What could really stop bitcoin now?

[flyingkiwiguy]

... has anyone estimated the hash rate of the world's top supercomputers?

A lot less than the Bitcoin network, considering how specialised Bitcoin hardware is these days. Bitcoin is still a fiat currency, where the fiat is implicitly the Bitcoin Open Source community's consensus on the code base for signing transactions. As with any fiat currency its value is derived from belief in it as a store of value. Attack the legality and reputation of Bitcoin exchanges and you directly attack people's belief in the viability of Bitcoin.

[veteranBtc]

I think nothing can stop Bitcoin now. From what I see, the value of bitcoin is growing pretty fast. I'll be happy to sell in the future.

[burakura22]

Better e-currency ?  Sometthing with faster confirmations, or maybe no confirmations at all.

[henq]

My parents emigrated to america a mere 10 years ago and its already going down the drain. I have been desperately looking somewhere to emigrate and can't find one sane nation on this globe.

google for sovereign man, he advices Chile.

[massivebitman]

It's not possible to stop Bitcoin just by making it illegal.

Totally disagree.

If the governments makes bitcoin illegal, all the exchanges will have to go bye bye. This means that bitcoin will lose mainstream adoption, and also make it a lot harder for the underground bitcoin people to operate, because at the end of the day they really need to change their BTC into cash if they want to buy anything legal... Right?

[nwbitcoin]

It's not possible to stop Bitcoin just by making it illegal.

Totally disagree.

If the governments makes bitcoin illegal, all the exchanges will have to go bye bye. This means that bitcoin will lose mainstream adoption, and also make it a lot harder for the underground bitcoin people to operate, because at the end of the day they really need to change their BTC into cash if they want to buy anything legal... Right?

Nonsense!

Silk road is a great example of illegal things being bought and sold!

More importantly, the example of mass shooting with illegal weapons by illegal users is key in demonstrating that illegal status makes no difference
 .

Enforcement of illegal things is the key, and most governments know, most people are self enforcing. If people refuse to stop using Bitcoins, it's going to take more actions by governments to kill it.

[yocko06]

if bitcoin was made illegal it may just give it the publicity it needs to get it going stronger. Criminal organizations would use it to transfer cash from country to country. these organizations don't want to use the Mt.Gox sites because this is putting there money on the system.
(Crime generates an estimated $2.1 trillion in global annual proceeds - or 3.6pc of the world's gross domestic product - and the problem may be growing, a senior United Nations official has said.)
If it was criminals alone using bitcoin it would bring the vale of each coin well above $1000.
the only end I see to bitcoin is due to 51% control of the hash power witch will be a hard task as more and more miners are starting up due to new mining teck. 
 

[gILisH]

1. Shutting down the internet.
2. Having one entity buying all Bitcoins existing at the moment and RIPing them.
3. If NP==P (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem). But this would change the whole world. Not just Bitcoin.
4. Loss of trust by the community.
5. Finding Satoshi and discovering he's the United States of America, or North Korea. Whatever makes the conspiracy more Hollywood style.



 

[wachtwoord]

1. Shutting down the internet.
2. Having one entity buying all Bitcoins existing at the moment and RIPing them.
3. If NP==P (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem). But this would change the whole world. Not just Bitcoin.
4. Loss of trust by the community.
5. Finding Satoshi and discovering he's the United States of America, or North Korea. Whatever makes the conspiracy more Hollywood style.

1. Very very difficult
2. Impossible (price will rise exponentially to a point the last partial Bitcoin not owned by the the buying entity to be worth more then all resources on Earth combined)
3. Would not destroy Bitcoin. Bitcoin would just switch it's hashing algorithm.
4. True, but would likely need a strong catalyst
5. I don't think that would matter at all.

[Snowfire]

I am less concerned by the outlawing scenarios--Bitcoin is not confined to any one country, and any such effort would need to be truly global and coordinated. I can imagine any number of countries might balk at cooperating on this one. And the fallout would not be limited to Bitcoin; all sorts of things from bonus points to buy-one-get-one-free coupons to frequent flier miles to virtual videogame tokens and subway tokens and many other things would become collateral casualties of a frontal legal assault.

Unofficial cyberattacks by botnets could bring the system down to a point where no one would want to use it any more, however.

But Bitcoin may just be a rough draft. What finally emerges (if any one thing does) may be more sophisticated, at which point Bitcoin might be discarded in favor of "bettercoin."

There might also emerge a nasty war between incompatible forks down the road, with no clear winner. That would certainly slow down adoption.
Also, the folks using Bitcoin as a speculative commodity rather than a currency are really hampering the latter use. No one wants to spend a currency that is rapidly rising, and no one wants to take it in payment if it is rapidly falling. True acceptance as a currency will only come when the speculators can be marginalized.

There is the problem that transactions take about 10 minutes to clear. No store cashier with a line of customers to serve can cope with that, and the problem might get worse as the block chain grows. Something like Ripple can be used as a front end to work around  this, but then  might merchants just chose do business natively in XRP and say to hell with BTC? The Open Coin people are not actively encouraging this, but neither are they trying actively to prevent it.

There are things which you will probably never be able to do in any cybercurrency, such as pay your taxes, tip your waitress, rent a car, buy airline tickets, buy or sell titlable property (real estate, vehicles, etc.) These transactions require either physical cash or credit cards, or must be denominated in national currency for tax reasons.

Also, a national currency is backed not only by the faith of the issuing government, but by its judicial authority (to enforce contracts, etc.) Bitcoin by its nature is not backed by any judicial authority; so if a dispute arises concerning a contract denominated in Bitcoin,  will any court agree to enforce it? I rather doubt it. Thus, few will want to receive their wages  or bid for a contract job in Bitcoin.

I see Bitcoin's role as an adjunct to national currency. Only in highly abnormal circumstances (such as the complete collapse of a national currency) could I see it acting as anything like a substitute--and then only temporarily.

[pulsecat]

There are things which you will probably never be able to do in any cybercurrency, such as pay your taxes, tip your waitress, rent a car, buy airline tickets, buy or sell titlable property (real estate, vehicles, etc.) These transactions require either physical cash or credit cards, or must be denominated in national currency for tax reasons.

Also, a national currency is backed not only by the faith of the issuing government, but by its judicial authority (to enforce contracts, etc.) Bitcoin by its nature is not backed by any judicial authority; so if a dispute arises concerning a contract denominated in Bitcoin,  will any court agree to enforce it? I rather doubt it. Thus, few will want to receive their wages  or bid for a contract job in Bitcoin.

I see Bitcoin's role as an adjunct to national currency. Only in highly abnormal circumstances (such as the complete collapse of a national currency) could I see it acting as anything like a substitute--and then only temporarily.

I would agree with every point, if we are only comparing Bitcoins to traditional currencies. But most greatest thing about Bitcoin is that it is new phenomenon, it brings new ideas and probably will be game changer.

[acf6996]

Consider the free trade zone between USA and EU comes into existence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4-hHOM5KW4&list=UU56WwNsqpbjme7r-URpl3OA

Consider that in future central banks could perceive Bitcoin as a threat to their ability to control money supply.
At least ECB considers Bitcoin to fall in their responsibility.
See end page 47: http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf

Both together could result in a ban of Bitcoin in USA and Europe ( Eumerica? )

In this scenario I would expect a serious drop in demand and price for Bitcoin.

Remember, USA made owning gold illegal. Why shouldn't they do the same to Bitcoin if it seems appropriate?

[wachtwoord]

In this scenario I would expect a serious drop in demand and price for Bitcoin.

Funny, as I would expect an increase in both demand and price in this scenario.

[JaredR26]

If the big bad US government made bitcoin illegal, it could actually make a lot of things more difficult for everyone.

[shawshankinmate37927]

There are things which you will probably never be able to do in any cybercurrency, such as pay your taxes, tip your waitress, rent a car, buy airline tickets, buy or sell titlable property (real estate, vehicles, etc.) These transactions require either physical cash or credit cards, or must be denominated in national currency for tax reasons.

You could make a habit of always keeping a few paper wallets--like the one's found at bitaddress.org--with you that contain a couple of bucks worth of BTC.  You can then leave one as part of the tip for your waiter or waitress.  My guess is the waiter's/waitress's manager would just scratch their head and wouldn't even bother reporting it to the IRS.

Doing this would have the additional benefit of introducing more people to Bitcoin and perhaps spark their interest.  I would include a note on the back saying that if the BTC are not transferred to another address within 60 days or so the funds will be forfeited.  (You would need to keep a second copy of each paper wallet for yourself in order to transfer the BTC back to yourself if the recipient chose to forfeit them.)

[FireBlazzer]

if bit coins steps out of anomise stauts.... and is more accepted for everday tranasactions... then this could get really big.

as of now.. much of bit coins use is for gray areas of the law..... if those gray areas get sorted out.. bit coins may not be needed.... unless they can find there way into a larger amount of merchaints,,, and find a way to make it more easy to get them

it hurts my head just thinking about the invonveinces of aqquiring bit coins

[acf6996]

In this scenario I would expect a serious drop in demand and price for Bitcoin.

Funny, as I would expect an increase in both demand and price in this scenario.

And why would demand increase if it becomes illegal for business owners to accept Bitcoin?

I assume part of Bitcoins recent increase in price comes from the increased expected use as medium of payment in all kinds of companies. 

If this expected use as medium of payment drops because Bitcoin is banned from legal use in USA and Europe I can not see another outcome than a drop in price.

Please explain.

[JasperDX7]

I don't see it stopping but I can see the value of it dropping dramatically. It happened a few times when the currently was first starting out.

[Cornelius]

What can stop Bitcoin now?

These won't stop bitcoin, but any one could definitely reverse Bitcoin's current direction:

 - FinCEN going after exchanges for not filing as money transmitters (and/or for not registering as money service businesses) for selling "prepaid access".  (This includes those exchanges serving customers in the U.S. regardless of where the exchange is located).
 - Coinbase, BitMe, BitFloor, and CampBX being served subpoenas to cough up the USD and BTC transaction history for each of its customer accounts.

Another thing that could hurt bitcoin would be a tax on virtual currencies. For obvious reasons, central banks and corrupt governments would certainly favour the idea, and could use their political influence to try pass a new tax law using arguments of illegal activities such as money laundering, drug abuse, under-aged gambling, etc., being facilitated by bitcoin. That wouldn't kill bitcoin, though.

[FireBlazzer]

In this scenario I would expect a serious drop in demand and price for Bitcoin.

Funny, as I would expect an increase in both demand and price in this scenario.

And why would demand increase if it becomes illegal for business owners to accept Bitcoin?

I assume part of Bitcoins recent increase in price comes from the increased expected use as medium of payment in all kinds of companies. 

If this expected use as medium of payment drops because Bitcoin is banned from legal use in USA and Europe I can not see another outcome than a drop in price.

Please explain.

this makes me worried that goldman and other big banks are loooking into bit coins.. what are they plotting?..hmm