What would happen if ISPs start blocking cryptocurrency data?

[Morbo]

Does no one remember what happened when ISPs tried to stop Bittorrent?

ISPs never wanted to stop Bittorrent. Media content mafia tried to pressure ISPs into stopping Bittorrent. And they pretty much won - every place on Earth except the worst shitholes now has digital copyright agencies. Copyright whores passed laws that favor them. Copyright whores send blackmail letters racketeering filesharers without suffering any repercussions.

[justusranvier]

And they pretty much won

They won?

Let me check something- nope, I can still find any content I want on TPB and download it without any problems.

[hilariousandco]

Does no one remember what happened when ISPs tried to stop Bittorrent? How well did that work out? How quickly did users adapt to the extra steps necessary to operate compared to how quickly the ISPs acted?

That's why it'll be futile to even try banning Bitcoin.

[luqash3]

No doubt big elephants in the market especially central banks will try their best to fight with bitcoin as it is not threat to economy but to their personnel goals. They shall try every method to destroy crypto currency due to up and down in prices possible. However investors will protect the crypto currency from destroying. 

[ineedit]

No doubt big elephants in the market especially central banks will try their best to fight with bitcoin as it is not threat to economy but to their personnel goals. They shall try every method to destroy crypto currency due to up and down in prices possible. However investors will protect the crypto currency from destroying. 

Trouble is they have little financial leverage tools with Bitcoin unlike currencies or commodities.

They have control of the standard financial markets and they can easily change the value of currencies by printing, issuing bonds, etc. There are plenty of financial instruments that they can sell short or long without actually owning the currency or commodity.

The blockchain stops that as it enforces one owner per unit of exchange.


All they can do is trash its reputation.

[waxwing]

And they pretty much won

They won?

Let me check something- nope, I can still find any content I want on TPB and download it without any problems.

While you're right of course, the very fact that someone might think they won is significant. The great mass of people seem to be have been successfully herded into models like Netflix and iTunes than bittorrent. I speak of course of the rich countries.
It seems a quasi-equilibrium has been reached where the "authorities" make only limited attempts to suppress bittorrent, while providing an alternative within accepted structures, and you get a 80-20 (pure guess) split between those who go along, and those who choose to stay outside the system.

Perhaps the future for Bitcoin is similar. I would argue it's a little different, because file sharing is principally about entertainment, whereas money is about your livelihood. It can mean life or death for your family business, for example.

[hilariousandco]

And they pretty much won

They won?

Let me check something- nope, I can still find any content I want on TPB and download it without any problems.

While you're right of course, the very fact that someone might think they won is significant. The great mass of people seem to be have been successfully herded into models like Netflix and iTunes than bittorrent. I speak of course of the rich countries.
It seems a quasi-equilibrium has been reached where the "authorities" make only limited attempts to suppress bittorrent, while providing an alternative within accepted structures, and you get a 80-20 (pure guess) split between those who go along, and those who choose to stay outside the system.

These type of streaming services are the only real chance they've got at clawing some money from people.

[waxwing]

And they pretty much won

They won?

Let me check something- nope, I can still find any content I want on TPB and download it without any problems.

While you're right of course, the very fact that someone might think they won is significant. The great mass of people seem to be have been successfully herded into models like Netflix and iTunes than bittorrent. I speak of course of the rich countries.
It seems a quasi-equilibrium has been reached where the "authorities" make only limited attempts to suppress bittorrent, while providing an alternative within accepted structures, and you get a 80-20 (pure guess) split between those who go along, and those who choose to stay outside the system.

These type of streaming services are the only real chance they've got at clawing some money from people.

Clearly. We're veering off topic here, but what the heck.

The supposition that 'they' (whoever they may be, including the artists) have any inalienable right to receive any money is predicated on the idea that intellectual property is not a logically and ethically bankrupt concept. Unfortunately, it is - and so, they don't.

[bluemeanie1]

Say the USG calls an "emergency" meeting with the UNSC and they all agree that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are now the "largest threat to the world economy"... They adopt as a UN Resolution the American proposal "Anti-Counterfeiting Measures Emergency Act of 2014". So each member nation-state has to legally "force" ISPs to "log and discard" all packets that match certain strings.

What happens then? Would it be the end of Bitcoin? The end of cryptocurrencies? What's the response of the Bitcoin dev team?



edit:

Got this idea from monsterer:

That's the whole POINT of bitcoin.  Once the network gets big enough, they won't have the *ability* to decide to "allow" it or not.  They don't "allow" pirating or The Pirate Bay, and of course nobody pirates any more and the Pirate Bay website has been shut down for good.

This is a fundamental fallacy shared by many bitcoiners. Governments can easily 'not allow' bitcoin (for all intents and purposes) by simply passing a new law saying any ISP relaying bitcoin related traffic will be shut down.

That move alone vastly reduces the number of miners and nodes probably to the point where a 51% attack becomes easy, and the currency crumbles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely positive about bitcoin but you have to understand how vunerable it is.

Cheers, Paul.

I'd like to note that it is impossible to shut down a Confidence Chain.  The transactions can be routed through any medium, even steganographically embedded in images.  Entire economies could be grown on a message post board like 4chan for instance with only the participants knowing about it.

You could build similar bridges for Bitcoin, but it's not fundamentally built for these characteristics like Confidence Chains is.

[justusranvier]

While you're right of course, the very fact that someone might think they won is significant. The great mass of people seem to be have been successfully herded into models like Netflix and iTunes than bittorrent.

I see that as a win because Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, etc. look nothing like where the industry wanted to go in the late 90s.

The main impetus that made filesharing popular is the record companies, and later Hollywood, refused to be reasonable in terms of making their content available.

Basically they were forced to conform to what their customers wanted or else be left behind entirely. They tried fighting this with lawyers, but all that did was make the circumvention technology evolve even faster.

[Jcw188]

I'm not so worried for the pool operators, I mean people could always go back to mining solo and BTC won't die.  I do worry about the gov. trying to prevent BTC data from being sent though.  That seems like the only way they could TRULY clamp down and kill BTC officially.