Can the bitcoin network run entirely inside Tor?

[fredi173]

If a government decides to block bitcoin can the miners and the clients exit via Tor network?

Going further... If all the governments decide to block the bitcoin network... can it run inside Tor entirely?

[Foxpup]

You can easily configure Bitcoin to connect though Tor (in Options -> Network, turn on "Connect through SOCKS proxy" - the default proxy settings are for a standard Tor installation, though you will need to change them if your Tor setup is non-standard). You can also run Bitcoin as a hidden service, though (I'm pretty sure) other Tor nodes won't be able to connect to you automatically - to connect to hidden Bitcoin services, you need to manually set up each hidden service you want to connect to.

The wiki says that "...the network won't work if everyone does this. BitCoin requires that some country is still free." though I have no idea why it won't work. It seems to me like it should (though it would require some effort set it up), but maybe I'm missing something obvious.

[leijurv]

I don't think so. Connecting to a node normally requires that node to have port 8333 forwarded to the bitcoin client, but in Tor you generally are assigned a port >32768 which can't be used for Bitcoin. Also, setting up a tor hidden service wouldn't work because peer discovery is locked into IPv4 and IPv6 which can't be used for a tor hidden service.

[fractal5]

If a government decides to block bitcoin can the miners and the clients exit via Tor network?

Going further... If all the governments decide to block the bitcoin network... can it run inside Tor entirely?

It can probably be run through a VPN service, though I've never tried to do that.

[jabulani]

Wouldn't that be dangerous with nods able to snoop transactions?