Bitcoin Forum

In Bitcoin-based transactions, about 76 billion US dollars of transactions are involved in illegal activities each year, accounting for about 46% of the total Bitcoin transactions. Almost a quarter of bitcoin users, and nearly half of bitcoin transactions, are illegal. Therefore, from a quantitative point of view, the use of Bitcoin is enough to become the target of attention of governments and international criminal police. If governments block Bitcoin, does Bitcoin have no value?

You can't just use random numbers here, where is your proof of any of your claims for the percentages and amounts used in your claims?

And what's up with all these "what if" topics today from newbie accounts?

I would agree about wanting to see some proof of those numbers. No references at all? I find it a little hard to believe that 46% of all BTC transactions these days are by illegal activities. I don't know if I agree with those numbers, but Bitcoin will always have value because I don't see every government blocking it. Personally, I don't see the US blocking Bitcoin.. El Salvador just made it a legal tender.. I don't see other free countries like Canada, United Kingdom, Australia..etc blocking it either. BTC won't be blocked in all countries so it will always have value.

I'm not sure the government does that and the government can't block Bitcoin, the government can only block bank transactions related to crypto, but that never happened.

Basically Bitcoin is not only traded in one country, Bitcoin can be accessed in all countries, not all government officials agree with the idea of ​​blocking Bitcoin, the proof: many officials/governments consider Bitcoin as a promising investment asset, not least the government secretly invests in Bitcoin, meaning: one or two countries completely block Bitcoin and another country legalize Bitcoin as a digital currency for exchange.

Conclusion: the value has no effect at all in this case, on the contrary the value of Bitcoin is getting higher.

Note: unless the government can do the blocking, if the internet and technology are destroyed on this earth.

IIRC the volume of Bitcoin that is known to be involved in illicit transaction is fairly small, I think less than 0.5%.

The value of Bitcoin partially comes from the fact that governments cannot block Bitcoin. You might be able to hinder your own citizens using Bitcoin by draconian laws. It'll be quite a difficult task to block it completely. Even if the exchanges were to be shut down, the decentralized exchanges would likely still operate as well.

I think this is where he got these numbers https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/17706/what-is-the-actual-use-of-cryptocurrencies

The authorities can actually track down these transactions if they really wanted to arrest someone behind these illegal activities. Bitcoin is traceable and with the help of chainalysis, I'm sure they could get bad actors.

Blocking Bitcoin is not possible. It's worth fighting against BTC when gradually the world is adopting it, the country that will block or illegalize BTC will just be left. China will not be able to stop it too.

With Bitcoin's nature, it's not going to be easy to block, unless everyone goes back to the last century and stops using the Internet. Therefore, various blockchain coins are not so easy to be blocked, and the actual transaction value is also real. But Bitcoin's value is likely to be infinitely close to zero, since there are countless XX coins that are its enemies, and there is no essential difference between them. When there are countless kinds of XX coins on the market, as long as the time is long enough, the value will be infinite points.

That is essentially the same random baseless numbers but with more words. The main reference of the wall of text is an article from 2012 which was the year when things such as Silkroad were popular. The other reference it uses is even worse. It is from 2018 and claims that the volume is $76 billion annually but their data is from 2009 until 2017! This is a ridiculous range which goes from $0 or $19.7k annually in 2009 to $3654 billion in 2017. I have no idea how they concluded that 76 is 45% of 3654!
The calculation is also seriously flawed because they are basically creating what they call "clusters" of users based on addresses and what they think is a link between them. They also don't stop at a certain tx that could possibly be an illegal transaction, they count all its descendants as illegal too.
It is interesting that on page 15 they claim to know how many bitcoin users there are in total without explaining how they come up with that number.

Basically their methodology is that they find some known illegal activities (such as coins seized by the government) then they move back from those transaction by making a wrong assumption that a lot of the parent transactions were also illegal then compute the sum total of those outputs and report it as all being illegal!

IF it was possible for the government, or any establishment entitiy to censor Bitcoin, then yes, Bitcoin would lose its main value proposition. Censorship-resistance. BUT, show me how Bitcoin users could be censored from using Bitcoin to buy Heroine from the dark markets, or censor users from HODLing Bitcoin to hide wealth from their wives, or censor users from depositing Bitcoin to an online casino to gamble.

You probably mean if they illegalized it, because blocking/banning a peer-to-peer network seems unreal if you don't cut your country's internet connection. They've tried banning it, but failed.

The answer is no, Bitcoin has value as long as people believe it should. If I want to transact with someone oversea instantly, Bitcoin satisfies me a lot and thus, I evaluate it.

I've tired on reading US dollars in Bitcoin transactions... There are no dollars! Only bitcoins! Also, can you provide us your proof of these statements? Not an article that says exactly what you came up with.

That seems small to me. It could be true for drugs and guns, but an illicit activity is to evade taxes as well. I'd guess that lots of people evade their bank with Bitcoin.

There are multiple usages of Bitcoin and people are free to use it. They have rights to be their own banks with Bitcoin, so as you. It is the initiative that Satoshi Nakamoto brought to us.

Source of those figures you used, please.

Governments can not block Bitcoin, can not destroy Bitcoin network that is globally decentralized.

Governments can not steal your bitcoin if you don't give them your private keys. The discussion ends.  8)

Blocking bitcoin, no ways guys and girls!

For starters how do you block something you don't control? But there is an indirect way that could have a negative impact on crypto like electricity and internet regulation, as these two are at the core of it and could have a temporal impact. But crypto (bitcoin) being decentralized counters these effects and prevents the network from breaking down.

I don't think so because I am pretty sure that not every government is going to block bitcoin and even if they do so, people will find a way, in my opinion, it will rather have an adverse effect because it becomes illegal but the demand is still there so the prices are going to go up.

What I believe is, If you have these numbers or whoever is coming up with these numbers if actually are true, should also be able to identify whoever is involved in these illegal Bitcoin transactions. How do you know if or which Bitcoin transactions are Illegal if you don't know who is transacting the transaction? I believe all these are always in a bid to portray Bitcoin Bad and besides, Not all Governments will Block Bitcoin cos we are even beginning to see Bitcoin adoption By Countries.

46% Bitcoin transactions for criminals! where do you get this data from?
and one more thing you should know that the government has no power to block Bitcoin

you can still use the tor network or VPN when the government in your country does stupid things like blocking all crypto exchange sites in your country
Bitcoin will continue to have "value" even when governments around the world reject it

China has already banned Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, as the government prefers Chinese to only deal with the digital yuan. However, there are still so many Chinese who are holding and trading Bitcoin. Yes, it can be difficult to be involved with Bitcoin when your government is a control freak like China, but they know they can never implement the ban unless they will be assigning one police to each person 24/7.

Now, talking about your main point. I think this has been discussed in this forum so many times. And I don't think the figures you are bringing here is still true, as illegal transactions involving Bitcoin dropped dramatically when criminals realized that all transactions are actually recorded in the blockchain and is there for anyone to see. Bitcoin is anonymous but not a private coin...maybe we should learn the big difference.

This is totally wrong and fake information, and it has been researched and proven that less than 1% of all bitcoin transactions are used for some illegal activities.
To see how laws can be very stupid we can see that once upon a time it was illegal to own gold, it was illegal to cross the street if you had darker skin, plant was illegal, etc.
After watching how FBI cracked Silk Road marketplace I found out that many of those ''illegal activities'' are created by them with their manipulations and lying.

Governments tried to ban Bitcoin but that is not really possible in same way like you can't block torrent or internet, so they decided to add more strict regulations, and they can actually use Bitcoin to track every transaction that makes their job much easier in some cases.
That is why privacy solutions and mixers like Chipmixer are very important, and Bitcoin value can only get bigger in time.

https://i.imgur.com/tQHa8eO.png

You are just using random numbers here. No government can ban bitcoin completely, because even if they suspend any local exchanges and block and bitcoin related website, people can buy/sell bitcoins by suing p2p methods and social medias there will be also underground black markets allowing people buy/sell bitcoins without of any problem. So, even if all the governments ban bitcoin, he investors and traders will do their job, only some newbies may do panic sell, this can the worst theory happen to bitcoin. However, this is very much unbelievable to see all the governments suspend their local exchanges in their countries.

Bitcoin will still have value, even if the government block bitcoin. But if only one government block bitcoin while the other government still allows people to use bitcoin, that will not have a big effect. But the important is as long as the internet still exists and people can use the internet and use bitcoin, bitcoin will have value.

Maybe the illegal activities using bitcoin have been exposed too big than the good activities using bitcoin, so people out there think that bitcoin is only for illegal activities. If they can see that bitcoin is only a tool and will depend on how people use bitcoin, they will not see the bad. Instead, they will use bitcoin for good things.

They made Bitcoin transactions illegal but no one has tried banning it on a large scale, AFAIK. China never used its GFW to ban Bitcoin connections. It's perfectly simple to start blocking them, but circumventing them is quite easy too. Just make sure you can use Tor and run your node through it.


Well, nobody knows whether it is overstated or understated. I think I saw it from a report which collected data from the various known crime and that is what they concluded. There is simply no way to tell how accurate it is. I'd argue criminals would prefer using privacy coin for something like this, unless its a ransomware, most uses Bitcoin.

Could you please provide sources for this information?
From what I read about the percentage of illegal operations in the cryptocurrency market and the fiat market, it is almost the same.
Using the argument that Bitcoin is mainly used for illegal transactions to ban it, is a very big manipulation.

Where is the 46% and what is the source of it, the fact that BTC is embargoed by governments or countries is a lot, but BTC is still going strong, so what does that prove? There is only one thing I can say that BTC is a very valuable asset and people aspire to have it.

In a statist, authoritarian society like you describe where bitcoin is illegal, bitcoin becomes MORE valuable in order to protect oneself and one's assets from these controlling tyrannical totalitarians.   At least it becomes more valuable to people who cherish liberty and the freedom to life one's life freely.

As far as nonsense like "Almost a quarter of bitcoin users , and nearly half of bitcoin transactions, are illegal." I don't believe that is remotely accurate.   Illegal where?  China?  Australia? Austria?  India? US?  Taiwan?  Hong Kong?  Mexico?  Brazil?  South Sudan?  Korea?  North Korea?  If you meant that half of all bitcoin transactions are illegal somewhere, I would agree, but the rest of the world shouldn't care what China, Cuba, North Korea or other totalitarian country thinks.  

So, yes, bitcoin, encryption (non-backdoored) and crypto will be even more important if countries turn towards a repressive, confiscatory, autocratic regimes.  Let's hope they don't go down this illiberal path, but with the rise of the authoritarian socialists/fascists in the US nothing is certain.  If the entire world adopts these despotic, oppressive rules like you describe, bitcoin will be a haven for the black market, free thinking individuals until liberty returns to the world.

I don't believe in the percentage of illegal bitcoin use that the OP mentioned in the thread because it's so inaccurate when there's no evidence from research done. Although bitcoin can also be used for illegal activities, the percentage may not be as large as stated in the OP's post. As currencies, bitcoin and fiat can also be used for things that are against the law and are considered reasonable because bitcoin is accepted as a mean of payment (currency).

Government can't block bitcoin and its network, but they can only force all citizens not to use bitcoin with extreme witness. Do you think the current government is really thinking about doing it with bitcoin? I'm pretty sure the government won't do it as long as they get lots of other benefit like taxes.

In your World, illegal activity does not alway translate to evil/immoral activity otherwise we would have alots of things that are legal in your World easily qualify as evil/ immoral.
I think we should probably have a balanced forum where the immoral usage of both fiat and crypto can be transparent/fairly highlighted so that we can determine which one qualifies to exist.
A Just and reasonable security agencies would accept currency system that helps them fight crime easily without breaking the laws.


The value of Bitcoin is determined by its tech, ideals, uniqueness, security and usefulness. So as long as it continues to be useful, unique and secure it will remain valuable.  If tyrants join hands to ban humans from fetching water from the streams or using herbs, that won't stop herbs or water from streams from being valuable or used morally by people even though it's Illegal to use them or will it?

bitcoin cannot be controlled by one person, so it is difficult for the government to stop bitcoin, even to block bitcoin, the new government has succeeded in blocking bitcoin, the government must block all internet, and cannot play on digital, we have to go back to the past, fight using reeds, and cooking using wood.. keep dreaming of blocking bitcoin..

Value is subjective, and is determined by you, not others. It will be valuable (or not) for you, no matter what the gov or anybody else says.

For some people it won't be worth hiding from the State, for others they will value it more because the State is not involved. The result is the price market.

Those who keep their bitcoins considers them more valuable than selling them. Its that simple really, the value of things is clearly explained by the Austrian School of Economy, and this includes bitcoin.

The true holders know exactly why they are holding it, and are not lemmings followers without knowing why, Those won't change their minds overnight for no real reason.

I think what governments do only made regulation like block access to bitcoin wallet, exchanges, etc. And nothing can disrupt people to use bitcoin freely although must bypass the internet connection to access it. So, bitcoin will still have it's value. As long there are internet still on.

Bitcoin and indeed cryptocurrency generally are decentralized. I hope you know what it means. It means It has no central control. So the government cannot do anything against it

Regardless of how much power the government may display, no matter how many times it tries to restrict its citizens from using bitcoin, people will always find a way to access it no matter what. The government does not have enough capability to block or completely shut down bitcoin. Also, bitcoin is a decentralized currency which means the government or any other organization does not have power nor control over it. Do not be too afraid of seeing countries banning bitcoin because it wouldn't last long and investors will still find a way on how they can access and earn profit from it.

It cannot effect if only 1 government in some part of the world will ban it but if majority of them declare bitcoin as illegal asset and every citizens who caught using it will be sued then for sure it can affect the price since the demand will decrease then possibly this could be the destruction of bitcoin.

But we  are so morbid for thinking  this way since  for government see bitcoin already as valuable asset that's why its impossible for us to see this happening.

Where do you get this information?
If you just heard this from a rumor, please don't directly write it on the forum. Newbies may trust it although it is still debatable whether it is the fact or not. Personally, I don't believe this, how can someone know the transaction is legal or illegal. Even an institution announced it, I doubt if there is a political purpose to spread it.

Seeing every news about banning is not new to us as most of the countries have to tried to ban bitcoin but never succeed. Bitcoin can never be controlled by any entity or group so it won't be possibly banned by any government as bitcoin users and investors will still find ways to access it no matter where they are as long as the internet connection is present.

And now that bitcoin has even gained more positive impact from its users so adoption might take place sooner and that banning will be very impossible now for government.

"Regardless, the good news is two-fold: Cryptocurrency-related crime is falling, and it still remains a small part of the overall cryptocurrency economy."

That is from a Chainalysis report. The transactions associated with illicit activity is so low compared to any other fiat currency in the world that that is almost negligible to be discussed at all. There are unbelievable reports about hidden fiat currency all around the world, corporate entities hiding dividends from taxation and so forth, Bitcoin is not the issue some believe it is.

Yes Way,

All the governments have to do is contact the companies that run the internet backbone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone

Have these companies use detection software to block all miners from connecting to mining pools.
This freezes bitcoin mining, no new transactions can be added, so the network is frozen.

They can also use detection software to block the bitcoin nodes from sharing block data,
this means no one can sync the blockchain.

Plus anyone that persists in trying to evade the above restrictions home address will be turned over so the police can imprison them.

* Tor or VPNs will be no  protection as if the governments went that far, they will also block and make illegal tor nodes and VPNs.*

I am not saying they ever go that far, but don't be stupid and think they can't if they really wanted to.
 8)

The Chinese government's ban on ico has not caused excessive burdens on the global Bitcoin and blockchain communities. There are also many people who applaud for this. Participants in the blockchain industry are more standardized and transparent. Avoid repeating the mistakes of p2p frantically collecting money in previous years. This shows that many people know that no matter how great innovation Bitcoin and blockchain are, it is necessary to have a basic legal and moral bottom line. At the same time, the blockchain community has always maintained a very positive attitude towards innovation. Many start-up companies have received funding that is unimaginable in the fiat world, but the behavior of fishing in troubled waters needs to be controlled and restricted. Self-discipline, tolerance, mutual trust, and democracy will definitely highlight the value of the blockchain more fully, and as mentioned earlier, as long as there is value, it is difficult to be banned.

From the day Bitcoin was born, it was ready to deal with the joint ban by governments of various countries. This is why blockchain technology and the idea of decentralization are important. But no matter whether Bitcoin and DeFi will be accommodated by the mainstream financial world in the future, or excluded, I believe the world will become better because of this. In this world, the power of justice is still very strong. Even if a centralized organization wants to suppress the development of Bitcoin and DeFi with selfish purposes, it must have sufficient and justified reasons. Then, as the game with Bitcoin and DeFi unfolds, those for just reasons will inevitably become the self-discipline standard of centralized organizations, and the value of Bitcoin will become higher and higher.

Indeed. El Salvador and the other countries already allow bitcoin for their people, which will not stop bitcoin from adopting in many countries. If most countries allow bitcoin, the country that prohibits bitcoin will think they need to change their regulation and start accepting bitcoin like the other countries.

I guess the government is still learning deeper about bitcoin before they decide to allow bitcoin. Maybe they will apply some regulations for their people if they want to use bitcoin. I am sure bitcoin will have a high value in the future, especially if many countries can accept bitcoin for the payment system and the investment.

Governments have tried to block Bitcoin before, and in fact on numerous occassions China has tried to do it, in various ways. Even India, also tried to ban it altogether.

That's 2 of the biggest countries on earth trying to block Bitcoin.

Did that affect Bitcoin's value?

Of course not. Bitcoin has been block for some countries and yet we are seeing that the bitcoin still have an value. Bitcoin is independent wherein if all the government block bitcoin or all of the country ban bitcoin there will be still an operating for it because there are exchangers that will still accept bitcoin and cryptocurrency and that exchangers will be the one who will be in front to make it become a fiat. The thing is that, no matter what happens bitcoin will increase and government will have nothing to do about it.

"Blocking" bitcoin, while doable with legislation, is not practically possible. There would be no way to enforce a crypto ban... an effort to ban crypto would be as successful as one trying to ban the internet.

Bitcoin is unstoppable financial freedom for the world... quite a beautiful thing.

Uhmm no, OP. You know that Bitcoin can be traded personally right?
Whatever the means of the government try to use to stop the usage of Bitcoin, it cannot be stopped. ISP could ban it but people can still be able to use VPN in the end.

That's right.

Bitcoin was banned in China many years ago and since then it's grew to be much more popular and more valuable. Chinese exchanges moved abroad and kept functioning anyway.
Now they are trying to ban mining and miners are already moving out. That's all this is going to achieve. They'll make people temporarily lose money and panic and then they find a way around it and keep going.

In my opinion, Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies will not be banned or blocked by all governments. Few governments don't like cryptos but countries like El Salvador will be there.
There are few countries that thought of blocking it but they are now thinking to consider it as an asset rather than a currency.
People also tend to find a way to use Bitcoin even if it is blocked. For example, P2P was a hit when once it was restricted in our country where financial institutions cannot work with exchanges related to crypto.

What do you mean by 76 billion illegal activities? I think this is a false claim. What else do you say half of the btc transaction is illegal. I think this statement is false and not true. and for the problem if the government blocks bitcoin it doesn't matter tough.and I don't see any point why that would happen.

To be honest these numbers don't make any sense because first of all how will anyone know what the transactions are used for, the government has no control or a way to monitors the bitcoin transactions and track the bad ones from the good ones, and the truth is you can't blame bitcoin for people using it for the wrong purpose, with every thing you will find people that abuse it, and if it was the case money has been used for decades for drugs murder and all the bad stuff, instead of banning it governments could use it for their own good to catch criminals, since it totally anonymous for the criminals it is anonymous to the governments as well.

I don't normally jump into these discussions, but... well, jeez  :-\

I agree with many of the responses - especially bringing up numbers without sources. We all know that while 97% of the information on the internet is accurate, 74.2% of statistical claims are made out of thin air or from nuthouse hypotheses, and 68.8% of noob comments (including my own) are unresearched or validated.

HOWEVER, I do want to step in and say 2 things about the OP post.

#1 Bitcoin is not the only currency used with criminal activity. US dollar bills (cash) and many other currencies were used for criminal activities far before Bitcoin came along. In fact, criminals are still using cash... and the government hasn't made using cash illegal.

#2 Bitcoin is not managed by any government and since it is decentralized, they can't block it either. They can only block it by blocking access to the internet. Sure, they can make it illegal. They make the possession and use of many drugs illegal, but it still continues.

and a bonus comment... there are no international criminal police. Interpol is an organization that coordinates international law enforcement cooperation, they don't independently enforce or investigate crimes. (But that would be funny to see... a jetboat being pulled over in international waters for speeding in a 'no wake' zone and getting tickets for possession of contraband and not enough life jackets on board.  :D )

OP" is too dramatic to write this like a journalist cornering news to sell. we all know bitcoin is not like that, crimes happen everywhere and on anything...!!! a ban in one country won't turn bitcoin into priceless maybe only down for a few months and back

It's true that crime doesn't only happen in Bitcoin, it can even happen in fiat too. So it is not wise if we blame Bitcoin because there are some
crimes that use Bitcoin. Criminals can use anything to do evil, not necessarily through Bitcoin. Then one country will not be able to make Bitcoin
dead or worthless, so any country banned Bitcoin, will not harm Bitcoin. As long as there are people who use Bitcoin, of course Bitcoin will always live.

I really have no idea where you got the data from. Is that only your own calculation and imagination? Based on what analysis or data did you take so that you can conclude the numbers and also statistics? Well, no reason to believe your data here because there is no enough to prove this.
And if the government blocks Bitcoin, which government? there are so many countries in the world and many countries allow and legalize Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So, if BTC is blocked in one country, it doesn't matter because most countries will accept BTC and the community of BTC is very high, impossible to make it of no value.

This is why it is important to have a broad perspective. Anything can be used as a crime tool, even just a pen, it all depends on the user. We all must have often heard: The right man behind the gun. So don't just blame the object, but also pay attention to who the user is.
Often the media presents hyperbole news that scares the general public. Yet the reality is not like that. Government support regarding legality can certainly increase public confidence, but that does not mean that the bans imposed by some countries can destroy bitcoin, because bitcoin has very good potential. That is why many countries have legalized it.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency which government has no single authority on it. I think government can't block bitcoin as easy as you think. Other countries already legalized bitcoin while the adoption are keep on growing. Bitcoin was use not just an asset but also as currency that can be a payment method although it's just limited so far. Maybe time will come bitcoin will become more useful more than I thought.

I would say, somehow it did manage to make a fud but to whales perspective they were just a small fish that's why they easily gets eaten. And everytime Bitcoin soar to a higher level, you would notice that China always has their own way to make the Bitcoin market to plunge even if they already ban it several of times before.

I don't know if it's a clear market manipulation or just a coincidence I noticed everytime there's a bull run. Although, the wasn't long term either since we do have Bitcoin enthusiasts who continue to support it everyday so the effects of fud is always temporary it's only for weak hands.

If bitcoin will become legalize in most of the countries and will be adopted soon as a currency, that's the time it will be more useful compared today. But how would adoption take place if most of the governments are planning to block bitcoin?

Bitcoin is not a centralized currency so even if the government will block bitcoin, it will never create a huge impact on its value. People will still find ways to store and transact bitcoin in times it is needed. Bitcoin will only be totally block if the internet alone will be shut down but i don't think it will.

Putting the numbers aside, I think Bitcoin is hard to be blocked as other countries now has accepted it as either transactional or ok to do transactions with Bitcoin, or as legal tender what like El Salvador did. I mean fiat currency is also being used on illegal activities so I don't want to think that Bitcoin is a bad thing because it is being used in illegal activities. That would be unfair. But going back to your hypothetical question, the answer really is no, we cannot see any possibility that Bitcoin will be block and if ever it will be blocked then rarity or difficulty of access would push its price higher.

It's not only not the only currency, it's probably among the least used actually and this is statistically proven to be less than 1% of illicit transactions by many sources.

Also it's a really bad choice to be used for illegal purposes because you can't remove the money trail. You can hide it or make it difficult to track but can't completely wipe it unlike other money payments.

It is impossible that bitcoin will be banned in every governments in the world but the only possible of banning of bitcoin is in few countries like China and yeah they tried it already. But thinking of the possibility that bitcoin will going to be worthless aftee banning is I guess another impossible thing because bitcoin has a value even before the none countries tried to adopt the crypto market. I mean ceyptomarket arises when bitcoin arises too right. Today, it is hard to tell that bitcoin will be worthless because it is impossible.

but will really the government can make this possible? blocking bitcoin cannot be that easy to do as far as how this moves.

Yeah an obvious creation of something impossible to happen.

So who is making up all these statistics? I transferred 1 bitcoin to my brother the other day... what government agency tracked that transaction and then categorized it as legal or illegal? OP's thumb must be bright red from all this thumb sucking numbers and statistics.. right.  ::)

Governments does not determine Bitcoin's value, because the value is determined by Supply & Demand. So, government will target the centralized trading platforms and merchants to influence the demand. What will happen when the governments target those centralized platforms..? Well, they go decentralized and they go onto the Dark markets.... and governments do not get their taxes from those transactions.  ;)

It will have an opposite effect actually, look at illegal substances and drugs, they are prohibited that's why they have a really high street value and that will be the same for bitcoin, the more that it is prohibited by the government, the more the people want it.

if government prohibits alcohol will there be no  moonshine?..... no.. moonshine sales increase
if the government starts a war on drugs will there be no drugs?.. no.. theres more street dealers than ever
if the government stats making prostitution illegal will there be no whores? .. no.. theres more prostitutes than ever

We can see that bitcoin is one of the best valuable crypto in the cryptocurrency market. It's position is going very prefer than others crypto.But if government block Bitcoin, we believe that our life can not stopping there.Than our own life is going down,so than too difficult to running our personal life.So i trust that government didn't block Bitcoin, if government block Bitcoin we told that bitcoin valu will be decrease.

salute @Franky1 great example to explain why the government cannot totally banned bitcoin and even if they wanted yet people will make way to deal with it.

declare this illegal and it will be more functional.

Illegal activities on bitcoin is one of the reasons why some countries banned it on their place. Government keeps on regulating it because of the rumors about it such as scams and schemes associated with it (like what people say). I think we can request our government to slightly loosen their grip on crypto as long as it's proven that there's really no fraudulent and criminal activities going on. However, we can't do anything if ever they decide to ban it totally. If ever, we can no longer use bitcoin and our coins will be worthless since we can no longer use them.

I also think they can't just block bitcoin that easily because of the blockchain technology it uses. But certainly not all countries will ban it all at the same time, so users can still use several ways to utilize their accounts if ever such thing will happen.

Let's assume your random figures are accurate and seeing how Bitcoin ease the criminal activities of hoodlums it still can't guarantee the government the power to ban bitcoin since it's policy isn't centralized and has no form of paper documentation. Bitcoin has an image not because it can't exist without one but for the aid in the  imagination of it's investors. The government cant ban crypto currency the can only limit the flow within their region.

Bitcoin should not be blocked, even though Bitcoin has transactions that will show who is behind the crime, because transactions made with Bitcoin and recorded by the blockchain cannot be deleted, so transactions can be traced to the root.

Another reason for blocking Bitcoin in some countries is because Bitcoin consumes a lot of resources so it is not environmentally friendly and the value of bitcoin with high volatility is very risky.

But recently Elon also stated that 50% of Bitcoin miners use clean and environmentally friendly energy.

Like other responders, the government(s) can't block bitcoin per se as I see it.  The most draconian thing they could do is to make some laws restricting or outright banning exchanges from allowing fiat deposits that can then be exchanged for bitcoin.  There will be some regulations of some kind coming down the pike but unlikely that exchanges will be banned in my opinion. 

I do not want to compare bitcoin to anything else, but let me give you an example:
If we look at the history of companies and exchange offices that operate separately from the central bank, they also transfer a large amount of smuggled money.
All you have to do is go to an exchange shop and give them your money (earned in anyways) and receive the same money in your account in another country like Russia.

Is that all we know about Bitcoin and its vast network?

he government can't block bit coin, because the government can only order its people not to invest in bitcoin, even though not all countries use digital currency. even elsavador has just made it a legal tender. so in this case the government must review repeat in terms of blocking the digital currency

We often hear that if the government bans Bitcoin, will Bitcoin be worth it? We all know that since the creation of Bitcoin, governments of almost every country have tried to ban and control it. Attempts have been made to prevent it from spreading among the people by issuing various prohibitions and notifications. But it did not succeed in its real purpose and its popularity has increased day by day. As a result, governments and organizations in various countries have begun to consider and approve the use of Bitcoin. So it can be said that it is not possible for any government to have complete control over Bitcoin which cannot completely eliminate its use from the people.

Quite an interesting example and I also agree, sometimes the bans from the government make us more curious and pay more attention, when we know what the product has and what benefits it brings, due to the difficulty of spreading, the value will become very expensive. I don't have such interestingly linked thoughts and fantasies, Bitcoin can be said to be a natural product in the online market, it belongs to the production of individuals and people have organized together to create the underground market as it is now, bitcoin will have value as long as the underground market exists and is not related to the government

Uuhm… I don’t think your stats there are accurate. Where did you get those stats that up to 46% of Bitcoin transactions are illegal? I think that is wrong. You should have left a link to the source so that we as well can check it. From what I know, which I am very sure, and it was according to CNBC.com, only 0.34% of cryptocurrency transactions were illicit transactions. Before now it has been around 2%, so that means there has even been a decrease.

So, how did you come up with the 46% you have here? And in case you don’t know, fiat is more often being used for illicit activities more than Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn’t even come close to the rate at which fiat is being used for that.

We have seen it all happen before exactly like this and we see it happening in present situation. Gambling is mostly illegal where I live, so people find underground places to gamble. The result? They lose out on tax revenue and they can't keep an eye on the gambling, it's always a lose lose situation with these bannings.

Very good example here. It is actually a very very good example. The drug industry is a decentralized farming scheme that you can never shut down. If you shut down one farm, there is another somewhere else because there is incentive for it You would have to fully eliminate the incentive in order for anyone to still see an opportunity to farm drugs.

That is impossible because government will never want full privacy for their civilian population. They also will never want full financial free and capital mobility for their population. For as long as government is not going to credibly provide that (which is almost a contradiction in and of itself), Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with a purpose serving civilian society beyond what government is willing to do, will keep thriving.

What government do you mean? I am sure that not all governments will block Bitcoin moreover Bitcoin is legal in many countries.SO, why should worry about this? Bitcoin is not centralized. No one can block Bitcoin. Probably, it only can make the market price of Bitcoin influenced by the FUD. We know that many people around worldwide are involved in Bitcoin and it doesn't only focus limit on one country.

It is impossible for all governments to block Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be consumed and exchanged for other currencies, so it becomes valuable. As long as it continues to be useful, unique and safe, it will remain valuable.

Anyway, I don't think this problem will exist, banning the use of BTC is almost impossible, it just reduces the scale of human use.
However, the current situation seems to be going very well as there are already countries accepting and using BTC.

It is next to impossible for any government to ban Bitcoin Transactions as it most de-centralized currency and P2P transactions will continue, there is no way to stop it. However, use of Bitcoin for criminal activities is a Major concern which should be addressed by introducing new Anti Money laundering Legislations.

https://www.blockchainconsultus.io/cryptocurrency-crime-uses-ways-stop/

Don't know why government always have the lame excuse that bitcoin is the reason of money laundering. If somehow, bitcoin and crypro is vanished from the planet, will there be no money laundering using fiat  ???

if the government is not too strict, I don't think it will affect. but if the government is really serious about being very strict on it.. it might affect but still bitcoin will not die.

only bitcoins? but before bitcoins there are paypal and others and they are also invovled in massive frauds but did the governments block them , no but all of them still exist until now .
sadly many governments in many countries still blocked btc and it does have a negative effect to the btc price , price fell down .
btc will only have no value when all country or government do the same

Bitcoin price will never go down to zero just because governments ban it. There is not a system which is working like that for cryptocurrencies. Governments can hope to end this market but the effort will be in vain.

Paypal is a whole different story. Look at Jack Ma, if you can pin down a person that controls the entity, let's say the PayPal owner or CEO, you just find reasons and send him to jail, afterwards shut the business down or assign a penalty that literally destroys the company. All these actions you can't take against Bitcoin. In the case of China, interestingly, maybe they could force the mining pools to commit a 51% attack and destroy trust in the network. I don't know in how far China could pin down the majority of the hash power providers. Otherwise governments won't block Bitcoin because they can't really. They can try, but that's it.

The way falsehood is evaporating from you with so much alacrity, actually I didn't expect such Bitcoin savaging post,  after reading the title and then reading the post itself.
Since I don't believe your statistics and I don't have any true source to get those informations I don't even think it's something that can have a true fact.
I would be okay with a discussion on the topic, bitcoin value can be affected my some government, and some aspects of bitcoin that was ban. For instance, Nigeria banned the withdrawal of crypto-currency to local Banks but this didn't affect bitcoin, fast forward, China had a ban on a particular aspect of bitcoin I think mining and this affect Bitcoin value.

It has been proven that the biggest crimes and money laundering have been done with FIAT money, any financial tool can be used for good or bad, although that 46% percentage is very little credible, it would have to be done with an agency recognized based on a sample of a population that is representative.

The crimes that have occurred the most based on Crypto have been by Ransomware, and the truth is produced by hackers, is what can be highlighted the most, but most cases do not use crypto, in fact the casinos have mostly been protected With the licenses for the proportion of KYC to avoid such problems as money laundering , the statistic of 46% is quite debatable depending on the source. The countries that prohibit BTC instead of doing damage to BTC what they do is increase its demand, the human being always likes to be more irreverent, the things that they prohibit the most are the ones they want to do the most, and when it comes to Money can pass over any government or banking entity, tools are developed to be able to operate, if it is the case of BTC or any Cryptocurrency. In addition, it would be a very unusual decision, because the trend will always be in favor of the alternative deflationary economy, since for many the biggest bubble is the dollar.

Most governments do not and will not ban Bitcoin. Many people see the value and possibilities in Bitcoin like the President of El Salvador or the governor of Texas and other politicians who support Bitcoin.

China was always one of the most authoritarian countries in the world. Do you remember what they were doing in Tibet? How they're threatening Taiwan and Australia and how they were developing new viruses in Wuhan? It's a country that still executes prisoners in public. It's really nothing new that they're opposing every bit of freedom in this world.

Come to think that if it was totally possible for it to be blocked then government had already done this thing long time ago because they don't really like into something that totally opposes centralization which is on where Bitcoin is really known of.

They can block all they want but they cant completely make it stop and let bitcoin die because as long theres a community who had been using or simply on demand then Bitcoin would continue to live.

Demand is the key plus its technical aspects which is totally decentralized or cant simply be altered nor reverse and which do really make it great.

So you mean to tell the world will be free of crime if bitcoin is banned. No never . Illegal activities, scam,
hawala etc all were there even before bitcoin . So there is no point in this. Its true that some are using bitcoin
for illegal transactions and dealings but it doesnt mean that all this happen because of bitcoin.

it's just an excuse to be able to talk about bitcoin, actually I've heard too many FUD issues around bitcoin.
My problem with crypto usage is on the rise :) , laugh it off in fact I'm still doing it didn't blame it for this.