Will governments attack bitcoin?

[nguoinhaque]

What's your choice ? Sorry for my bad english

[MoonShadow]

My choice would be that they already are.

[Bitcraft]

My choice would be that they already are.

+1

[micgrez]

I think they are already in the process:) sorry to say

[bitconformist]

No, because they don't know it exists, aren't agile enough to act against it so quickly, and honestly wouldn't care about it anyway. What is the market cap? $50M USD?

The only thing the US government will do about BTC is use it as a honeypot for catching inept drug users and pedos.

[klaus]

No, because they don't know it exists, aren't agile enough to act against it so quickly, and honestly wouldn't care about it anyway. What is the market cap? $50M USD?
The only thing the US government will do about BTC is use it as a honeypot for catching inept drug users and pedos.

+1

[Explodicle]

They'll attack it because they think it's bad. Government is run by people who think they're doing the right thing but are often mistaken. They honestly want to protect people from dangerous things like Bitcoin, and the control (so they tell themselves) is a means to that end.

[dyce]

it might get hit because of tax evasion i suppose.

[travistouchdown]

if it hasn't happened it will, but who knows what the future holds for something like this. They won't look at it like a revolutionary electronic currency. They'll demonize it, and ward off individuals because its a currency they can't tax. Simple.

[FreeMonies]

It seems obvious to me that they already have been. the government doesn't want a true anonymous currency to be in the hands of civilians. Its common sense!

JM

[bitconformist]

It seems obvious to me that they already have been. the government doesn't want a true anonymous currency to be in the hands of civilians. Its common sense!

JM

Which government? Which department? Name one agency with the resources, purview, and agility to actually act on bitcoin so quickly. Those in (massively under-resourced and technologically illiterate) financial enforcement departments are either ignorant of bitcoin or think it's a joke.

[Gabi]

Some senators for example?

[NAGAjalokia]

not gonna vote cause i dont believe in it but. the man doesnt care yet. in fact check out Gavins visit with the cia thread.

i think the cia is actually using it to send money to informants and spies, but we will never know.

[indian]

Nothing has happened to LR , althought bitcoin is different than LR but still it should be safe .

[bitcoinhead]

China is outlawing it for physical transactions.  France is figuring out what to do (is it money or something else?).

I am sure some governments might want to DDOS or somehow otherwise attack it if lots of transactions are happening.  But really these days they are more interested in intercepting encrypted communications (see the Comodo and Diginotar CA hacks where Iran was intercepting encrypted gmail traffic).

I would think that intelligence agencies would be more interested in letting bitcoin run, and in building analytic tools to watch the blocks and try to deduce patterns around who is transacting with whom.  Combine this analysis with IP logs and they may be able to slowly figure out some "people of interest".  For example, if they arrest a criminal who has a wallet, then they know their keys and historical transactions, and this can be traced to see which receivers got their coins.  With enough seized wallets they then start to know some IPs or keys of other bad players.  Maybe this won't lead to finding people, but it could be used as evidence in prosecutions once someone is arrested.

$0.02.

oops, sorry, I mean 0.002 BTC

[molecular]

If they attack bitcoin it'll probably not be out of self-interest, but because people from the banking sector pressure them.

[travistouchdown]

not gonna vote cause i dont believe in it but. the man doesnt care yet. in fact check out Gavins visit with the cia thread.

i think the cia is actually using it to send money to informants and spies, but we will never know.

Hahaha that is so ridiculous that it has to be true! 

[heatherk]

Bitcoin will definitely stay under the radar until it is too late for any action to be taken. If any attempts after that are made to make accessing it illegal it will be too difficult to control the use. Oddly enough, I think users that try too hard to attach their identity to their wallet will wind up being the ones made an example of.

[deherbs]

possibly if it gains a certain level of "popularity"

[BitcoinRedLight]

It is likely a matter of time, if they are not already engaged.