Hello, Some Initial Thoughts

[BetcoinSports]

I wanted to extend a hello to everyone and give a brief take on Bitcoins.  It is extremely exciting to have access to this form of crypto-currency and I strongly believe that as an alternative form of currency bitcoins will be around forever.  The government, specifically the US government will get involved with bitcoins at some point and attempt to punish businesses for accepting them instead of adopting the currency and utilizing it to help people around the world advance and live better lives.  I hope that I am wrong about this, but either way bitcoin will live forever. 

[laureen]

same here, i am also brand new to Bitcoins, and i love the way this currency acts independent of the governments. like you, i also believe that they will try to get involved and try to eliminate the possibility to pay with anything else but "their" currency... let's see what happens, it's an incredible chance for all humans to increase quality of life if you are not bound to the financial ideas of some rulers...

laureen

[BetcoinSports]

Laureen thank you for your response and I certainly agree with your points.  What will be interesting to see is how they try to eliminate payments with bitcoins.  The anonymity of the network and the direct payments seem to make that almost impossible.  I could see other crypto-currencies competing in a true free market style for use which would be great to see as I strongly believe in the free market. 

[nobbynobbynoob]

I don't think they're interested enough or stupid enough to try to ban bitcoin per se (though with gummint, you ne'er know!), but they obviously are interested in regulating the bajeezus out of anything that so much as gently brushes the corner of Fiatland. They're doing it already, gummints and banksters both. That's their obvious line of "attack".

[frflj]

Yes bitcoins are very fun and of course can be profitable as well.  I love the philosophy and goals behind them even though I think Big Money will win in the end.  But still making some noise and that's better than nothing.

[milkman1]

I hope that I am wrong about this, but either way bitcoin will live forever. 

Unless there is a big bug in bitcoin! :/

[felix123]

Look at what happened to Liberty Dollar. But with bitcoins, there isn't a single person to raid, so risk is less.

[freigeist]

Laureen thank you for your response and I certainly agree with your points.  What will be interesting to see is how they try to eliminate payments with bitcoins.  The anonymity of the network and the direct payments seem to make that almost impossible.  I could see other crypto-currencies competing in a true free market style for use which would be great to see as I strongly believe in the free market. 

Isn't the bitcoin network and clients running on TCP port 8333?
You think is not possible for them to create a law that will impose to all ISP
companies in USA to close the ports used by bitcoin protocol
and put bitcoin out of use in this way?!

[robin0van0der0vliet]

Laureen thank you for your response and I certainly agree with your points.  What will be interesting to see is how they try to eliminate payments with bitcoins.  The anonymity of the network and the direct payments seem to make that almost impossible.  I could see other crypto-currencies competing in a true free market style for use which would be great to see as I strongly believe in the free market. 

Isn't the bitcoin network and clients running on TCP port 8333?
You think is not possible for them to create a law that will impose to all ISP
companies in USA to close the ports used by bitcoin protocol
and put bitcoin out of use in this way?!

Then we just use another port?
The standard HTTP port is 80, but you can easily run a webserver on a other port, you just need to add ":<otherport>" at the end of the address.
I think this is the same as with the bitcoin network.

[alyssa85]

The government, specifically the US government will get involved with bitcoins at some point and attempt to punish businesses for accepting them instead of adopting the currency and utilizing it to help people around the world advance and live better lives.  I hope that I am wrong about this, but either way bitcoin will live forever.  

I disagree with this. All the government cares about is the ability to extract tax. As long as they can tax businesses operating with bitcoins, they'll be happy. It's a bit like the 90's when the internet first took off. At first govt was nervous because it was all decentralised. But once they figured out how to tax online businesses like bricks and mortar businesses, they were happy.

Bitcoin isn't really a threat to govt - it's a threat to banks. If bitcoin takes off, it makes the banks obsolete, and the banks are going to fight hard against this. Including shutting down the accounts of exchanges and trying to prevent bitcoin businesses from using their facilities.

Will govt care if the banks become obsolete? - again I don't really think so. They would never have to bail out bitcoin operations, so that's a big plus on the side of bitcoins. I don't think anyone in govt enjoyed the bailouts, they got a lot of fury from the voters for it. They bailed out because the banking system was the only one in existence and they feared meltdown. If there was an alternative in existence at the time of the crunch, there'd have been a different response.

If they could have a system that doesn't need bailout, which means elected representatives can collect their salary without feeling any heat from voters, govt would be very happy indeed! Especially if they've found a way to tax bitcoin business. Once govt sees this, they'll actually start defending bitcoin operations against the actions of the banks - such as preventing them from closing down the accounts of bitcoin exchanges on the grounds that that constitutes anti-competitive behavior.

I know people assume banks and govt are the same thing, but they are completely different with different agendas.

[BetcoinSports]

Will govt care if the banks become obsolete? - again I don't really think so.

One of the main problems the government will have with Bitcoins is that it will be difficult to extract taxes because there is not a centralized entity like a bank that the government can monitor and audit.  Bitcoins could cause major havoc on banks and governments because they could lose control of the monetary system.  A free market monetary system will benefit the individual consumer because businesses will compete to provide the consumers with the best system. 

It will be interesting to see what happens but I think this is great for humankind. 

[shapemaker]

I don't think anyone in govt enjoyed the bailouts, they got a lot of fury from the voters for it. They bailed out because the banking system was the only one in existence and they feared meltdown.

Nah, they got bailed out because they've got USA senators and pretty much every level of the government either bribed or by the balls. Look up the "too big to fail" argument, and you'll see.

I know people assume banks and govt are the same thing, but they are completely different with different agendas.

When you got governments bailing out the banks, and (former) bankers in high seats in governments' institutions which decide monetary policy, you start to wonder. You don't need to assume, the proof is very much in front of your eyes - they don't even bother hiding the connections anymore.