bitbit (OP)
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April 03, 2013, 02:32:59 AM |
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Can the Government destroy the Bitcoin by hoarding them?
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"The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the
core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime." -- Satoshi
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additionalpylons
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April 03, 2013, 02:38:53 AM |
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Why would they spend all that money just to destroy it? This makes no sense.
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empoweoqwj
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April 03, 2013, 02:38:58 AM |
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which government?
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DogStar
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April 03, 2013, 02:40:08 AM |
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hoarding would cause the price to go up..
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Severian
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April 03, 2013, 02:40:48 AM |
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Let 'em. It will make our coins more valuable.
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Delitus
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April 03, 2013, 02:57:29 AM |
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The worst they can do probably is cause BTC prices to temporarily become more volatile (by hoarding an extreme amount of coins, and releasing them all at once after prices settle - an extreme case). "Destroying" BTC (by destroying the wallet containing the hoarded coins for example) won't affect much in the long-run, as BTC is meant to be infinitely divisible - any remaining coins in circulation will take their place.
The only true way to destory Bitcoin as a whole would be to either hoard ALL 21 million coins (thereby completely removing it from circulation), or obtain and maintain >50% of the total network's hashing power. As ASICs are still rare, and with the current network speed of ~60 TH/s along with the increasing price of BTC, either option would be extremely costly endeavours, and realistically, I just don't see this happening.
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PachucoBro
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April 03, 2013, 03:10:11 AM |
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hoarding would cause the price to go up..
Let's imagine I just bought every BTC out there... what is the value of 1 BTC if I own all of them??? The price will not GO UP if one person were to hoard them and not USE them. They would become useless. |
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molotov
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April 03, 2013, 03:13:30 AM
Last edit: April 03, 2013, 03:33:38 AM by molotov |
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I think if they wanted to destroy it they could do it easier by making some massive propaganda about how bad these anonymous currencys are and how they are used by terrorists and are a threat to children, then pass a law to forbid them or destroy the concept in another way whilst many people will have been brainwashed into disapproval of not just btc but any other alternate cryptocurrencie existant or to be created.
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PachucoBro
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April 03, 2013, 03:16:47 AM |
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*puts tin foil hat on*
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lassdas
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April 03, 2013, 03:24:05 AM |
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hoarding would cause the price to go up..
Let's imagine I just bought every BTC out there... That's pretty hard to imagine, because.... well, it'll never happen. I own a bunch of coins and there's no way you could buy them all, not for all the money on this planet. If the price is so high (due to you trying to buy them all) that you have to pay me millions of $ for half of my coins, why would I sell the other half? Feel free to try.  |
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molotov
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April 03, 2013, 03:32:53 AM |
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*puts tin foil hat on*
hahahaha i wear it doble layer, cosmic rays are strong lately.. No but seriously, it makes sense, it wouldn't be the first time the media is used for a purpose, is it? |
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toomsie
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April 03, 2013, 03:36:20 AM |
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hoarding would cause the price to go up..
Let's imagine I just bought every BTC out there... what is the value of 1 BTC if I own all of them??? The price will not GO UP if one person were to hoard them and not USE them. They would become useless. One person cannot own every bitcoin. So long as The People own 5% of bitcoins it is divisible enough to trade with. It is not the same thing if one person own 95% of gold and The People had to trade in tiny specks of gold dust that are easy to lose. |
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PachucoBro
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April 03, 2013, 03:49:40 AM |
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OMG... I was stating an example to debunk what DogStar said about if people hoarded all the BTC the price would go up.
The same goes for if everyone hoarded 1 BTC and no one spent them... then the price would go down. Because the BTC would have no intrinsic or perceived value if no one used them for anything.
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wopwop
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April 03, 2013, 03:51:58 AM |
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Yes government spend tax-payer USD/Energy to buy bitcoin and for what exactly??? LOL Remember Bitcoin requires a permanent feed of USD/Energy, this feed never stops and only must grow if Bitcoin's usage grows.... Who's gonna pay to keep BItcoin alive?  YOU?? ME??? BITCOIN TO DA MOONNNNNN |
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burmo
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April 03, 2013, 04:57:46 AM |
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It would be better for them to hoard gold, not enough BTC to go around.
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manface
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April 03, 2013, 05:06:11 AM |
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Someone rich could buy all the bitcoins, then sell them. And keep doing it to keep prices unstable. Not sure what benefit it would bring exactly but its possible.
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Kazu
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April 03, 2013, 05:26:13 AM |
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Man, if the Government really does try to buy out all of them, people will just start dividing their coins down smaller and smaller and putting up smaller and smaller amounts on MTGOX for larger and larger amounts.
Their is always gonna be that one last person that decides that he's gotta hold that last satoshi. Or probably a good thousand people that decide that they've gotta hold what they think is that last satoshi. For the good of civilization and all that jazz, you know.
Destroying the wallet would just end up causing the price to skyrocket. If the feds really wanted to mess around, they'd buy assloads of BTC, then sell them all at the same time. THAT would erode confidence. However, the fed by definition moves slow. By the time that happens, probably an even bigger-ass corporation would have decided that BTC is too sweet to let the government screw it over, and will start providing liquidity.
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Kazimir
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April 03, 2013, 05:29:18 AM |
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Someone rich could buy all the bitcoins, then sell them. And keep doing it to keep prices unstable. Not sure what benefit it would bring exactly but its possible. You seem to think that if someone (or some government) extremely rich would just put down X amount of money, they can suddenly buy all bit coins. Well, no. No matter how much X is. Quite some coins out there are simply not for sale. I for example own a bunch of bit coins, and at least half of them I'm just NOT gonna sell any time soon. Same for lassdas above, and many other people. Compare with gold: if someone puts enough money on the table, could they buy ALL the gold in the world? No, plenty of people got gold stored in their houses or in their wives' jewelry or whatever and they will simply not sell that in the forseeable future. |
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Minor Miner
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April 03, 2013, 05:30:32 AM |
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then you should be the last man standing and see what the bid is.
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Markus4321
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April 03, 2013, 05:43:07 AM |
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Governments cant destroy bitcoin.
1.) They dont have the hardware to gain it themselves (supercomputers my ass).
2.) Since BTC Raised over 110 yesterday, they cant afford to buy them in mass anymore.
3.) People wont sell BTC cheap anymore, its raising and raising.
4.) Even if finance authorities want to control BTC, they could never get a hold of transactions at all.
5.) The amout of Bitcoins is limited, therefore you cant melt it with any fiat money system (no inflation/interests).
And even "if" the Bitcoin system was in danger, it would take a week, maybe 2 weeks - and those dangers would be fixed.
If necessary - within a new BC system - thats the way to go, no one shall be able to stop it.
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