Can't stop it.

[Rival]

I have been an advocate of bitcoins for quite some time. It appears to be an amazing vehicle for both political and social change. There have been volumes written on this, and I an not coming here today in search of validation for these things. What I am concerned about is the future.

The experiment that became bitcoins is currently for all intents and purposes unstoppable. No group, be it government (political) or economic can at this point stop it. It cannot be controlled, it cannot be reigned in, it cannot be regulated. This should be self-evident to anyone who has followed it's development.

The bitcoin network is supported by greed. Not greed as a sin, but greed as a natural extension of humans to increase their wealth and holdings. Buy some bitcoins today, and they will be worth some multiple of that tomorrow. Buy mining gear today, and get your little black box that spits out $20 bills while they last.

But the greatest flaw in the system of bitcoins is also it's greatest strength. Bitcoins cannot be controlled. No government, no group, no one can control them. The price and the value is up to the free market. Totally free. But what if that turns against us?


Who can stop it? What government in the world can stand up and say " This or that" to bicoin? None.
What rebellion, what revolution, what grass-roots group can veto the market? None.

I think people have missed the most amazing and insidious part of bitcoin. That it literally cannot be stopped by anyone. No one. Once it has integrated itself into commerce it cannot be removed. Not by politicians, not by bankers, But also not by the population of the planet. We are literally turning everything over to an algorithm with no kill switch. No way to turn it off, no way to change our minds later. It is here. It will always be here. No one can stop it.

We have created Frankenstein's monster writ large. All we have is a blind faith that it will be benign. Whether this is the case remains to be seen, but we have already put ourselves on the path wherein there is no turning back. I really hope we got it right, or we are fucked.

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[DeathAndTaxes]

Nonsense.   If someone doesn't like Bitcoin or feels it got it wrong they can opt out.  Nobody can be forced to accept Bitcoins, nobody can be forced to hold Bitcoins.   There is nothing insidious.  If Bitcoin "got it wrong" then people will opt out, the more that do the smaller and smaller the Bitcoin "ecosystem" it will be.

You opt in or you opt out.  You are voting with your actions.

It began with 0 miners and a source code and it can end when the last disillusioned miners clicks the off switch.  The source code will remain but being open source it can be forked to a project that does "get it right".

[vokain]

http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/bitcoins-dystopian-future

[lizardflix]

I'm a bit believer and supporter of btc as well but it's a mistake to think that this is something that cannot be stopped.  It could be destroyed or made unusable pretty easily if enough forces lined up against it.  Apparently the Feds have recently taken control of tens of thousands of btc and I'm sure they could wreak havoc on the value with those and by quickly buying up large numbers and manipulating the market.  

I've heard people for a while talk about how BTC cannot be stopped, touched or bothered by anybody and I think that kind of hubris could be dangerous.  Maybe one day BTC will be so widely used and ubiquitous  that this will be true but right now it is very vulnerable to bad players.  

As the saying goes "Don't get cocky."

[Rival]

I do not think it can be stopped.

[balanghai]

So may I know your opinion and assumptions of the possible scenarios falling upon the earth with bitcoin being unstoppable?

[overunity]

I feel that Bitcoin has a place in currency markets .

My view is that there will be individual Government monies tied to their respective countries economies.

Then I believe we can have an international virtual currency .

Bitcoin enthusiasts cannot dictate what bitcoin is ,Bitcoin will be what it will be without human controls from haters or lovers of it .

Evangelists boast that there will be no government or bankster controls they also have also got to accept they will have no contrlol .

In a perfect society all decisions should be made by the mass population in exactly the same way as bitcoins value will be .
Not dictated by a few self serving elitists.

If this was reality the world population would I believe benefit significantly .

I love what Bitcoin represents ,which is the value expressed by the population that embrace it .

[geofflosophy]

Nonsense.   If someone doesn't like Bitcoin or feels it got it wrong they can opt out.  Nobody can be forced to accept Bitcoins, nobody can be forced to hold Bitcoins.   There is nothing insidious.  If Bitcoin "got it wrong" then people will opt out, the more that do the smaller and smaller of a "ecosystem it is".

It began with 0 miners and a source code and it can end when the last disillusioned miners clicks the off switch.

+1 on this.

Bitcoin cannot be stopped as long as it continues to do what it does, but if the developers make a critical error in implementing a feature that we as the community decides to be a shark jumping feature, you bet your ass that we'll be on to the next one. I don't think this will ever happen, but my point is that we will never be slaves to Bitcoin.

[thetopham]

carrington event or EMP could stop it

[geofflosophy]

carrington event or EMP could stop it

These would kill all finance, not just bitcoin. Fiat is no safer WRT the internet than BTC.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Nonsense.   If someone doesn't like Bitcoin or feels it got it wrong they can opt out.  Nobody can be forced to accept Bitcoins, nobody can be forced to hold Bitcoins.   There is nothing insidious.  If Bitcoin "got it wrong" then people will opt out, the more that do the smaller and smaller of a "ecosystem it is".

It began with 0 miners and a source code and it can end when the last disillusioned miners clicks the off switch.

+1 on this.

Bitcoin cannot be stopped as long as it continues to do what it does, but if the developers make a critical error in implementing a feature that we as the community decides to be a shark jumping feature, you bet your ass that we'll be on to the next one. I don't think this will ever happen, but my point is that we will never be slaves to Bitcoin.

people dont use the "next coin" just because there is a bug or a little "feature". it will be fixed and then it will go one.

the biggest threat to bitcoin is, that it gets banned by several big countrys or on wider international level. in that case, there is no more value for it (very less value)

[Rival]

My concern is not for scenarios that we can predict. Prediction can lead to pre-emptive solutions. My concern is for consequences that we cannot predict, the so-called unknown unknowns.

Once you set a chain of events into motion, the results are pretty much determined unless there is some outside intervention. The system we have created has no real escape valve.  I don't think we have ever really done that before. There has always been a way out, often through bloody revolution. But in a world where bitcoins are ubiquitous, just exactly who would you rebel against? Everyone else? Yourself?

"You will not be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast". Now, I am not trying to go all religious here, but imagine a world where all commerce is done in bitcoins. How could anyone just "opt out?" Would it even be possible? We are today building a system which we may never be able to escape, should anyone ever desire to do so.

The blind masses have an inertia that is truly immense. We are building that inertia one user at a time today. Once it has sufficient inertia  (which it may already have) we won't be able to pull the plug. Imagine running around trying to convince people to stop using bitcoins when it is used everyday for everything. No one will listen, and no one will stop.

Now, once again, I am not against bitcoins. All that I am saying is that we are making decisions today that cannot be reversed. Whether we are building a stairway to Heaven or to Hell remains to be seen.

[Birdy]

You cannot stop technology, but you can try to make the best out of it.

[Birdy]

You cannot stop technology, but you can try to make the best out of it.

Yes you can, that's what the patent system's for. It doesn't work so well against de-centralized tech though

Sure, you can prevent people from using it to a certain degree, but you cannot "uninvent" something. Well, maybe you could if you were able to make everyone on earth forget that it existed.

[leemar]

My concern is not for scenarios that we can predict. Prediction can lead to pre-emptive solutions. My concern is for consequences that we cannot predict, the so-called unknown unknowns.

Once you set a chain of events into motion, the results are pretty much determined unless there is some outside intervention. The system we have created has no real escape valve.  I don't think we have ever really done that before. There has always been a way out, often through bloody revolution. But in a world where bitcoins are ubiquitous, just exactly who would you rebel against? Everyone else? Yourself?

"You will not be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast". Now, I am not trying to go all religious here, but imagine a world where all commerce is done in bitcoins. How could anyone just "opt out?" Would it even be possible? We are today building a system which we may never be able to escape, should anyone ever desire to do so.

The blind masses have an inertia that is truly immense. We are building that inertia one user at a time today. Once it has sufficient inertia  (which it may already have) we won't be able to pull the plug. Imagine running around trying to convince people to stop using bitcoins when it is used everyday for everything. No one will listen, and no one will stop.

Now, once again, I am not against bitcoins. All that I am saying is that we are making decisions today that cannot be reversed. Whether we are building a stairway to Heaven or to Hell remains to be seen.

Bitcoin in a trading sense is just a medium of exchange. Change the word bitcoin to money in your above statement and what's the difference?

The beast if there is one is capitalism, that beat communism over the last 100 years, and until people collectively chose something else, money will facilitate the market that defines capitalism.

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

In other words, bitcoin is much like the Internet itself.  Bitcoin is the Internet of finance.

[leemar]

In other words, bitcoin is much like the Internet itself.  Bitcoin is the Internet of finance.

I have heard it described almost exactly as that, "the internet of money".

I would say bitcoin is the second great step enabled by the internet.

1.  Send/receive information anywhere in the world.
2.  Send/receive value anywhere in the world.
3.  Send/receive stuff anywhere in the world.  3-D printing would lay a claim to being the start of this, but I suspect it is in practical terms very long way away.

[BldSwtTrs]

The beast if there is one is capitalism, that beat communism over the last 100 years, and until people collectively chose something else, money will facilitate the market that defines capitalism.

Nobody has choosen capitalism. Capitalism is human nature.
Communism was not beaten by capitalism. Communism perished because of the discrepancy between ideology and reality.

The beast, if there is one, is human nature.

[leemar]

I’m a capitalist because I believe nothing better exists, but I live in hope.

[neutrinox]

Nobody has choosen capitalism. Capitalism is human nature.
Communism was not beaten by capitalism. Communism perished because of the discrepancy between ideology and reality.

The beast, if there is one, is human nature.

Well said!