BTC Ban

[erikalui]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

There is nothing that justifies bitcoin ban and the Government (if they wish to ban anything), they'll find any excuse and they can just pass an order to ban all crypto currencies (bitcoins and altcoins) due to its misuse and not being authorized. They can freeze all the funds of a person even if the person has been holding bitcoins earlier (as most Governments have considered it as a currency associated with shady trades and illegal activities) and proving the source wouldn't be sufficient.

The countries that decided to ban this currency feared that their own economy was suffering and hence they applied a fine on those still dealing with bitcoins. Till now, no country has banned it for illegal activities dealing in bitcoins as even their own currency is used for such activities.

[~Bitcoin~]

And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

A big NO

If they can do this, many countries might have already ban bitcoin. They can't shut down all the distributed nodes all over the country and if even one node remain alive, other nodes can easily copy ledger from that single node.

It is not like banning few websites by ISP.  

[pixie85]

They can make a law that says holding and selling Bitcoin is penalized by law, but it won't happen. First of all it's not dangerous in any way, it's like holding a bunch of mp3s, movies, collectibles, it doesn't harm anyone. It would be something similar to prohibition, where people still bought and drank alcohol, they just couldn't do it openly in daylight, but attended hidden basement clubs.

[YTBitcoin]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

Only the ignorance of the governments will make the governments to ban the use of bitcoin in their country as only the ignorant people to bitcoin do not understand it and often make false assumptions about it and often deny the use of bitcoin.

[JanpriX]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

Right now, I don't think any government will "totally" ban bitcoin from their country. They may limit the use of it by their people (i.e. Chinese government) but it is has a very small chance of getting banned. I know that some countries are already adopting BTC and they are already integrating it in their financial market. As we all know, bitcoin has vast potential as virtual currency and any government will take advantage of this.

[Dorky]

Nonetheless, do not worry of bitcoin getting banned.
No, it will not.
Any ban will be temporary.
I believe India will lift its ban soon.

News of money laundering, funding terrorism with bitcoin are just there to serve as a base/excuse to implement regulation in the future.

[ranochigo]

It isn't easy to ban Bitcoin due to its decentralised nature. Bitcoin can be banned in a sense that businesses are not allowed to accept Bitcoins as a form of payment and exchanges cannot operate in the country. You can try to reduce the number of nodes that people in a country can connect to by implementing a firewall. Bitcoin would just be made more difficult to access, not restricted completely.

[Wind_FURY]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

i think people can not use bitcoin in public area and we can not see offline store that available to accept bitcoin for the payment but i am sure that people which is using bitcoin will search another way so they can still using bitcoin without government known. maybe government can only ban from using bitcoin but they can not close the purpose of people with using bitcoin except government is trying to close blockchain with many ways.

All banning Bitcoin does is force exchanges a bit more underground and it makes it harder for the average person to do anything with it. However, in the event that the average person has enough money they want to get out of Bitcoin, regardless of the laws, it's possible for them to do so. They just end up being a bit more clandestine about it.

Banning Bitcoin is wholly ineffective for stopping anything of importance. It just becomes an inconvenience for normal people, typically.

Well that is becoming the whole point now. It is turning out that Bitcoin is not for the average user. All the average user does is hold them or trade them for profit in fiat. The people who know how to use Bitcoin properly are the criminals and the dark market users. Most of the people in this forum do not really know how.

[jak3]

i think bitcoin can not be banned all they can is caught a person using it live, but they can not keep track on all the person because bitcoin is semi-anonymous system.it will take a little time more to accept bitcoin in India and china. but i would like to see governments getting failure which avoiding bitcoin. hope they tries their best and in addition its true that people in India easily get scammed thats why government was forced to take such decision

[Dorky]

Bitcoin can be banned.
And they won't ban it because it's the phoenix currency.

It's like saying I can't crash my car because my car is invincible.
No, I don't crash my car because it's mine.

[Harlot]

A lot of what you have mentioned is true The government can take action any time they see an abuse of the use of Bitcoin. Situations like Bitcoin being the main currency of Drug transactions, Bitcoin Laundering, and payment for illegal things in the dark web. Also with the wide use of Bitcoin there will be a chance that the government will have a decrease in national income because there will be a lot of hidden earnings via Bitcoin because it is untraceable. Also the government can easily shut down the operations of Bitcoin because it's operation involves the use of the internet. And the internet and its web is controlled by the government. Remember the site Silk Road? Many versions have been created of it no matter how many they are they have been shut down easily. Now Torrent Sites are endangered because of its piracy and everything around it. Bitcoin may be next when they see an abuse of using it.

[Mpamaegbu]

There's no way Bitcoin will be banned by the world. Several countries may restrict its usage. But an outright ban is not possible. Although I foresee a situation where the altcoins will limit the relevance of Bitcoin. Already the dominance is being challenged. Before now Bitcoin dominated the coin market by over 87%. But right now its strength has dwindled to 65% in dominance.

[deisik]

A lot of what you have mentioned is true The government can take action any time they see an abuse of the use of Bitcoin. Situations like Bitcoin being the main currency of Drug transactions, Bitcoin Laundering, and payment for illegal things in the dark web. Also with the wide use of Bitcoin there will be a chance that the government will have a decrease in national income because there will be a lot of hidden earnings via Bitcoin because it is untraceable. Also the government can easily shut down the operations of Bitcoin because it's operation involves the use of the internet. And the internet and its web is controlled by the government. Remember the site Silk Road? Many versions have been created of it no matter how many they are they have been shut down easily. Now Torrent Sites are endangered because of its piracy and everything around it. Bitcoin may be next when they see an abuse of using it.

But not the content that fills the web

They can control network equipment like cables, routers, switches and whatnot but they can't control traffic which this equipment is used to transmit. Indeed, they can block it, but that would amount to blocking all Internet at large. Given the role of it in our life today, that would be prohibitively expensive (in terms of economic consequences). Regarding raiding places like Silk Road and its likes, how are you going to raid the blockchain itself? Suppose instant transactions kick off and decentralized exchange is implemented over the blockchain itself (i.e. it becomes an integral part of Bitcoin), what are you going to do next?

[btccashacc]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

The government might ban bitcoin for many reasons, all we know that bitcoin has been used for many criminal activities so no doubt for them the government to ban it. However banning bitcoin is not completely banning the activity of the bitcoin user, they can ban people for selling or buying bitcoin, in this case, is local exchanger, maybe people can't convert their bitcoin to fiat but they can still use it freely whether spend it to purchase something online or hold them in their wallet due to the decentralized nature of the bitcoin, that's why they can't control it. The best way to ban bitcoin that government can do is banning mining farm this will cause a big impact on the community.

[Amph]

if i was a government i would enforce the rgulation of bitcoin instead of banning it, bannning it doesn't make anything for me, instead regulating and makign people pay tax for me can increase my income as a government of any country

would be stupid for them to miss this opportunity and ban their own new way of revenue, they could also tax big farm with additional % because of business income

[steampunkz]

BTC cannot be ban because of its free to use  anonymously and private currency,easy to use. I have read some forums news here, They even say north korea uses bitcoin for secret transaction for funding. If BTC shall be ban many companies and people will be bankrupt in no time. So I think BTC cannot be ban except if it will cause world war III.

[taxmanmt5]

It isn't easy to ban Bitcoin due to its decentralised nature. Bitcoin can be banned in a sense that businesses are not allowed to accept Bitcoins as a form of payment and exchanges cannot operate in the country. You can try to reduce the number of nodes that people in a country can connect to by implementing a firewall. Bitcoin would just be made more difficult to access, not restricted completely.

This can only happen in few countries and few business where they can ban bitcoins and stop people from using it. People will still use it online and in other businesses where they is no such Ban.

[n2004al]

What will cause a government to ban bitcoin in the country? In what circumstances will that be justified by the government?
And how can government actually ban bitcoin? I mean they can ban people selling or buying stuff with bitcoin in the country, can they actually ban people from holding bitcoin?

A Government/Central Bank can ban bitcoin because have fear from it. The people my use it instead of their local money and this will bankruptcy their country economy. This ban is not justified because bitcoin is a product of revolutionary technology which will affect the life of everyone of us. Is justified the regulation of it but not the ban.

[raven7886]

if i was a government i would enforce the rgulation of bitcoin instead of banning it, bannning it doesn't make anything for me, instead regulating and makign people pay tax for me can increase my income as a government of any country

would be stupid for them to miss this opportunity and ban their own new way of revenue, they could also tax big farm with additional % because of business income

Practically banning bitcoin will not be possible for governments, even they have planned any type of banning bitcoin, over time they will learn regulating bitcoin will be the right solution instead of banning. As far as I have learned, stopping people from saving/using bitcoin is not possible so government will learn what are practically feasible for them.

I like to suggest people here not to have any panic about government ban on bitcoin in the any future, we can leave off such topic (as it will not be possible for government), we can work on other aspects of bitcoin.

[deisik]

if i was a government i would enforce the rgulation of bitcoin instead of banning it, bannning it doesn't make anything for me, instead regulating and makign people pay tax for me can increase my income as a government of any country

would be stupid for them to miss this opportunity and ban their own new way of revenue, they could also tax big farm with additional % because of business income

You don't see the whole picture

By regulating Bitcoin officially governments would be effectively recognizing it. Obviously, recognition and acceptance are the opposite of outright prohibition, and while they could (theoretically) increase their revenues derived via taxes which they would levy on Bitcoin operations, the negative effect from people starting to massively use Bitcoin (and not paying taxes at that, anyway) would heavily outweigh any potential benefits. In other words, that would be a decision penny wise and pound foolish overall. But just in case, I'm all in