If the powerful governments wanted to, do you think they could stop Bitcoin?

[giveen]

I do not think that governments or any other power could kill bitcoin, what they could do however is severely damage it and cause many difficulties and set backs, I feel that eventually we will reach the stage where either that happens or they accept bitcoin and it will become the new supercurrency across the world.

None of the above can happen btc network works because of mining and it is spread out across the world stopping every single miner is impossible. Getting accepted is also not possible because of btc not having any legal entity.

They won't be able to 100% stop it. As you see we already should pass a lot of steps of verification on all exchanges to exchange our bitcoins to fiat money and thats where the governments will probably strike ( and that will hurt). In other way we still gona be able to use it like we use cash (but I don't think that any store will accept btc so  you will only deal with other people).

What you are saying doesn't make any sense if we won't be able to withdraw our funds to fiat what's the use of holding btc , why would people even accept it the only reason it is so famous today is because of it's value and it is also a liquid asset if that goes it will have no purpose.

They could also buy the 21 Million BTC on the highest price they could and just hold it forever ( but then again it will take longer ).

You dumb if something like this will happen the government will have to spend billions and let me remind you the only way government makes money is from tax or other fees charged if they use it just buy btc they are wasting people's funds and don't forget there are thousands of alts still out there.

If this thing the government will consider and will realize the good side brought by bitcoin, then why should the government cut the opportunity for the success of the community and country?

Do you thing government really cares if people are rich or poor they simply see btc as something which is cutting their revenue and giving more freedom and power to public. This is not a fairly tale world we live in a place where governments don't give a damn about people.

[Palmerson]

I don't think government can stop bitcoin. they cannot control bitcoin, how could they kill it? they might be able to ban it in their country as like china do so, but they cannot ban bitcoin in other countries as well or even the whole world. if they wanna do so, they have to buy all bitcoins until all bitcoin users do not have any bitcoin anymore. so there will not anybody who will do transaction dealing with bitcoin. and it will slowly disappear.

Why buy all the coins? It seems to me that if enough bitcoin to unite against the US and China. We miss the ability to buy all the necessary things directly with bitcoins. Without this bitcoin is not a currency and through the process of sharing it on the Fiat, we become defenseless against the government.

[Jake052478]

This is something which I've beleived for awhile, which is the prospect that if big governments and banks worked heavily together they'd be able to remove Bitcoin from the face of the earth. They wouldn't ban it, as that would be a tough thing to swallow for the American people as they wouldn't see a good reason to do that ( at least in my mind here) But they could just go ahead and regulate Bitcoin into oblivion, making it hard for Bitcoin businesses (buying and selling, trading, etc) to operate within their countries, or be subject to insane taxes, KYC AML and such.

Do you think Governments could kill Bitcoin?

for as long as the government holds the power, they can stop anything as long as legality is concern.  In the constitution, it all states there. the power to tax, eminent domain.  as far as there is threat within the states, they can do anything.

[Agamemnus]

The governments are only all powerful if you believe them to be. Thing is there are a lot of people that are waking up to the fact that they are powerful and governments are powerless, but we were giving them the power so now we're taking it back with Bitcoin.

[yanlap]

I dont think that they would be able because now crypto has almost spread everywhere and bitcoin is the base of all of them.. So Its a really difficult task to stop btc..

You are very right because the value and the importance for the bitcoin and the other crypto currency is increasing day by day and now almost all the people are aware of the importance of the bitcoin, big investment in now being happen for the long time in the bitcoin it has make the bitcoin worldwide currency so the power of the bitcoin is gradually increasing more and more it is not decreasing.

[agustina2]

This is something which I've beleived for awhile, which is the prospect that if big governments and banks worked heavily together they'd be able to remove Bitcoin from the face of the earth. They wouldn't ban it, as that would be a tough thing to swallow for the American people as they wouldn't see a good reason to do that ( at least in my mind here) But they could just go ahead and regulate Bitcoin into oblivion, making it hard for Bitcoin businesses (buying and selling, trading, etc) to operate within their countries, or be subject to insane taxes, KYC AML and such.

Do you think Governments could kill Bitcoin?

Contrary for what mostly posted here, do you guys really  t hink that bitcoin is still unstoppable if all governments in the world will pushly killed it? Please don't jsut be optimistic.

How come exchanges will work now? How come merchants will accept bitcoin now? Do you think doing trading will be legit? Let's take the scene in reality. If all governments will pushed and decided to take down bitcoin, it will happened no matter.

Of course back to current situation, it will not happen by higher chances.

[hero1111]

Which countries are strong ? I can say Usa , China , Russia  and if these countries want to stop Bitcoin  these countries and   their people cant use Bitcoin but it could be only these countries ,  if we are talking about  Bitcoin markets , it is not living only China or Usa or Russia and we know China had so much speculation about exchanges for Bitcoin but Bitcoin still powerful and still working . Bitcoin is big market and Bitcoin will be more powerful day by day and countries will not think to stop bitcoin .

[malikusama]

If they could kill bitcoin they may have done it before but they failed to do so, that's why at the end they have to accept this digital asset. Bitcoin popularity has increased twice and thrice during this year due to it's high demand and rising price. It is much difficult to eliminate or remove a thing which is loved by people and they don't want to loose it at any cost.

[TravelMug]

This is something which I've beleived for awhile, which is the prospect that if big governments and banks worked heavily together they'd be able to remove Bitcoin from the face of the earth. They wouldn't ban it, as that would be a tough thing to swallow for the American people as they wouldn't see a good reason to do that ( at least in my mind here) But they could just go ahead and regulate Bitcoin into oblivion, making it hard for Bitcoin businesses (buying and selling, trading, etc) to operate within their countries, or be subject to insane taxes, KYC AML and such.

Do you think Governments could kill Bitcoin?

I think they have been dealing with it for the last couple of months now. Why just today? Because they are really threaten by it, however, it will take them a lot of effort to quash bitcoin and their efforts will be futile and they will totally give it up because its going nowhere and it will just cost them crazy bills. Then can try all they want but I think no one can really stop bitcoin for me. Eventhough they would buy everything, which I think is very unlikely for them to. Maybe the best thing for them to do is really is just regulate it and recognized bitcoin as a new revolutionary way of changing the landscape of world economics.

[Aikidoka]

Even if they successfully banned bitcoin, other crypto-currencies will rise and take the lead. There is no absolute way that they could do such a thing unless they shut the internet down, thus no more use of bitcoin. Added to that, I do not think they will ban it because it has become a way of life.

Bitcoin is used as a payment method in Japan. The majority of people still do not know about bitcoin. It is still not a big threat to the government and banks. Furthermore, "Bitcoiners" will always defend bitcoin even if the world's governments are against it.

[faceoff97]

Well, we saw how China was able to really make a dent on bitcoin's value. If every country does this, very few will continue to use bitcoins, essentially stopping it. One country cannot do it itself.

It is no denying that China affected the bitcoin's value, but  bitcoin easily get back to its track. This only proves that bitcoin is not dependent on a powerful country but really more on the individual users. Bitcoin will only stop once people stop from using it, that may happen when most numbered bitcoin user country banned bitcoin. Let us hope that countries may see bitcoin as not a threat but an aid for development and advancement.

[soham]

This is something which I've beleived for awhile, which is the prospect that if big governments and banks worked heavily together they'd be able to remove Bitcoin from the face of the earth. They wouldn't ban it, as that would be a tough thing to swallow for the American people as they wouldn't see a good reason to do that ( at least in my mind here) But they could just go ahead and regulate Bitcoin into oblivion, making it hard for Bitcoin businesses (buying and selling, trading, etc) to operate within their countries, or be subject to insane taxes, KYC AML and such.

Do you think Governments could kill Bitcoin?

If the powerful governments around the world come to a agreement to stop bitcoin and any other crypto currency, they certainly can do it because internet can be controlled by them. However, it is the last thing they want to do. Government is mainly chosen by the people around the world where democracy exists. The main reason why we choose government so that we can have job, start a business with ease and proper infrastructure with low crime rates. But the majority of the governments miserably fails to do their job.

In such times, if their citizens can earn some income without asking for a job, that's a good news for them. Because those who have an alternate profession, a major percentage of them won't look for jobs which certainly reduce the pressure from the already worsened job market scenario. Crypto currency market has a given a lot of people an immense opportunity to earn money through it and have a decent life. So if a government bans bitcoin and any other crypto currency, a majority of the youth vote bank will turn against them. The politicians are power hungry animals and they usually love their position more than their wife. They won't let it happen.

Bitcoin is a blessing to many people who are earning some money to live a decent life. If government takes that away from them, their end will start from that very moment. 

[_Dawid_]

Of course banks and strong goverments can stop bitcoin. Nowadays most crypto users buy and sell crypto currencies officialy. So it is obvious that if you make something official somebody can stop you because he knows about your movements.

[dothebeats]

If the governments would be able to shut down the entirety of bitcoin's mining operation around the globe and do mass arrests of people using bitcoin, sure. But if not, then no, they cannot stop bitcoin completely. There needs to be a lot of fear-mongering to happen before bitcoin users give in. Also, laws shoupd be written intelligently so that no legal loopholes would ever exist should the governments do massive arrests.

If we summarize it all, the answer should be fairly simple: no, the governments can't stop bitcoin completely.

[Kidmat]

Of course banks and strong goverments can stop bitcoin. Nowadays most crypto users buy and sell crypto currencies officialy. So it is obvious that if you make something official somebody can stop you because he knows about your movements.

There are a lot of things to consider before government could stop bitcoin. As of today, bitcoin has gaining popularity in terms of easy to use and easy to access and ofcourse this could also use as payment. I think even in other countries the're trying to stop bitcoin to people but it coudnt success because bitcoin has leading the most use.

[hurain]

i think government could kill and stop bitcoin if they want and they can do it as fast as they can because they have unlimited source to do this. but i think the government will thinking to not stop or kill bitcoin and i think they are now is study about bitcoin, they have many questions about bitcoin and they need the answer. so they let us to still use bitcoin because they know that they can learn bitcoin from many ways and they want to see how bitcoin in future.

Powerful governments are able to do anything so in my opinion they will be able to stop or kill bit coin if they want as they have unlimited powers but I don’t think that governments will take this step because bit coin is getting more popularity day by day and its prices are rising high which is very profitable for the investors and also for the economy of country.

[ArnoldChippy]

This is something which I've beleived for awhile, which is the prospect that if big governments and banks worked heavily together they'd be able to remove Bitcoin from the face of the earth. They wouldn't ban it, as that would be a tough thing to swallow for the American people as they wouldn't see a good reason to do that ( at least in my mind here) But they could just go ahead and regulate Bitcoin into oblivion, making it hard for Bitcoin businesses (buying and selling, trading, etc) to operate within their countries, or be subject to insane taxes, KYC AML and such.

Do you think Governments could kill Bitcoin?

i think they cant because bitcoin is spread all over the world so government cant kill bitcoin because we dont have world government i think they can ban bitcoin in their country but not all there so many country authorized bitcoin as money in different country so kill bitcoin is not easy because this is money

I think you are right up to some extent that bitcoin has gained too much popularity worldwide and now it will be a very difficult task for any government to stop bitcoin and as you mentioned that many countries have legalized bit coin because bit coin is becoming strong and after all it is money. Specially in modern countries where the users are more eager to use online currency and so bitcoin is the best choice with them to use for their online shopping or business.

[stolendata]

Well, they can buy down 21 million BTC and keep all of them to themselves, essentially 'killing' Bitcoin. On a serious note, no, I feel that it is difficult for them to do so. Even if countries like China tries to ban Bitcoin in their own country, they cant exactly do so to the whole world, and there will always be a use for Bitcoin somewhere else.

Bitcoin is still gaining popularity, and its community is growing, so unless all the governments team up and say NO to BTC, it would not happen (I hope).
Citizens > Government, and we need to believe this as well.

The governments have the power to run the whole country according to the rule of law so I think that it will be not a hard task for a powerful government to get the control of bit coin in their concern country. I would like to suggest that instead of discouragement every government should plan a strategy and introduce a new and modern technology for monitoring of all illegal activities regarding bit coin.

[ihsanskanzaone]

I think not because bitcoin is a digital item whose function is the same as gold that the price is not set by the government so the government can not prohibit the circulation of bitcoin. The government also can not freeze the ownership of bitcoin and bitcoin is also very easy to move to another wallet or can be easily taken out of the country so to ban the circulation of bitcoin is very difficult.

[BeGoods]

I think not because bitcoin is a digital item whose function is the same as gold that the price is not set by the government so the government can not prohibit the circulation of bitcoin. The government also can not freeze the ownership of bitcoin and bitcoin is also very easy to move to another wallet or can be easily taken out of the country so to ban the circulation of bitcoin is very difficult.

Thats right. the government will not be able to forcibly shut down bitcoin because bitcoin is in decentralized network so the government will not be able to close bitcoin even with their power. perhaps what the government can do is to provide regulation and prohibition for the use of bitcoin and you know it's enough to have an bad effect on the bitcoin market