I have a serious question

[the founder]

This is a serious question,  and honestly I need a serious logical answer to this.

The run up in price was attributed to the Euro Disaster.

However,  is it possible... that SOME of the increase in price is due to Sanctions on Iran or North Korea or Both?   In other words is it possible that some politician is going to stand up demanding "super regulation" because he or she believes (or pretends to believe)  that this is due to bypassing of sanctions,  next thing you know we as the bitcoin community are being blamed for nuclear weapons?

It's an honest question.   I am just looking forward into potential threats,  and this one sits high on my list.

[MoonShadow]

It's more than possible, it's likely, IMHO.

[CIYAM]

With the market cap just exceeding 1 billion USD today is it really likely you can buy nukes with BTC (especially since a lot of the market cap is not available for trading)?

Perhaps it could be used as some sort of excuse to attack it - but it doesn't seem very likely to be in any way a *real issue* to me.

[Peter Lambert]

This is a serious question,  and honestly I need a serious logical answer to this.

The run up in price was attributed to the Euro Disaster.

However,  is it possible... that SOME of the increase in price is due to Sanctions on Iran or North Korea or Both?   In other words is it possible that some politician is going to stand up demand super regulation because he or she believes (or pretends to believe)  that this is due to bypassing of sanctions,  next thing you know we as the bitcoin community are being blamed for nuclear weapons?

It's an honest question.   I am just looking forward into potential threats,  and this one sits high on my list.

The think in Cyprus didn't really kick in until the price had already started rising, so there must have been something before that.

I highly doubt there are many people in either Iran or North Korea using bitcoins to circumvent sanctions. However, politicians never let facts get in the way of their agendas, so I would give it above 99% chance that at some point within the next couple years some politician in the US is going to mention bitcoins and sanctions in the same sentence, just like some US senator already conflated bitcoins and Silk Road.

[BTC Books]

I'm not so sure that's as high on my list, founder.

Nukes and those kind of sanctions play to a fairly limited audience, and politicians (along with the rest of the alphabet soup authoritarian bloc) are lazy - they tend to go with what's worked well in the past.

I expect a gradual ramp-up of the calls for regulation - and even the destruction - of bitcoin.  But I expect them to come from the well-established direction of drugs, kiddie porn, etc., and general terrorism.

Besides, once you start bringing nukes into the mix specifically, you're messing with other areas of authoritarian power grabs.  You get the sheeple all worked up about nukes and they're all going to want Geiger counters and other scientific instruments - but have you noticed that there's been quite a push to outlaw ownership of those kinds of devices by regular citizens (in the U.S. anyway)?  There was quite a push for that, a few years ago - especially in the big US cities like New York and Boston; but it was beaten down.  It'll be back though.  The powers that be don't want us to have access to information.  Information is power.