bitcoin popularity made it vulnerable to governments

[pooya87]

please clarify that by "the governments" you mean only the US government, not all of them. so far we have seen in other countries they have accepted bitcoin as what it is, as an open source and decentralized cryptocurrency, and they don't want no master key
but it seems that the US government is the only one that is resisting the adoption so far.

[mk4]

Do your own research on bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is decentralized. No one holds such thing as a "master key". Qnd no, the government can't take over or even ban bitcoin. For them to achieve this they have to ban the whole internet, which is obviously very unlikely.

[cafucafucafu]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

I believe that you saw this article written by marketwatch here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-needs-government-regulation-to-rise-further-morgan-stanley-says-2017-06-13 which mentions the idea of a master key.

Regulators are looking to have a master key so all transactions are visible to them.

The fact is that, the bitcoin network does not have a master key at all. It is a concept that they just stupidly made up. Even if satoshi wanted hand over control of the bitcoin network, he can't. Because he never had control of the bitcoin network is the first place! The whole point of bitcoin is to combat centralized banking, by implementing a p2p payment processor it means that no government can control your wealth, inflate it etc.

You're suggesting that bitcoin's popularity makes governments want to get a piece of the cake, and this is true. But we really don't have to worry about it. They can make all their demands but ultimately bitcoin will remain a decentralized network, untouched by the government.

[masterchief001]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

Although only a few countries accept bitcoin at the present time, it is a sign to prove that virtual currency is universally acknowledged. Everything will be better if more countries accept bitcoin.

[UCHCHILD]

They cannot ever get the master key of it because no one proves it is theirs. Nakamoto is in silence of this. Government is so eager to have it because money comes so fast to every man that has an access to it but they cannot get or trace it due to its being decentralized. Once government have the access to it for sure they will just control it, the pricing and putting taxes to each transaction done which is for sure will be burden. So I guess those who knew the key just keep silence to make more users happy.

[Amph]

they don't even need a master key they can view every transaction on the blockchain easily, but some address are hidden even on the explorer, maybe they want full transparency

still by not knowing which address belongs to who, there is no way they can have full view over this, so better they forgets about this crap of master key which is not something that will ever exist

seems that the governments didn't learned that by knowing only the address you don't know shit about the user, until he spend those coins to shop something and link his home address

[stevebc]

Chinas government has the power (thru the great wall, internet censorship, etc..) to make BTC very difficult to use if they chose.

The US government has nowhere near that power, and if they tried to obtain it by screwing with the internet it would get ugly (it's one thing to pull out of the Paris Accords, but make it hard to use Facebook and there will be riots in the street).

The chief concerns governments have with BTC are:
1) are these folks making a fortune paying their capital gains taxes?
2) are these BTC being used for money laundering or to fund bad actors?

I'm hoping they manage to find a suitable level of regulation that they can make sure 1) taxes are paid, and 2) anyone so inclined gets busted.

I'm also hoping they don't over regulate and stifle innovation.

It's a tricky balance, I'm sure it's going to take a while for governments to get it right (and their bias may be towards over regulation 'just to be safe'.

[XenophotoPhobia]

I do agree the overwhelming and increasing popularity does limit the approaches the government itself can make to bitcoin, but in the end, the fact majority of the world is governed by laws and you can't ban something on a whim, I guess this is the main reason US or UK did not ban bitcoin.

[SotaXBT]

China, in which bitcoin was getting a tremendous popularity, made some heavy regulations almost stopping exchanges work (I think it has been lowered to some extent right now). Russia too made regulations even outlawing bitcoin ownership and use at some point despite the popularity, so I guess it depends on the country not just popularity.

[Anegg]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

There is no possible way to get a master key, since bitcoin is decentralised which makes it impossible for anyone to take control of the currency. I would recommend you read some articles about this before posting here. The only way it is possible for countries to ban use of bitcoin would be to create a great firewall like China. Most countries are like, if they don't ban bitcoin it is allowed to be used. If a country was to ban bitcoin, then it would severely damage that country's market and economy since bitcoin has been receiving heaps of media attention and banning it would severely cripple their economy.

[talkbitcoin]

China, in which bitcoin was getting a tremendous popularity, made some heavy regulations almost stopping exchanges work (I think it has been lowered to some extent right now). Russia too made regulations even outlawing bitcoin ownership and use at some point despite the popularity, so I guess it depends on the country not just popularity.

China only added simple regulations, to you they seem heavy but when compared to forex market for example they are nothing. and they did that because the exchanges were doing some illegal and unregulated stuff.

and Russia has never outlawed ownership of bitcoin to my knowledge. up until 2017 they have been talking about it and was never happy about bitcoin but from early 2017 they also changed that "talk" into more positive and accepting laws.

[cramcram21]

Yeah bitcoin is becoming more popular and it is attracting more investor and it is also attracting the government,
But the government can't take control of it because it is an open source.
And I think bitcoin doesn't really have a master key.

[stompix]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

1) There is no such thing as a master key.

2) The whole "master key" was just an expression but a lot of idiots have taken it literally.
What was meant to be said was "taking control over" or "having somebody in charge of".

Also this topic is a clone of:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1966785

/endthread

[South Park]

Satoshi Nakamoto might not even be a single person. Good luck to them.

But I think even if they want to bring bitcoin down, they simply won't succeed. And, one more thing, they are actually studying bitcoin and the crypto world real hard. They trying to adapt to it considering that the crypto world is embraced by many people in so short a time. They will have to learn some important lessons from the existence of these cryptos.

Personally I hope that satoshi was a single person that made bitcoin, if it was a group of people then there are bigger chances that someone is going to talk or say something and then they will be tracked down, if it was a single person then that becomes more unlikely to happen.

[Yakamoto]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

There is no real "master key" that exists, and the only way to really get at something like it would be through forking the network to a blockchain that has such a "master key" (which requires users to comply with such an action), or by taking over the network through a hostile mining power takeover, and that doesn't give you a key; it just allows for you to control transactions.

It's a good thing that there is no key anyways. If there was, someone would have exploited it somehow by now.

[lighpulsar07]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

No. Bitcoin doesn't have a master key because this isn't a bank that can control it internally. It's a open source so, government can't control it internally but externally, like imposing rules and regulations in exchanges oor in bitcoin holders, government has the control. I think due to fact that bitcoin is growing, it gain the attention of the governmet

[BossMacko]

It is true, nowadays because of the popularity and price of Bitcoin government are now targeting Bitcoin how they'll gonna get money from people who are using Bitcoin when they do a transaction. It will not take long before we all pay for a tax when we are doing trades plus the payment in 3rd party sites plus miners fee.

[poplolnman]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

I believe that you saw this article written by marketwatch here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-needs-government-regulation-to-rise-further-morgan-stanley-says-2017-06-13 which mentions the idea of a master key.

Regulators are looking to have a master key so all transactions are visible to them.

The fact is that, the bitcoin network does not have a master key at all. It is a concept that they just stupidly made up. Even if satoshi wanted hand over control of the bitcoin network, he can't. Because he never had control of the bitcoin network is the first place! The whole point of bitcoin is to combat centralized banking, by implementing a p2p payment processor it means that no government can control your wealth, inflate it etc.

You're suggesting that bitcoin's popularity makes governments want to get a piece of the cake, and this is true. But we really don't have to worry about it. They can make all their demands but ultimately bitcoin will remain a decentralized network, untouched by the government.

i would really understand if the master key word quoted , government don't want to take control over the whole transaction made in blockchain but they want to have full monitoring over every single transaction in every secs which it's could be tracked easily . the problem are on how to make it easier to read/monitored. correct me if i'm wrong.

[Ucy]

Bitcoin is growing and booming. The governments are watching it, they waited and now they have figured out that it's time to takeover this cryptocurrency. Now they want the masterkey of blockchain but the problem is who really owns the masterkey? Satoshi Nakamato?

No, if the government on the world's and international bank interesting with Bitcoin,
they can creating new coin with technology blockchain and banned using Bitcoin, then released their coin and use as a digital cash online for replace visa, internet banking ... it will easy and better than control Bitcoin

  The Government already run its own Bitcoin and Blockchain ... It's your typical online banking.

Them Trying hard to make their own "Bitcoin" is really funny.
They need to ask themselves Why Bitcoin/Blockchain was created in the first,  it'll probably help them understand how insane their idea is.

[dimastegar]

There is no Master Key for this Bitcoin. If it does exist, the Masterkey is us as a bitcoin user. And again, you do not have to worry about vulnerability to government.