Bitcoin Will It Have The Same Fate As E-gold?

[davidgdg]

Tenatively I conjecture that the only way that the USG could eliminate bitcoin would be to make its use illegal and then to use that as the legal basis for a State-funded 51% attack. For an entity with the financial resources of the USG, that would be a relatively trivial task at present. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests it could be done for probably less than US$ 20 million capital investment (~ capital cost US$ 20 per GHash/sec, network hash rate ~ 0.5Thash/sec).  However, it would require a change in the law to make the use of bitcoin unlawful. This would be highly controversial if not unconstitutional. Furthermore, the cost will increase as the value of bitcoin increases. If the bitcoin economy were to grow 100X then, assuming the cost of a 51% attack scales linearly, the USG would need to spend USD 1-2 billion which is becoming significant even for the USG. There might also be technical ways to defend against such an attack, thought that's beyond my skill-set....

Bitcoin can NEVER become large enough to make a non-economic 51% attack by a nation state an impossibility.  However if that happens it will cause three major things to happen

a) It will be the largest sign of legitimacy ever.  It will make up the masses that there is something better and it can work.  If you think there is interest in Crypto Currency now this is nothing it is like the first working steam engine vs the industrial revolution.

b) Bitcoin will either adapt to rely on more than computing power to reach consensus or die.  If Bitcoin dies it will be the Napster of its industry and it will spawn a multitude of offspring that will adapt to this threat.  How effective has anyone been in reigning in bittorrent.  They killed Napster very easily right?  Killing its offspring should be trivial.

What was c) ?

[DeathAndTaxes]

What was c) ?

Oops.  Fixed.

[chriswen]

e gold is old.  How about liberty reserve?  That's a lot more recent and that was e gold.  But it is totally different from bitcoin but it is still very noteworthy.

[Soros Shorts]

e-Gold started to pay me back!

I never expected this but 2 years ago I filed a claim to the e-Gold claims process to get my frozen funds returned. Today I found a check in the mail for the full balance of one of my accounts! I guess the government decided that I wasn't a child molester or hacker after all  . It was a check from Rust Consulting and drawn against US Bank. It was only for a few thousand dollars.

I have a second larger account that has not yet been paid back, but I am more hopeful now.

[Lauda]

You're comparing things that aren't the same, and not really related. How would you shut down Bitcoin i wonder? 

[MarketNeutral]

e-Gold started to pay me back!

I never expected this but 2 years ago I filed a claim to the e-Gold claims process to get my frozen funds returned. Today I found a check in the mail for the full balance of one of my accounts! I guess the government decided that I wasn't a child molester or hacker after all  . It was a check from Rust Consulting and drawn against US Bank. It was only for a few thousand dollars.

I have a second larger account that has not yet been paid back, but I am more hopeful now.

All I can say is wow!

[BillyBobJoe]

This has been covered and is being covered ad nauseam.

Look up the protocol and the countless other threads covering this

How about this? Mark as read, ignore and move on while some of us discuss this, learn a little?

IN OTHER WORDS STFU?

[counter]

E-Gold does not exist anymore because they didn't have the proper licenses and all the founders are now convicted felons. Bitcoin which seems to be very similar will it be effected from the mountain of US laws surrounding money transferring, etc? Is it safe for regular people and business to use Bitcoins in regular online retail stores? Will Bitcoins someday be illegal and can the US pass new laws that don't exist now and make them retroactive?

I'm of the opinion that E-Gold is very different from Bitcoin.  Bitcoin one being decentralized is a huge part of the reason the bitcoin not and will not be handled the same as E-Gold.  The Regulations can come but the Coin works the same unless the users decide otherwise.

[justusranvier]

How about this? Mark as read, ignore and move on while some of us discuss this, learn a little?

IN OTHER WORDS STFU?

The first thing you need to learn is how to check the date on the posts you reply to.

[BADecker]

eGold lost the game because it was centralized. The Feds had a focal point to go for. They went for the centralized focal point. Same with Liberty Reserve.

If they managed to take down Bitcoin somehow, there would be Litecoin, Namecoin, PPcoin, and a thousand more altcoins with new ones popping up all the time.

Bitcoin isn't a money and trade thing as much as it is a whole new way of life. The only way that they will be able to shut Bitcoin down is to shut down freedom entirely, and to cap all the new electronics and Internet innovations. Governments have been trying to do this virtually since the beginning of time, and they haven't mastered it yet. They never will.

[a7594li]

bitcoin is very good,But need a long time to mature.

[Bitcoinpro]

If the bitcoin economy were to grow 100X then, assuming the cost of a 51% attack scales linearly, the USG would need to spend USD 1-2 billion which is becoming significant even for the USG.

One to two billion in not significant to the US.  They are currently printing $85 billion per month in effort to stimulate the economy.  They could easily fund a 51% attack.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/federal-reserve-bond-buying_n_3467097.html

Everyone has to much old hardware lying around who knows how much extra power we could bring online in a short space of time, Id say the costs of an attack would be closer to 1 Trillion plus a failed attack

of such scale would be the instant death of Fiat and its preferable that this process gets scaled in over a much much longer time frame.

[Bitcoinpro]

If you look at the E-Gold pty ltd story it really is completely different to what people opening these threads are suggesting and all commodities traded fall under the E-Gold classification which people seem to be referring to,

E-Gold pty ltd was a company that had similar spin offs,, E-gold's store of value and large user base made it an early target of financial malware and phishing scams by increasingly organized criminal syndicates. The first known phishing attack against a financial institution was made against members of the E-gold mailing list in June 2001. The technique was refined with attacks against the digital gold systems like E-gold and later used to attack other financial institutions starting in 2003

"complaints to government authorities by defrauded account holders, who often did not understand the difference between E-gold and the fraudulent person or company that encouraged them to open an E-gold account and wire money to fund it"

[Bitcoinpro]

And last but not least nothing ever happened to the E-Gold while a company with the name egold flopped the concept is still well and truely alive

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/e-gold-is-a-better-option-for-investors-than-gold-etfs/1/193556.html

[Balls]

e-gold and bitcoin are completely different. Bitcoin is revolutionary and is here to stay.

[Slingshot]

Re: Bitcoin Will It Have The Same Fate As E-gold?

 NO, absolutely NOT.


 First even if any government or bankster, or anyone desired to stop Bitcoin they can't. Bitcoin is out of the Genie's Bottle and simply can't be stopped unless almost everyone quits. That isn't going to occur. Not ever. Not even if many or most governments attempt to ban it. They will simply drive it underground.

 Bitcoin is everywhere. ie: Decentralized on many thousands of computers through Bitcoin-Qt Core Client Software. It lives on all of them, the entire Bitcoin Blockchain, with every Bitcoin transaction ever made, the entire Core is on all Bitcoin full nodes.

  Every true Bitcoin node is updated to the present point in time is a copy of the entire Bitcoin Blockchain within ten minutes or so and connects with more than 8 other connected nodes on the network. Once other nodes come back online their updated automatically too.

 Not even WW3 can destroy Bitcoin. Surviving Bitcoin-Qt Core Client contained computer nodes will keep right on going and going.

 It would be like trying to catch air to stop Bitcoin.

 Now governments could try banning it, but they wont. Everyone (except owners of the Central Banks) absolutely ends up loving everything Bitcoin stands for. Even governments and many existing bankers. And everyone that needs to know does know to absolutely hate our true masters-the Owners of the Central Banks.

 I could say more but I hate ruining surprises and such things.

 Only Dictatorships such as Communist China has the stupidity to Ban Bitcoin.



 Bitcoin is the start of a Decentralized Monetary Revolution. It's the biggest thing since...Ever. It's bigger than the entire Industrial Revolution in what it offers mankind. It's far bigger than even what electricity did for mankind, at least in the longest terms. It frees mankind for the first time from the oppression and exploitation of Central Bankers.



1st END THE FED (and other Central banks).

2nd End Debt Based Fiat Currencies.

3rd Countries must print their very own debt FREE currencies.


Do those first. Then the rest will fall into place. Just make certain it's sustainable long term. Bitcoin is such a sustainable solution.

Central Banks and Debt based fiat are absolute disasters and have resulted in enslaving the world through systematically enslaving every government and it's peoples in unpayable debts and interest payments. It's the worst crime in the history of mankind. An evil and diabolical scheme to enslave us all, governments included, and the long con is almost at it's ending point.

 I did Not say governments don't need their own currencies, likely they will need them for a long while to come, but eventually all currencies can be DECENTRALIZED if that is what societies desire, and it's a great alternative way to go at some point in the future, gradually. With Bitcoin leading the Decentralized Revolution.

 Monetary Decentralization is just the start of a Decentralized future. Their is hope for a wonderful future for all humans on this earth finally.
It's spelled Decentralization of many things, not just currencies.

 Soon everyone will catch on and catch up. Until then...enjoy and learn as much as one can.

 Some really great scientists finally neutered our Masters desires. It's called Bitcoin and Decentralized currencies. Or a mixture of that and 1,2, and 3 above. Of course if countries are not prudent with their own debt free currencies then they will end in ruin. Hence the very need for Bitcoin to have a store of value to run to in case governments are not prudent with monetary and fiscal policies going forward, after the Central banks and their debt based fiat currencies are terminated.

This is an economic battle for the future. One no one can surrender to. Otherwise our children and our children's children will be fighting our battles and we will end up enslaving them too, instead of handing them down a brave new, and truly economically free world.

END THE FED, that's the very first step. Job 1.


Bitcoin is Freedom.

[Este Nuno]

The government would have to do an all out attack on bitcoin to shut it down. And that would be unprecedented. It would take some political will, and I don't feel that the situation is too bad for bitcoin at the moment.

[LiteCoinGuy]

if the FBI goes to the bitcoin-office and shuts it down, its over. simple as that.

[tspacepilot]

if the FBI goes to the bitcoin-office and shuts it down, its over. simple as that.

That's pretty funny.  I wonder where they're gonna find this "bitcoin office".  They've done a terrible job shutting down other peer-to-peer nets that they would probably like to shut down, just note the filesharing that goes on over bittorrent versus the napster thing from the early 2000s.

[Ron~Popeil]

The only place thay can try to "hit" bit coin is when it is exchanged for fiat currency. Beyond that it is not something that can be regulated. Even with a 51% attack they would fool the network for about 10 minutes before the chain split off.