Bitcoin Forum

In today's world, crypto has infected the world financial system by providing or creating a more secured payment channel using p2p.
 This virus is to the demerit of different financial institutions and government entities who benefit by placing regulations on all transactions made in the financial world by creating loopholes in their structured monetary system, thereby causing financial flight.
 So far we have seen many world leaders placing bans on cryptocurrency using China as an instance. Although whatever their fears may be, I think this is a positive virus.
 Recently, Hungary, one of the EU countries pleaded to place a ban on crypto.
However, Fiat can also be used to fund illegal businesses
 

I don't totally agree with you using the word "Virus" to describe the wave of legislative Bans, but no worries as the meaning is clear by the context. But, i find it inaccurate to say "positive virus". Can you explain more what positivity you see in some countries banning the use of cryptocurrencies?

It's the blockchain system which brings secured payment channel using p2p, but not cryptocurrencies in particular. As you mentioned Fiat can be used for illegal activities, it can also used for p2p operations in the form of a currency stable coin .

It's not a virus, but an impact.
P2P payment isn't only exist in crypto and it's not always secure.
Not all crypto is decentralized, where it work opposite than government (centralized).

I'm not really understand what do you want to pointed out from your post? It just a common discussion that has been discussed many times over and over. I mean, everyone already know that.

No it has not.

When you say "crypto" it is too broad. It includes thousands of altcoins and tokens, 99% of which have no use cases apart from speculation (pump and dumps on exchanges). In other words they don't provide you with anything least of all a "secure payment channel".
This is what bitcoin has done and it did it by being decentralized and focus on being censorship resistant. Being P2P ensured that.

The problems that the centralized financial system faces is not because of the regulations but all because of corruption.

China has never banned bitcoin.
So far China has shut down massive money laundering operations called exchanges and shut down what they thought was causing their energy crisis called big mining farms (it didn't help one bit).

Why even call it a "virus"?!

Again there was no "ban" or "plan to ban". This has been mostly regulations and restrictions that wasn't even placed on crypto or bitcoin, it was placed on centralized services like exchanges or payment processors that shouldn't even exist in the decentralized world.

Ya'll people in the responses are probably over-analyzing the "virus" analogy.

This probably started from Anthony Pompliano who frequently Tweets(before the pandemic) "The virus is spreading" after every bullish news concerning Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure "virus" is being used due to how fast Bitcoin spreads, but definitely not necessarily due to it being a sort of bad thing — because obviously it's a positive thing.

According to this report (https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2021687419/2021687419.pdf), 9 countries absolutely banned bitcoin. They are:

• Algeria
• Bangladesh
• China
• Egypt
• Iraq
• Morrocco
• Nepal
• Qatar
• Tunisia

Few other countries implicitly banned bitcoin but in a way people can still make use of p2p to trade it. Citizens of all other countries not listed above can still trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies without the government interfering.

Fiat are used frequently to fund illegal businesses. Someone can be involved in an illegal activity but having a legal business people know him with, this will make it difficult to trace such person to having illegal business. The person would transact in fiat but yet not known until the person is known to be involved in illegal business. Fiat is vulnerable to be used for illegal businesses.

From my knowledge virus is something negative that spread fast and crypto-currency isn't that, rather I consider it to be a better alternative to what we have now.
Although many governments see is as a threat because of the freedom it gives to people.
Crypto-currency is decentralized that's why the government are trying to stop that, and many Exchanges are fast going centralized.

Thank you, I like the fact that, your thinking what Ia thing and I feel its the first way we ought to view this thread. Yeah, the contents and the context for which the thread is being related is not far from the truth but, the world VIRUS carries a negativity about it.
I have to say this now because, the wrong assumption spreads quite fast and the next you know, it leads to misinformation and it becomes a common analogy with beginners whose phase started with this.

Crypto is not a virus and have got no antivirus to it.
It's simply a currency that exists in the digital field and still gaining recognition.
It is a decentralize system and stands for the one thing the government isn't willing to give to a citizen #Freedom. Its the only way centralised system operates and that can't be given off.

Exactly my point. I wasn't seeing it in a negative light, but rather in a positive one. Virus in this context simply means how fast the  cryptocurrency has gained credence. Look at how vast it has spread; I think that is how a virus works. In crypto's case, it has entered into every sector of the economy.

Welcome to the world of crypto, I will like to correct your claim of calling crypto issues a virus, it's not and it won't ever be, bans are normal for something that's not entirely understood by a country, do you know how many countries put ban on crypto and still end up uplifting the ban?.

Yeah. China has banned the mining of bitcoins. They gave prevented cryptocurrency exchanges from operating in China and I think their citizens aren't allowed to use foreign ones either. The other thing that was banned were ICOs. Considering how many of the were a scam in the past, rightly so.

What a typical virus does is spread across any host it inhibits viruses satisfies the intent of it's developers so comparing the behavior of viruses to crypto might not really be out of context.

Crypto so far has grown beyond the imagination of the worlds financial system and currently it stands as a big threat to banking industry because most people prefer going volatilie than been under regulations. Crypto as a virus might not mean negative impact as many might see it. It's just a reflection of how much impact it has made within a short while