accepted to be centralized in the world, which country will control it,other countries will not agree for one country to be the one controlling centralized price in the world.
Many countries are still avoiding bitcoin because is a decentralized currency which no body know when it will start pumping and when it will start dumping in the community. Some countries are still looking at bitcoin as a digital currency that will not last long in the world.

put your tin hat on:
https://www.newswars.com/great-reset-klaus-schwab-offering-tyranny-courses-to-politicians/

Yes, it is a bad side that seems to be hidden from the government all this time. The government will not be responsible for any cases involving users who suffer losses, but if it occurs on a listed exchange then there may be action from the relevant authorities to resolve it. Example it OJK.

Techinically speaking then this wont really be possible because structure of Bitcoin itself in talks of codes and other aspects then theres no way that it could be

centralized nor be altered or changed and they would already been trying to do this every since bitcoin had become bigger because anything decentralized
is really out of their preference or liking.

They can centralized platforms which is the only way for its users to comply on whats been asked due to regulation thing.

That's certainly true, mate. Regulations can certainly limit Bitcoin's mainstream adoption. Governments might not be able to control the network in its entirety, but they can prevent people from using it. What's concerning is that big players (mainly exchanges) are amassing large amounts of Bitcoin. If this keeps up, only the wealthy will own most of the coins on the network, effectively leaving the "little guy" out of the system. The risk of centralization will always be there, but it's up to the community to keep Bitcoin as decentralized as possible.

Knowing that the code is open source, it's easy enough to create a new cryptocurrency in case the main Bitcoin blockchain becomes compromised. A change in the PoW algorithm will surely render centralization efforts futile. I'd be intrigued to know how Bitcoin will look like in the future as it continues to grow in popularity. Hopefully it'll remain as decentralized as it is right now, for people to enjoy true financial freedom. Just my thoughts ;D

The terms centralized/decentralized is also not either or. Could the government make Bitcoin more centralized than it is now? I guess so because governments could also acquire mining hardware and run specialized facilities, but I don't think they would do that. By now the best position a government could be in is if they already own a huge amount of Bitcoin. That is what I am saying about China. Even if they banned it, they are only in a bad position for now if they don't own any Bitcoin.

No government will be interested in mining bitcoin and making it centralized. The prime reason behind that is almost 90% of bitcoin already has been mined. There is no point for diving in for the rest of the 10% for any government.

I don’t think anything such is happening anytime soon because people who trade and invest in cryptocurrencies won’t be okay with it. What I think is that the government might come up with its centralized currency just to compete with the ones that are doing good in the market.

We can never know the government's true intentions. If it wants to destroy Bitcoin, it can do everything in its power to do so. Maybe countries from around the world will unanimously control a large portion of Bitcoin's hashrate in order to shut it down for good? We cannot discard the possibility of Bitcoin becoming centralized in the future, as Blockchain tech is not immune to this. There are many ways to centralize Bitcoin limited to governments' own imagination. They already control centralized exchanges so there's that. If governments manage to either control a large portion of the mining hashrate or the circulating supply, the cryptocurrency will be doomed.

At least, the code is open source. If anything bad happens, the community can simply alter the code to make a new cryptocurrency with decentralization in mind. I hope Bitcoin remains decentralized and censorship-resistant for the foreseeable future. Just my thoughts ;D

If they were so united and so willing to use one world currency, there would never have been any need of bitcoin itself, the problem is for one single country it's going to be impossible to cover up the 51% hash rate alone, and eventually, if multiple countries began to do this they would face clashes with each others and will never be able to form any consensus, moreover, it's not at all financially wise for any country today to make such a heft investment, because the returns aren't going to be that exciting for them considering that not a lot of bitcoin are left to be mined now. If countries would really want one world currency they would simple legalize bitcoin as a legal tender and they will be easily successful in their mission.

This will never happen. The world government will never fight over mining and control, they will be occupied with military advancement, climate change and global vaccination and other controls not bitcoin that is very difficult to mine, more so, so many companies all over the world are doing the mining already.

You've said it yourself. If governments legalize Bitcoin as legal tender, then there should be nothing stopping them from centralizing the cryptocurrency in its entirety. El Salvador "broke the ice" and it should only be a matter of time before other countries do the same. Imagine if every country abandons their native currency (Fiat) for Bitcoin. It'll be the end of decentralization as we speak. We cannot discard this from happening in the future if adoption for Bitcoin continues to rise at an accelerated rate. Hopefully the community will be able to keep Bitcoin decentralized, for the sake of people's financial freedom. Just my opinion :)

Control over bitcoin mining by states cannot centralize it. This has absolutely no effect on the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. Thus it is possible to influence its price, but not its nature. In addition, more than 18 million bitcoins have already been mined and the remaining 3 million, the mining of which will take more than a hundred years, practically does not solve anything. It is impossible to make Bitcoin centralized yet.

They can do it if they wanted but people don't like it. However, the situation sometimes shows that the market is started to get centralized, in fact, they're started to keep in touch with crypto, they are now urging exchanges to ask KYC for their users, that it means that they are moving in and trying to take control the market. I don't know, but can't assure that we keep the market being in decentralized state. As it comes that major countries will invest in crypto, that was the time we could think about it "centralized".

I believe if the government legalize the BTC it will be great revolution in the economy of the country,Young generation will be able to earn itself and bcome indendent which will decrease the unemployment rtaio.Government will also increaase the revenue from the transactions occurs on the government platform.Overall it will have positive impact on economy.

I don't understand what made you jump to that conclusion. If governments all over the world suddenly made bitcoin legal tender, that would force almost all population, that is, banks, businesses, individuals, merchants, etc., to switch to that new legal tender.  Not only would it result in a higher price and greater awareness of bitcoin, but also it would result in more people willing to mine bitcoin or run their own bitcoin full node, which would make the bitcoin network even more distributed and decentralized. It is pointless for governments, especially big ones, to promote bitcoin by making it a legal medium of exchange because once people learn about how to be their own banks, they will no longer need to rely on centralized government-controlled entities. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot?

Exactly my sentiment as stated above. However I would also add the fact that if a government someday, somehow manages to centralise Bitcoin, then there will be other crypto's to take its place. Especially privacy coins. So trying to decentralise Bitcoin is not something that the government can do, I believe. And attempting it in the first place will only lead to a waste of money and time.

This is definitely far from reality. Why would a government end up centralizing bitcoin? Knowing bitcoin is decentralized, so it can never be fully controlled by the government or any group or entity. But once its centralized, the government will all have the access on it. But take an example from China, they have created digital yuan which is definitely centralized in the first place, so they started banning bitcoin so that its citizens will stop using it and focus on their own digital currency. Maybe that will also be the case of other countries' government and they would not waste time on adopting bitcoin anymore.

agree with you....
it is impossible for a country to centralize bitcoin and this will require large funds that will waste state money because bitcoin grows and is already in the hands of the world community which is very likely to issue crypto / digital money the country itself

A reason why many would like to keep Bitcoin over fiat is that because the government has no control. But, it was to see that they are taking steps to get through it and possibly will control cryptocurrency someday. And if this going to happen, we don't know what will happen next but I think that these crypto investors and users will still invest in them. I don't think that they will stop this stuff but rather continue it under their control coz what they want is these users and holders will pay tax.

That tweet by Jonas Schnelli made me really think in that respect. Sounds a bit as if government agencies are already building up pressure.


And this is the latest proposal form the EU


https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:0a4db7d6-eace-11eb-93a8-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:0a4db7d6-eace-11eb-93a8-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF)

I'm a bit wondering why the community and developers are not taking notice of these current developments, or at least it makes the impression.

Governments control centralized exchanges so it's easier for them to control most of Bitcoin's supply. The mining part would be harder to achieve, especially when hashrate is scattered all over the world. But I get your point. Bitcoin empowers anyone to be their own bank, so it wouldn't be wise for governments to support Bitcoin as Fiat's successor. It goes against what was established in the first place. While centralization looks highly unlikely, we cannot discard it from happening in the future. The community must always be on alert in order to help maintain Bitcoin as decentralized as possible. Mining pools encourage centralization, so it would be best if people began solo mining the cryptocurrency to prevent this from happening. Fortunately, developers are working on improving the stratum mining protocol to further encourage decentralization. As long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and censorship-resistant, nothing will be able to stand on its way. Just my thoughts ;D

if the government wants to control bitcoin by controlling 51% of bitcoin circulation then how much money they have to spend while, they will print as much money and make fiat into goods that will no longer be worth it.  and if the government manages to control 51% of bitcoin circulation then i will sell my bitcoin and buy another altcoin then wait to buy the bitcoin price drops..

There's already a lot of governments who tried to manipulate or control bitcoin to make it centralize and make them the watch keeper about its transactions, but no government made a successful attempts including the famous Chinese government (CCP). It almost ridiculous to see and to know that the government is ready to waste some funds and time just to try to override the bitcoin system. And that's why the US government made the first cryptocurrency called the USD Coin (USDC). Bitcoin will always remain untouchable that's why bitcoin is the most safest and trusted coin of all time, thanks to the creator, SN.

Regulators will do their best to control cryptocurrency in the same way they control fiat money. I will even say that with the help of a regulated cryptocurrency, governments will get full control over the movement of people funds. And without regulation, they will not allow cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in particular as a means of payment in the state.

I feel that this problem is just a joke. Is it boring to face and talk about an impossible thing? Bitcoin has only two paths, one is free development and the other is collapse. There will be no government control. If so, Bitcoin would not be Bitcoin. It doesn't make much sense. If you have enough time, it is better to improve your knowledge and study hard. The digital world is changing very quickly. ;D

Why would the government make BTC centralized? It's impossible as they didn't have the control of the transactions nor the "central core" wherever it is now or if it does exist. However, regulated crypto wallets and exchanges can be controlled and we don't have the full custody despite low trading fees and fast transactions.

Government made fiat currency centralized and saying that  government wants to make bitcoin centralized, i support you because is not possible, maybe it will happen when this present bitcoin die off and another kind of bitcoin emerge for second world, i believe and also know that bitcoin is independent from the ages because starting from the price, no body control the market of bitcoin except it liquidity and market determination, we are talking the same thing, but let us know in case we don't know that government don't have control over bitcoin, they have control over gold and fiat but cryptocurrency government don't have hand

USD Coin is NOT issued by the US government, but rather a private company with its own interests. While controlling Bitcoin is highly unlikely to happen, there's always the risk of failure. We should be prepared for the worst, as governments and central banks do everything in their power to put an end to Bitcoin and Blockchain technology. The greater the hashrate, the harder it'll be for governments to successfully perform a 51% attack on the Blockchain.

What governments might do is control a large portion of Bitcoin's circulating supply, by manipulating centralized exchanges to their own will. But coins are largely distributed worldwide, so the chances of this happening are very slim. Take into account lost and/or stolen Bitcoins, and you'll see what I'm talking about. As long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and censorship-resistant, it'll last a lifetime. Just my thoughts ;D

Even if the government would want to make cryptocurrency especially bitcoin a centralized platform I am also thinking about how would a government would make it? I mean we all knew that cryptocurrency is a decentralized platform and that is also the reason why most of governments would not want to make cryptocurrency become a legal tender in their respective country. So I am thinking that the thought of what if governments make bitcoin centralized is impossible.

The government allowing Bitcoin to replace fiat is unlikely. If Bitcoin is allowed as a transaction tool it is possible but if it replaces fiat it is not possible. Bitcoin and fiat can be run side by side. There are still many people who are less responsive to technology, therefore they will definitely be much more comfortable using fiat in transactions. The government will also not get out of hand from fiat, especially Bitcoin cannot be controlled by the government so the government must as much as possible maintain fiat so as not to be eliminated by Bitcoin.

You are right, a government cannot have control of BTC, the efforts they make will be in vain because the majority of Strong Hands would not allow the millionaire market to fall into those hands, neither of the banks, it is practically impossible for that to happen, BTC lives on supply and demand and obviously there are whales and institutions that did not buy to lose money, if we take this into account, they are capable of waiting 8 to 10 years to sell their BTC and this waiting for BTC to reach the $ 100k which is very possible to happen.

The future outlook for bitcoin is the subject of much debate. While the financial media is proliferated by so-called crypto-evangelists, Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy Kenneth Rogoff suggests that the “overwhelming sentiment” among crypto advocates is that the total “market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies could explode over the next five years, rising to $5-10 [trillion].”8

if the government makes bitcoin centralized then the scenario that will happen is that people will not see bitcoin as a "precious treasure" anymore

government makes everything stable then it stabilizes is bad for bitcoin

uncontrollable, unstable and also can not be monopolized is the main goal of the creation of bitcoin, and it was satoshi's wish that wanted to improve the world

I believe governments are not going to try stopping bitcoin, because there are many influent businessesmen investing in bitcoin who are also partners of these governments and there are public agents too, who may invest in bitcoin secretly. So it's not interesting for authorities to embarass the matters of their friends. If they do this, there will be retaliation and these businessmen will take their money and leave the countries where governments acted against their personal interests. It means loss of investments for governments, what isn't positive for their maintenance in power and for the development of the country.

IMO government already has made BTC a bit centralized through KYC based centralized exchanges like Binance. Melania Trump has recently launched her own painting as NFT, this shows that top officials have faith in BTC but when they are in power they cant support crypto because of government policy.

Certainly bitcoin is going to become more and more centralized each new day through new and more strict regulations. I just don't see governments attempting to stop bitcoin by controlling 51% of the mining hashrate or confiscating the supply disponible in the market as it was mentioned in another posts.

But thinking about this matter right now while I'm writting this post, it came to my mind governments could create a regulation to forbid exchanges from operating during determined periods of time, just like traditional markets do to avoid high volatility and price devaluation of the assets. For an example: if bitcoin falls 5%, exchanges must stop all the orders until the next day.

About Melania's NFTs it's a quite curious situation, because Trump has criticized bitcoin as a menace to fiat system some time ago and told the media he was a full supporter of dollar currency, but now his wife's NFTs can be bought with Solana crypto currency...

OP,
Governments getting involved in Bitcoin does not make it centralized. I'm totally for governments getting involved with Bitcoin mining - I really hope they do! Bitcoin mining has huge potential to help move the world toward a green energy future and that'll happen much more quickly if governments get involved with mining. I wrote an article earlier this year on Medium talking about how US States should all be involved in Bitcoin mining.

Governments joining Bitcoin doesn't mean it becomes centralized because nothing about Bitcoin changes based on who is involved. Just as it is not bad that companies now take part in bitcoin mining there is nothing bad if governments take part in it too. It would make sense for governments to get involved in the future global currency. Bitcoin is for the world, not just for hobbyists or the poor or the rich or people from first world countries or people from third world countries or for companies or for governments or whatever else. Bitcoin is for all of those things - for everyone. There is nothing bad about more people or institutions adopting and taking part in Bitcoin. All it does is increase Bitcoin's decentralization and increase its presence and importance in civilization.


I always find it odd when people say they don't like rich people or companies or governments or whatever buying bitcoin or doing anything with bitcoin. The power of Bitcoin is that it is free to use by anyone. Wanting Bitcoin to be limited goes against the idea of Bitcoin.

Maybe the only way is to add a third party system that will be used to facilitate every transaction that will happen around the jurisdiction

area of certain country or government who wanted to have central access within Bitcoin system.

I don't have any idea if that's possible or how things may work if the government will pursue with this kind of plan, but Bitcoin itself it's been

created as decentralized, it will work from how it's originally intend being used.

If the governments do look in that direction, Bitcoin may gain even more trust. It would lead to growth and adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptos beyond current limits.

Laughing out loud, good thing your topic clearly says "What if "
This cannot happen, a government that gets nothing completely from.bitcoin.
For a government that wants the rich to be richer ? Poor to remain poor ?
They will never accept it with much consideration and policies.

I never think that Bitcoin can be made centralized. Bitcoin is decentralized.
Although when we are using Bitcoin, trading it on exchanges and other activuties rekated in Bitcoin, we need to do through the centralized exchanges and others, it doesn't mean that the Bitcoin centralized, does it?
How can we exactly track the Bitcoin from one wallet and others? Moreover centralized relates to controled systems. How do the governments will take the full controls of al transactions in the world wide of Bitcoin?

Governments can only make more regulations and laws on how exchanges can operate like KYC requirements and etc.They cannot directly control bitcoin blockchain and even if they try to control bitcoins by 51% attack, the mining power needed to compete with the network would require enormous amount of money to acquire mining hardware capable of doing this 51% attack.

Exactly. Forcing KYC through centralized exchanges only makes matters worse, as governments will be able to track and trace crypto users with ease. It completely defeats the purpose of crypto/Blockchain tech (which is eliminating the middleman or third-parties from the system). Some would say that you can always use decentralized exchanges to get access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but their lack of liquidity/trading volume makes people look elsewhere. Not to mention, most DEXs require a certain level of technical knowledge to be able to use them properly. Centralized exchanges have a better user experience, so people will choose them even if they have to give their identities in return.

Sadly, Bitcoin's supply is largely controlled by big players on the market, effectively turning into an "unequal" cryptocurrency. Governments can easily take control of centralized exchanges in order to grab a huge portion of Bitcoin's supply. And don't get me started on controlling mining companies like Bitmain, Canaan, etc. It'll be up to the community to help prevent Bitcoin from becoming a full-fledged centralized cryptocurrency. As long as decentralization and censorship-resistance is prioritized, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my opinion :)

It is impossible for the government to make Bitcoin centralized, because it is impossible for the government to control all Bitcoin transactions  on
the internet. Therefore, if there is a country that prohibits the use of Bitcoin, that country cannot prevent its residents from using Bitcoin.
I have a friend who lives in a country where Bitcoin is banned, but my friend can still own and use Bitcoin. That proves Bitcoin is decentralized,
this is what makes Bitcoin able to give users the freedom to manage their own finances without a third party. The government can only regulate
exchanges by requiring KYC, while not all exchanges require KYC procedures, although I know nowadays most of the exchanges enforce KYC.
Then we can make Bitcoin transactions without going through exchanges. That's why I said it was impossible for the government to make
Bitcoin centralized.

I remembered one thing that one of the people in my country governance said that Bitcoin will not be a legal tender or a currency in our country, the reason is because: they cannot control Bitcoin, Bitcoin cannot be centralized. Even they may be possible, the ways are too complex and complicated so that they will prefer not to control Bitcoin.
Maybe this reason also becomes the reasons here, Bitcoin will never be centralized, who will control? Who will make it centralized? Under world bank? FBI or who?
that is why Bitcoin is still decentralized.

I do not think any government will be able to make bitcoin centralized as it is based on block chain technology. That is the prime reason bitcoin will maintain its transparency. 

It's a good point. But what if governments control a large portion of Bitcoin's circulating supply? Then it wouldn't be called "decentralized" anymore. With a limited supply of just 21 million coins, it's easy enough for governments to hoard most of the coins across exchanges for complete control of the Blockchain. Of course, miners are the ones who're in-charge of the network's consensus. But the concentration of Bitcoin's supply on the hands of the government will only cause unnecessary conflicts in the long run. Things would've been different if Bitcoin were an inflationary cryptocurrency like Dogecoin.

At least the code is open source, so it's easy enough for the community to create a new coin in case Bitcoin becomes compromised. As long as decentralization is prioritized, Bitcoin will last a lifetime. Just my thoughts ;D