scenarios if US Govt tried to take down bitcoin?

[mmitech]

it will take some time to change that, most nodes wont be able to broadcast/listen other nodes, and changing the port can create two different forks old nodes cant listen new nodes.

Edit: and this can buy them some time....

True - I was only meaning that changing the port is technically dead easy (i.e. they would be playing "whack-a-mole").

sorry I now got what you meant.

[johncarpe64]

Its easy, they just need to force microsoft to put in some kind of program that stop bitcoin wallet and miners...

[Gordon_Freeman]

Its easy, they just need to force microsoft to put in some kind of program that stop bitcoin wallet and miners...

This could be done however Microsoft couldn't ban all the different software and then the ones that popped up after the fact.  If this was possible then uTorrent wouldn't exist.

[Valerian77]

Shutdown of the Bitcoin network is not possible. Apart all the arguments brought here it has simply a geopolitical reason - read this:  http://tinyurl.com/oq8lhme  Point (1)

[Lauda]

Its easy, they just need to force microsoft to put in some kind of program that stop bitcoin wallet and miners...

Microsoft can't do that.
Also this is why there are other OS's.

[hayek]

A couple of thoughts:

- The cryptography could be broken. Nobody would know about it.
- The block chain gets too big to maintain for the average bitcoin user. We would know about it and possibly be able to fix it in time.

Terrible, terrible thoughts.

Really fighting the urge to rant here about how dumb this is.

[Lauda]

A couple of thoughts:

- The cryptography could be broken. Nobody would know about it.
- The block chain gets too big to maintain for the average bitcoin user. We would know about it and possibly be able to fix it in time.

Terrible, terrible thoughts.

Really fighting the urge to rant here about how dumb this is.

It gets broken? Change algorithm.
Block chain gets too big? Only make users download the newest part of it (up to a year?), or mini blockchain.

[tvbcof]

it will take some time to change that, most nodes wont be able to broadcast/listen other nodes, and changing the port can create two different forks old nodes cant listen new nodes.

Edit: and this can buy them some time....

True - I was only meaning that changing the port is technically dead easy (i.e. they would be playing "whack-a-mole").

The general solution to that would probably to to whack the mole so hard that the other moles don't want to play.

I cannot judge the conditions under which such a strategy might be employed and thus the effectiveness of the strategy.  There are way to many potential factors and scenarios.  It is certainly worth tossing into the mix as a potential threat when it comes to long term planning though.  IMHO anyway.

[jasonjm]

the government can and will take down bitcoin

1) claim bitcoin is used to facilitate terrorism, money laundering and drugs - check!
2) have the bankers get worried about bitcoin and pressure the puppets into taking action - check! eu paper and senate hearings
3) prevent any banks from doing any bitcoin related anything
4) ban all the bitcoin exchanges
5) pressure all trading partners of EU and US to follow suit, which is basically everyone


once bitcoin is locked out of the fiat world, it is dead, done, finished.

no business with any presence in the US or EU will touch bitcoin with a 10 foot pole, same with banks.

at that point what will you do with your bitcoins? just hoard them?

[dmartig]

the largest exchange is now in china. they have taken jobs, markets and now bitcoin. for the US to stop bitcoin it would have to stop china

[Anon136]

The problem is that they don't have a world government. So bitcoin infrastructure could always flee to more bitcoin friendly jurisdictions. so for the sake of discussion, lets say we had a world government, or the us government had the leverage to sufficiently twist the arms of every other government on the planet in order to gain compliance. In this case there would be two possible attack vectors that i can think of. They could outlaw the production of CPU's without hardware back doors and then search through peoples computers for bitcoin activity or they could force people to purchase licenses to use encryption and monitor the isps for anyone who violated encryption licensing laws.

Neither of those things are very likely, so whats more important to talk about than what they could do to outright kill it is what they will probably do to harm it. Instead of trying to kill it out right they will try to strangle it slowly with regulation. they will make it more and more difficult to get it in and out of fiat by creating more and more invasive regulations for exchanges. They may create regulations that force businesses that accept bitcoins to reject mixed coins and/or relay information about the transactions to a centralized database. Or they may even make it illegal for businesses to accept bitcoin as payment.

[NewLiberty]

The system is huge, complex, and has grown ever dependent on itself. It is a house of cards, a lumbering dinosaur, and not nearly as nefarious as some of you think.

+1
The government generally isn't bad as in evil, generally its bad as in incompetent. 
Problem is, when you have the monopoly on the right to kill, steal and imprison and impoverish, it amounts to about the same thing.
It wants to do the right thing, but usually since that means not doing anything, it gets that part wrong and does something anyhow and poorly.

[Lauda]

the largest exchange is now in china. they have taken jobs, markets and now bitcoin. for the US to stop bitcoin it would have to stop china

China all the way!

[User705]

the largest exchange is now in china. they have taken jobs, markets and now bitcoin. for the US to stop bitcoin it would have to stop china

China all the way!

I think you are forgetting china is a communist country with high inflation and various bubbles.  The government also isn't big on individual liberties.  They got pretty pissed off with qq coin so assuming china will be super cool with bitcoins isn't a given.

[Lauda]

I think you are forgetting china is a communist country with high inflation and various bubbles.  The government also isn't big on individual liberties.  They got pretty pissed off with qq coin so assuming china will be super cool with bitcoins isn't a given.

I think that you're forgetting that China is much better than the USA in every possible way, else Satoshi would be an American. 

[CIYAM]

They got pretty pissed off with qq coin so assuming china will be super cool with bitcoins isn't a given.

True but it seems that they have very much differentiated Bitcoin from QQ coin (which was really just one company printing its own money).

[User705]

They got pretty pissed off with qq coin so assuming china will be super cool with bitcoins isn't a given.

True but it seems that they have very much differentiated Bitcoin from QQ coin (which was really just one company printing its own money).

Not sure it's on their radar yet.  But a recent china btc exchange that ran off with 4 million will wake them up.

[niothor]

the largest exchange is now in china. they have taken jobs, markets and now bitcoin. for the US to stop bitcoin it would have to stop china

China all the way!

I think you are forgetting china is a communist country with high inflation and various bubbles.  The government also isn't big on individual liberties.  They got pretty pissed off with qq coin so assuming china will be super cool with bitcoins isn't a given.

They are forgetting also another thing , the most important. China is keeping their yuan undervalue to help their exports. A global currency in which they can't keep the value incheck is the last thing they would want.

[techstorm2]

Its easy, they just need to force microsoft to put in some kind of program that stop bitcoin wallet and miners...

A large proportion of miners use linux. 

[lindatess]

The bitcoin infrastructure is vulnerable to an attack. It's centralised.

I read on another website that the government can confiscate the domain, mess with the dns servers, shutdown the hard coded nodes. You won't be able to rollout new updates because they have the main website. Note: All this infrastructure is located in the United States. I'll try find the site, but it's a really popular forum. It's as easy as shutting down a botnet. They will destroy confidence. Furthermore, the wealthy elites don't have their money in bitcoin. Warren Buffet, George Soros, and other billionaires aren't moving their money into bitcoin. Even a small guy like Peter Schiff says it's stupid.

Furthermore, no wealth is destroyed if bitcoin disappears, because it never existed. Value is only transferred when a transaction against fiat or another commodity takes place. You can't argue that it will destroy value if it never existed. There is still the same amount of USD out there in the market. It's like the stockmarket, you gambled, you played, you lost. A Zero Sum Game.

Why any anti-government person would risk all their life savings in bitcoin is beyond comprehension. Even Alex Jones says to tread cautiously.

That's why bitcoin should only be used as a temporary medium of exchange. It might pay to use one of the altcoins instead as a result of this. Which really leaves bitcoin without it's clothes.