Banned bitcoin

[Harry Hood]

The OP, Czechkid, is making a great point. It's important not to completely piss off government in the name of Bitcoin, because Governments and banks have power and power can make laws and influence business.

What if a country made it illegal for a business to accept payment in Bitcoin? Just like it would be illegal to accept cocaine or weed or a person for payment of some service.

If businesses can't transact in bitcoin, how much volume will we really have? And if people can only bitcoin to send money to people, how much value in the currency (the value of its utility) will be lost, and therefore drop the value as an investment?

[Sarthak]

Bitcoin cannot be banned!
Government cannot ban bitcoin until they spend billions of dollars and do a 51% attack on the network

[coinableS]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

can you ban internet?
you'll have to stop everyone from using the internet if you want to fully ban bitcoin.

Exactly this would be nearly impossible to enforce.
They banned "illegal file sharing" but it still happens and a lot people do it.
This time instead of sharing software, movies, music and games it's money.

[czechkid]

The OP, Czechkid, is making a great point. It's important not to completely piss off government in the name of Bitcoin, because Governments and banks have power and power can make laws and influence business.

What if a country made it illegal for a business to accept payment in Bitcoin? Just like it would be illegal to accept cocaine or weed or a person for payment of some service.

If businesses can't transact in bitcoin, how much volume will we really have? And if people can only bitcoin to send money to people, how much value in the currency (the value of its utility) will be lost, and therefore drop the value as an investment?

Thank you finally someone see my point.

People keep writing about drugs and downloading music...in my first post i said to the point that its illegal...there are many things in the world that are banned/illegalby the law yet we still do it. Its ok until you get caught. So if you used bitcoin and got caught youll be fined or sleeping in jail. we dont want bitcoin to be black market.

[BitProdigy]

A country that bans bitcoin only hurts itself and it's own economy, it does not hurt bitcoin.

[OmegaStarScream]

If they manage to ban it in one country  (which they won't ), they won't be able to ban it another country . all countries can't agree to do same thing beside there is already shitload of business into Bitcoin that costs million of dollars right now , they can't just step up and ban whatever and whenever they want to

[Amph]

A country that bans bitcoin only hurts itself and it's own economy, it does not hurt bitcoin.

partially true, if every country ban and restrict heavily bitcoin, then it can have a bad effect on bitcoin also, because no one will be able to use it or exchange it for fiat, unless you are talking about a distant future where bitcoin is not dependent of fiat anymore

[aakashsangwan]

If the government bans anything then it becomes more popular in the residents of the country.
As the government is in the favour of banks and banks are against Bitcoin so government should never ban Bitcoin because if they ban Bitcoin then it will definitely come into news by which more and more people will know about it and it will be more widely used.

[gentlemand]

If the government bans anything then it becomes more popular in the residents of the country.

It's not like drugs or porn. They're fun and they address desires that are as old as our DNA.

Bitcoin's selling point is its utility. Take away the ability to openly utilise it in said country and who is going to put money into something they can't spend and others won't want or accept?

I'm not gonna think 'goddamn it that sounds desirable.' I'm gonna think 'Fuck that.'

Sure, there's black markets, hiding money, transferring it across borders but that's relatively niche. If BTC was made effectively useless tomorrow I struggle to see how that's going to turn people on. There are plenty of other options for them.

[seoincorporation]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

Then people can go to http://poloniex.com/ and change all the bitcoins to litecoin.

Was like Just-dice, they got some problems with their country gob for use bitcoin and how did they solve it? Changing the casino to Clams.

They can kill bitcoin, but can't kill the idea.

[Derrike]

If the government bans anything then it becomes more popular in the residents of the country.

It's not like drugs or porn. They're fun and they address desires that are as old as our DNA.

Bitcoin's selling point is its utility. Take away the ability to openly utilise it in said country and who is going to put money into something they can't spend and others won't want or accept?

I'm not gonna think 'goddamn it that sounds desirable.' I'm gonna think 'Fuck that.'

Sure, there's black markets, hiding money, transferring it across borders but that's relatively niche. If BTC was made effectively useless tomorrow I struggle to see how that's going to turn people on. There are plenty of other options for them.

After government bans Bitcoin then people search for a reason of it.
Then they see that someone was buying drugs with bitcoin anonymously then they think that heck yeah I finally found a way to do this. And bang Bitcoin is adapted by them.

But in second thought, whole country cannot be a drug abuser.

[seoincorporation]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

how can they ban it?

Countries can make laws against bitcoin, but they cant just ban it.

If you see, drugs are illegal in almost all countries, and people stop using it?

[Shinpako09]

Nah, they can't do that and theres a lot of altcoin. So it's useless to ban a bitcoin because of altcoin.

[ashour]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

It would be like banning torrents or file sharing. There  is not point to ban bitcoin, heck you CANT ban it it's decentralized .

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

It would be like banning torrents or file sharing. There  is not point to ban bitcoin, heck you CANT ban it it's decentralized .

Right, decentralization is bitcoin's strength now. It is possible to change the code so that certain coins are redlisted or blacklisted and can't be safely spent. Mike Hearn has made rumblings about such things and is one reason to oppose Bitcoin XT. If he succeeds in his bid for a hardfork there is no telling how bitcoin could change for the worse. Mike Hearn as lead developer scares me.

[RodeoX]

I suspect it will work about as well as the ban on porn. Remember when *everyone wanted to ban porn on the internet? The law gave up on that years ago and now only go after child porn and horrible stuff like that. If you really enforced the laws on the books you might be shocked at how many places it is illegal to see a photo of someone getting a BJ.

[boumalo]

Bitcoin owns his value to the users that agree that it is valued so. This is not illegal by any means, and do not think it could be banned.

It would be harmful to ban it but the state could ban it.

[damiano]

What if some countries just simply ban bitcoin? To the point that its against the law to own it and use it.

Then them bitcoiners will need to pull their fingers out and start war with their govt. Jokes aside that is something they are never going to be able to do and why would they? It is not a threat to them we don't have nearly enough users for them to have any worry. Even if they did try people in said country would continue to use it and their is nothing that can be done short of cutting the internet off

[BurtW]

All of you brave young men that say "they can't ban Bitcoins" need to spend a few nights in solitary confinement with the threat of 5 years in Federal prison hanging over your head in order to solidify your deeply held beliefs.

They won't ban Bitcoins as it will be too profitable to just arrest you, throw your ass in jail, and then make you pay into their "asset forfeiture fund" to let you out - USD and Bitcoins accepted there.  

I leaned the hard way to the tune of about $300,000 exactly what they are capable of under the marshal law (patriot act) in which we currently live.

Very well written article about the case, and civil asset forfeiture in general:

http://coinjournal.net/burt-wagner-localbitcoins-case-shows-danger-of-overbearing-government

If you live in the Boulder/Denver area I will be speaking:

http://www.meetup.com/Colorado-Bitcoin-Society/events/224676885/

Updated web sites:

http://www.burtw.com/

http://www.jmwagner.com/

[philipma1957]

All of you brave young men that say "they can't ban Bitcoins" need to spend a few nights in solitary confinement with the threat of 5 years in Federal prison hanging over your head in order to solidify your deeply held beliefs.

They won't ban Bitcoins as it will be too profitable to just arrest you, throw your ass in jail, and then make you pay into their "asset forfeiture fund" to let you out - USD and Bitcoins accepted there.  

I leaned the hard way to the tune of about $300,000 exactly what they are capable of under the marshal law (patriot act) in which we currently live.

Very well written article about the case, and civil asset forfeiture in general:

http://coinjournal.net/burt-wagner-localbitcoins-case-shows-danger-of-overbearing-government

If you live in the Boulder/Denver area I will be speaking:

http://www.meetup.com/Colorado-Bitcoin-Society/events/224676885/

Updated web sites:

http://www.burtw.com/

http://www.jmwagner.com/

Thanks for the post.  I was thinking about you as I read this thread and then you posted to it.