Would you follow BTC's to the underground?

[Jfqs6m]

There's a lot of talk about bitcoins being shutdown by the government lately. Technically they can't "shut us down" but I guess they could shutdown conversion sites like mtgox and Bitcoinmarket. My guess is that if that does happen bitcoins would go underground through TOR or some service. Who would go underground with it?

[enmaku]

*Does his best Admiral Ackbar impression*

IT'S A TRAP!!!

[BookofNick]

Would I follow bitcoin underground? Well, because of the thought police monitoring the Internet currently, I will say the opposite of what I really think.

NO WAY, MAN!

Seriously, though, I'd argue that it's already underground.

[mewantsbitcoins]

Bitcoin hasn't left the underground.

[BookofNick]

Bitcoin hasn't left the underground.

Yes, that's more accurate.

[ctoon6]

If the government made pushes to shutdown mtgox and such, they would kill it. at that point BTC would no longer be able to be a new currency that you could have a real job and get paid in BTC per hour. so no i would not follow it, because it would be pointless.

[iCEBREAKER]

There are crackdowns coming on mtgox and maybe even bitcoin.org.

We need to move the entire bitcoin infrastructure to namecoin address space.  

Mining pools, e-wallets, forums, mtgox, all of it must STOP using the US military-controlled DNS system.

If we do not support the rapid development and deployment of NAMECOIN, the bitcoin experiment will fail.

TOR is not enough.

A wise man on this BBS once said, "Bitcoin is to Paypal as Namecoin is to Godaddy."

dot-bit.org

Or bitcoin will be dead before Christmas.

[evoorhees]

I think when the "underground" bitcoin economy flourishes, while the "legitimate" socialist economy perpetuates in mediocrity, you might find people make interesting decisions.

[ocharry]

I think when the "underground" bitcoin economy flourishes, while the "legitimate" socialist economy perpetuates in mediocrity, you might find people make interesting decisions.

True. I think if it becomes the currency it is promised to be then it can't be stopped.

[Nefario]

I wasn't aware it was above ground.

I never expect it to actually be able to go that route either, although there are some very valiant efforts to legitimise it.

[imperi]

I think it would be really cool to have underground, illegal crypto-currency. A small part of me wants it to become illegal for this purpose. I'd feel like I'm in the Matrix. I think in that case I would take my old Matrix posters from my parent's house and bring them to my apartment.

[AllYourBase]

You mean underground like bittorent?  Sure.

[IApplaudBitcoin]

Would I be a user of bitcoin if it was made illegal? Yes. The Bitcoin project has struck so many chords with me.

That said, more people need to start accepting bitcoins for goods and services before it truly becomes a useful currency.

[Ian Maxwell]

Honestly I think it would be really stupid of anyone to say here that they intend to break the law.

That said, if the use of Bitcoin were banned in my country, I would strongly consider expatriation. This is one reason why I'd like to see at least one nation declare the use of Bitcoin officially hunky-dory.

[theymos]

I'd probably move to somewhere where it is legal.

I think it would be really cool to have underground, illegal crypto-currency. A small part of me wants it to become illegal for this purpose. I'd feel like I'm in the Matrix. I think in that case I would take my old Matrix posters from my parent's house and bring them to my apartment.

It would be pretty cool, but too dangerous for my taste.

[jashan]

To me, Bitcoin is the best payment method currently available. However, there's no point in using a payment method that's illegal because it's unlikely I could pay for any of the services that I'm using it for, and I would put myself at risk by offering payments in Bitcoins (anyone accepting Bitcoins for their services would make themselves subject to investigation and potentially prosecution - and that risk would spread to their customers as well). In other words: If BTC was illegal, it would become completely useless for me. In fact, it would become completely useless to the majority of the world's population. The existing payment methods (PayPal, credit cards, wire transfers, cash) do work "well enough" for me - on both ends (service provider, consumer).

Bitcoin is clearly superior to the existing methods (and currencies) but only as long as using it doesn't put me into potential trouble. That would by far outweigh its benefits for me, it would literally make using Bitcoin much more expensive than using PayPal, credit cards and wire transfers. And I have much more powerful ways of changing the world than using an illegal payment method. The only way I see Bitcoin unfolding its full potential (way beyond just being a "payment method") is by going mainstream. At that point, it will be seriously disruptive and can literally change the world. Until then, however, it's just a geek-thing - a great idea, a great concept, excellently implemented but not really a game changer, yet.

Most people in the world don't know and don't even care.

Keep in mind: Every transaction in Bitcoin is fully transparent. So, if Bitcoin was illegal, I'd have to put a lot of effort into hiding that I'm using it. And even then, it would still be a very high risk. I know quite a few people who got busted for using BitTorrent to spread copyrighted materials. People are being busted in large numbers because it's trivial to get a huge list of IP-addresses, track those IP-addresses down to actual post addresses and send them invoices with threats. It's very naive to believe you can hide behind an IP-address - and in fact, most of the people being busted are minors. It's probably the best-paying business the music industry ever got into (that's why I'm mostly boycotting that industry - I consider them "evil" and really don't need what they have to offer).

Using BitTorrent isn't illegal, though - and I'm personally using it for legal stuff (downloading movies that were put there by the copyright owners who use BitTorrent as a convenient way to spread their message, downloading software I licensed of which the copyright owners are using BitTorrent as distribution mechanism and the like).