Who controls bitcoins?

[Argwai96]

Can the government shut down the internet? Yes they can!

First, why do you think this?

actually you can do that (like north korea).  but then: welcome to the stoneage! 

and in 5-10 years there will be alot of sattelites which will bring the internet (and Bitcoin) in every corner of the world.

(there will be even BITCOIN SATELLITES    )
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nanosatellites-orbit-earth-2016/

Wasn't there a group that was attempting to transmit the blockchain through RF?
A Finnish group if I am not mistaken.
They said they were working on ways to make it a two way transmission too. 

i was just going to talk about this, keep in mind that we could still transmit zeros and ones over Rf signals yes it might take a about 2 minutes for a signal to travel around the world but we could defendly do it.

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[ikydesu]

I'm sure the internet will not shut down, even if WWIII or WWIV but Bitcoin can be shut down(or banned) on some country.
No body can control bitcoin.

I do. So don't worry, I wont shut down your internets.

Keep it work man

-snip

and in 5-10 years there will be alot of sattelites which will bring the internet (and Bitcoin) in every corner of the world.

(there will be even BITCOIN SATELLITES    )
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nanosatellites-orbit-earth-2016/

Wow bitcoin will be to the moon

[chrisvl]

bitcoin are controlled from their users

[ShamrockHannah]

Those who own the largest accounts of bitcoin probably have the greatest amount of control over the future of BTC

[scarsbergholden]

Those who own the largest accounts of bitcoin probably have the greatest amount of control over the future of BTC

Maybe some of the bitcoin mining farms in china that did jumped into bitcoin when asics where just beginning to come out, there is a few high profile investors but most likely a Chinese farm could be holding a good amount.

[Possum577]

No. Wrong. Bitcoin is not a symptom of the internet.

Do you understand fiat currency? Fiat currency theories and rules don't apply (largely) to Bitcoin. There is now centralized force. In one sense the person who created bitcoin probably could have a lot, so Satoshi, but since that person doesn't own exclusively the ability to create bitcoin they can't control the supply.

It's a beautiful thing!

[Amph]

bitcoin are controlled from their users

from chinese users, with their 60%+ on the network, if they team up they can in theory control bitcoin and manipulate everything or double spend at will

not looking so bright at all, the worst thign is that you can't do nothing about it, the good part is that as long as there is profit in mining they will not shoot at their feet

it's like you have a gorilla, that needs to be fed with ton of bananas each day otherwise he might kill you...

[Ingatqhvq]

There is no single person or organization can control bitcoin, it belong to people who like freedom and privacy.

[BTCFaucets]

No one? Or maybe just about everyone who holds some amount of BTC have some control over it? I would think that the amount of control holders have is proportional to the amount of BTC in your hands. That is the beauty of Bitcoins I guess.

[Kprawn]

The Chinese has tried to "shutdown" the internet in their country for years and the people there still bypass some of those restrictions.

Let's say there is some truth in what you are saying... your Bitcoin would still be safe. {It's recorded on the Blockchain}

Not ALL governments will shutdown the internet.... There has not been a single event in the history of mankind, where all nations agreed on something.

The Blockchain can function on many other communications methods and it will soon be into space.  

[Herbert2020]

The Chinese has tried to "shutdown" the internet in their country for years and the people there still bypass some of those restrictions.

Let's say there is some truth in what you are saying... your Bitcoin would still be safe. {It's recorded on the Blockchain}

Not ALL governments will shutdown the internet.... There has not been a single event in the history of mankind, where all nations agreed on something.

The Blockchain can function on many other communications methods and it will soon be into space. 

if the government decides to shut down the internet then i guess there is no more reason to live

[CEG5952]

The gov can shut down the electric grid..

TURN OFF ALL ELECTRICY STOP BEING DEPENDENT ON IT..

99% population loss EASILY in all western countries if electricy went down.. easily..

I'd recoken 80% pop loss if the web was down for longer than a month

Ever heard of the "People power"? If that happens, people will gather around and rally to the government if that happens. People power is a scary thing. If you're on the current government and you do this, imagine the power of million of people lining up, with rage and blood lust. Nuclear stuff wont work because all that controls it will be joining the people power.

That's just my opinion.

[countryfree]

A government may may locally block the Internet, or the electrical grid grid, but this would be some kind of a political suicide. A large part of the economy now comes from the Internet, and everybody needs electricity, so unless you want to wreck the economy nobody's going to do that. Even IS needs the Internet for propaganda!

So the Internet is safe, like BTC, and nobody controls it.

[Falconer]

A government may may locally block the Internet, or the electrical grid grid, but this would be some kind of a political suicide. A large part of the economy now comes from the Internet, and everybody needs electricity, so unless you want to wreck the economy nobody's going to do that. Even IS needs the Internet for propaganda!

So the Internet is safe, like BTC, and nobody controls it.

The government won't do a ridiculous thing like block internet or many more. Internet is a primary thing for people, even for government. If they are really be disturbed by bitcoin, they will do better way like gathering all best hackers to disrupt bitcoin network, or jailing the bitcoin enthusiasts.

[Moonpig]

The Chinese has tried to "shutdown" the internet in their country for years and the people there still bypass some of those restrictions.

Let's say there is some truth in what you are saying... your Bitcoin would still be safe. {It's recorded on the Blockchain}

Not ALL governments will shutdown the internet.... There has not been a single event in the history of mankind, where all nations agreed on something.

The Blockchain can function on many other communications methods and it will soon be into space. 

if the government decides to shut down the internet then i guess there is no more reason to live

They're not trying to shut it down, just censor and control it. It's really sad to me that they think they can keep their citizens in check like this.

[sukamasoto]

We ourself is responsible and control our bitcoin. Even our goverment will hard to take over it since they don't have something name private key.
If they shutdown internet, it means that goverment shut down all human's need , not just bitcoin user so IMO goverment need to think very carefully to do this option

[BitcoinNewbie15]

I think that no one is in direct control over Bitcoin. It is used by the people for the people which is one of the reasons I like Bitcoin so much. But I do understand what you mean with the government shutting down the internet. That would be bad for Bitcoin but it would also be very bad for many people and a number of other things.

[Za1n]

The gov can shut down the electric grid..

TURN OFF ALL ELECTRICY STOP BEING DEPENDENT ON IT..

99% population loss EASILY in all western countries if electricy went down.. easily..

I'd recoken 80% pop loss if the web was down for longer than a month

Really? Please explain the scenarios you outlined and how these drastic population collapses will happen. I can see loss of electricity putting people in a hardship, but why would they suddenly just fall over dead?

Even more interesting is your projected 80% population decline in one month just because the Internet goes down. WTF, people can't check their Facebook page are going to just up and die, lol. 

[lahm-44]

well I don't t think government will ever gonna shutdown internet because all of the world needs internet for every seconds ..we are day by day getting addocted to it and we had already collapsed for it..we are now nothing without internet so bitcoins is also a part of internet and we need that too

[Somekindabitcoin]

I don't know much about it, but I would say nobody controls Bitcoin. How can anyone control it? Maybe if the biggest pools decide to connect they can control the fees but not Bitcoin.