is this a possible way 'they' could criminalise bitcoin?

[CloudCoinR]

anyone is able to put anything in the blockchain:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/39347/how-to-store-data-on-the-blockchain
http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photographs.html
https://github.com/petertodd/python-bitcoinlib/blob/master/examples/publish-text.py

if there would be some kind of highly illegal data sneaked into  
wouldn't that be a very easy way the blockchain could be de-legalized  

[w5pn73]

You know what would be even easier, for a country to forbid use of bitcoin by law, just cause they can.

[forkchain]

You know what would be even easier, for a country to forbid use of bitcoin by law, just cause they can.

Law and Bitcoin there is no law to stop bitcoin because bitcoin is decentralized and users are anonymous who are using bitcoin so in my opnion bitcoin is legal everywhere no one can stop bitcoin.

[w5pn73]

You know what would be even easier, for a country to forbid use of bitcoin by law, just cause they can.

Law and Bitcoin there is no law to stop bitcoin because bitcoin is decentralized and users are anonymous who are using bitcoin so in my opnion bitcoin is legal everywhere no one can stop bitcoin.

But they can forbid exchanging bitcoin to fiat, what will btc be if you can't legally buy or sell no more. That alone would be a huge game changer.

[Velkro]

if there would be some kind of highly illegal data sneaked into  
wouldn't that be a very easy way the blockchain could be de-legalized  

The way data is inserted into blockchain is not that easy.
Its complicated and data is split/encrypted into it.

You can't easily read it.
You can easily insert it into blockchain.

So no, its not a way to delegalize it, its impossible to delegalize bitcoin because its decentralized and worldwide. One country can do it or two, thats it.

[CloudCoinR]

You know what would be even easier, for a country to forbid use of bitcoin by law, just cause they can.

that's true, of course. but in western countries we need to have an good excuse or a pretence for the uninformed general public  

Law and Bitcoin there is no law to stop bitcoin because bitcoin is decentralized and users are anonymous who are using bitcoin so in my opnion bitcoin is legal everywhere no one can stop bitcoin.

if the blockchain would be illegal hosting bitcoin core would be very dangerous. besides the uninformed general public would not understand the difference and in their eyes the bitcoin reputation would go south through the floor 

[h0lybyte]

Blockchain has the ability to process different businesses in several different forms therefore traders are so excited about blockchain and they can create any idea into work by the help of this technology.
There are two segments involved with blockchain technology, the companies that want to utilize  the blockchain to make their business process better and the other segment that are trying to make any systems down.
So yeah second segment companies can creminalise bitcoin if not retarded by authoritatives.

[CloudCoinR]

You can't easily read it.

hex bytes to unicode converting and joining sounds not too complex. i would not call this crypted. 

[CloudCoinR]

ahhh really sorry guys for spreading bad mood here.
i thought this is a sword of damocles but probably i'm just too pessimistic sometimes

[bob123]

This doesn't make sense to me.
Government can regulate or forbid the use of BTC
But no way to criminalise it that way.
But for now there is not enough Will to forbid BTC. There is just no need for it.

I don't think Governments will completely fire against BTC anytime soon.

[gentlemand]

There's been child porn in the blockchain for years as far as I know. No one's said much about it in living memory. It would be interesting to see how a dedicated campaign of embedding filth and illegality would pan out.

[ahmedjamal1998]

No that's not an option.
Yes things can be put into a blockchain but not in that simple form. If it were that easy I'd insert my address having more coins.
They're just talking about it in general. But if they just want to make it illegal they don't need any clear "reason".

If they actually decide to end it here's what they can do. They can just wake up tomorrow morning and decide to ban all bitcoin exchanges. What next ? Make holding or dealing with bitcoins an illegal action and leads to prison.

Of course other governments might do it as well. And the price of it might fall drastically since trading won't be open as it is now. But bitcoin itself won't end. Because it's seriously unstoppable (decentralized) so they can't like contact any specific "people" to shut it down (I'm comparing it to a bank or a property for example).

[coolstory]

Blockchain has the ability to process different businesses in several different forms therefore traders are so excited about blockchain and they can create any idea into work by the help of this technology.
There are two segments involved with blockchain technology, the companies that want to utilize  the blockchain to make their business process better and the other segment that are trying to make any systems down.
So yeah second segment companies can creminalise bitcoin if not retarded by authoritatives.

I admire the guys accusating bitcoin for criminal activities, they are like dreamers. Yes, blockchain is wide and it tends to get used by different companies but why they blame bitcoin. I just don't undersand it.

[smartbitcoininvestor]

No, they wouldn't be able to. Bitcoin has no central operator and thus transactions cannot be controlled or influenced by anyone.  The only way they would be able to criminalize Bitcoin would be for what its intended purpose is.

If people are using Bitcoins to purchase drugs off of an online marketplace such as the now-defunct Silk Road (which they have), then, of course, the law would be inclined to prosecute them. I think it really depends on what the Bitcoins are "used" for. First of all, it is a currency for exchange and secondly, it is really too decentralized to be criminalized by platform rather than intent.

[darkangel11]

No, they wouldn't be able to. Bitcoin has no central operator and thus transactions cannot be controlled or influenced by anyone.  The only way they would be able to criminalize Bitcoin would be for what its intended purpose is.

Isn't that how a torrent site works? It only contains links to content that people threw into the internet. If people want to share a file with others they start seeding it and put it on a site that lists torrent links. Sounds fair, right? Unfortunately guys from TPB went to jail for doing just that and their site got taken down by the government.
Actually there are no limits to what they could attempt to do, will they be able to is another thing 

[leigh2k14]

I will be sincere, that's what I fear the most, and it's a reality, many people use the bitcoin for criminal purposes, and it's unfortunate because the bitcoin is much more than that

[amacar2]

Storing data in blockchain is possible but only limited number of data can be stored on top of bitcoin mainchain.
Blockchain tech is completely different than bitcoin, bitcoin is just one asset developed using blockchain technology. There are lots of project and ICO trying to store data on blockchain tech in decentralized manner.

Don't know why you are saying that storing illegal data will criminalize bitcoin? Bitcoin is already being used by criminals 

[stompix]

Storing data in blockchain is possible but only limited number of data can be stored on top of bitcoin mainchain.

No it's not limited by any tech specs.
It's limited by the fee you need to pay for that.

There is an old thread about this and it made a lot of fuss but nothing happened.
http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-bitcoin-data-spam-and-evil-data.html

Sending bitcoins requires two pieces of data: a bitcoin address, and an amount (number of bitcoins).  There is no "comments field" or anything of that nature.  A bitcoin address is just a random 20-byte piece of data.  Normally those 20 bytes are derived from the RIPEMD160 and SHA256 algorithms, but a valid 20 bytes cannot be distinguished from an invalid 20 bytes.  Therefore, if you are willing to waste money -- albeit very small fractions like 0.00000001 bitcoins -- by sending that money to invalid bitcoin addresses, you essentially have created a channel for random data transmission.

Oh, and anyone who runs a full node right now has kiddy porn on their computers. No joke.

[bitart]

This doesn't make sense to me.
Government can regulate or forbid the use of BTC
But no way to criminalise it that way.
But for now there is not enough Will to forbid BTC. There is just no need for it.

I don't think Governments will completely fire against BTC anytime soon.

It's not the effective way to directly forbit, regulate,  ban, etc. something, because people sometimes do things that are not legal, that's why the courts are present, and that's why the prisons are full
If they (the governments, or other authorities) want to criminalise bitcoin, they can do that indirectly, like they start some ransomware virus and ask for the payment in bitcoin, everybody will blame bitcoin, bitcoin will be a really negative thing in this context, most of the people will hear about that from the TV news and they will think that bitcoin is a bad thing (despite of they have no clue about bitcoin at all...), but this is just an example...
Oh, wait, something similar has already happened
I had too much about conspiracy theories, I think

[Hassan02]

I will be sincere, that's what I fear the most, and it's a reality, many people use the bitcoin for criminal purposes, and it's unfortunate because the bitcoin is much more than that

when i discuss bitcoin with my friends there is one that already know about bitcoin  he tell me some abuse some illegal and he tell me that some that owned this are use bitcoin to buy drugs that was before for now i dont know if some here now are doing that.