What would happen if US government made Bitcoin illegal?

[robresno]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

[kotajikikox]

Well if this happens.lets just think without bitcoin.lets just think that bitcoin doesn't exist.because we don't want to be in jail... We live before without bitcoin.. so without bitcoin life must go on.this is if us make bitcoin illegal.
But your asking what would happens to price if the government say bitcoin is illegal.well maybe bitcoin price will goes down.but let's us also think it is just one country and there's more country using bitcoin.if bitcoin make it more popular it doesn't matter if us makes bitcoin illegal.bitcoin can still go stronger and price will up and still have a big value.same us high power it doesn't matter if us make bitcoin illegal it doesn't affect us.
No needs to recover because bitcoin is stronger.
This is just my idea!

[hatshepsut93]

Casual investors will immediately drop BTC, same with institutional investors, most Bitcoin businesses would close. The only people left on the network in the US would be cypherpunks, criminals, and buyers of illegal services. On a global scale Bitcoin will suffer from a huge crash, easily 90-95%, because if the US would ban BTC, many other countries would follow. If the EU would also ban, it would effectively be a worldwide ban, because most of Bitcoin traffic comes from the West, and the West is very influential, plus eastern countries already don't like BTC and are talking about banning it.
Without enough hashpower Bitcoin would be easier to attack, which puts yet another instance of selling pressure on it.

In the end, Bitcoin will not die, because it''s decentralized and it can't be killed, but for most people it would be as good as dead, law-abiding citizens wouldn't want risk dealing with BTC.

[Msworld83]

This particular country has always be the major issue in the world , trying to control every thing on whose behalf, I just dont get the thing as for them to stay clear on their way and stop interfering in others business, they can put sanction on their citizens for some restriction , just like every other exchange trying to comply with their rules which I think is save for their citizens but they can't tag bitcoin has illegal.

[rosezionjohn]

If that ever happens, I expect many to go underground. Some crypto enthusiasts might even migrate to other countries where bitcoin is legal. Traders will most likely dump their holdings also. I don't about hash power.

[Herbert2020]

since this is not something that can happen overnight, it would have no effects on the hashrate because if the miners feel threatened they will move their operation to another state or other places where such ridiculous laws don't apply.

as for price, it is drama so consequently price could fall because of it but like any other drama it will drop temporarily before it goes back on the same track and continues rising.

[TimeBits]

This will happen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

People will not give them their bitcoin though, and they can`t come into your house and seize it without your password like they did in the past to gold.

What will happen is there will be a big revolution if they are stupid enough to do such a thing, like this moron suggest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnz2oo8MRas (notice the stumble at 7-8 seconds)

In other words, nothing will happen, people will just exchange it for other altcoins or other fiats and just p2p trade it if they ban the exchanges. If they start to jail people for free trading I am sure the people will start to take heads.

[Kakmakr]

Well, it will definitely not mean that it would be the end of Bitcoin. The Tor network has been running for years now and it has been banned in a lot of countries.    You cannot bring down a whole decentralized network by simply banning people from running a node, even if it means that the majority of that network is supported by people in one country.

I think it will be a blow to many smaller Alt coins, because it has a lot less nodes, but Bitcoin is simply too big with too many nodes to fail because of this type of actions. 

[CryptoBry]

Casual investors will immediately drop BTC, same with institutional investors, most Bitcoin businesses would close. The only people left on the network in the US would be cypherpunks, criminals, and buyers of illegal services. On a global scale Bitcoin will suffer from a huge crash, easily 90-95%, because if the US would ban BTC, many other countries would follow. If the EU would also ban, it would effectively be a worldwide ban, because most of Bitcoin traffic comes from the West, and the West is very influential, plus eastern countries already don't like BTC and are talking about banning it. Without enough hashpower Bitcoin would be easier to attack, which puts yet another instance of selling pressure on it.
In the end, Bitcoin will not die, because it''s decentralized and it can't be killed, but for most people it would be as good as dead, law-abiding citizens wouldn't want risk dealing with BTC.

Bitcoin can't die but what would be its use if most of the people who are into it right now will stop dealing with it? Virtually, it is going to be dead just like any good product that finds no critical size of a market. Now, using the scenario above, can we then conclude that the "life" of bitcoin is at the fingertips of the government? Though, of course, I don't expect the USA government to do what China did in 2017.

[fortunecrypto]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

There will be another country as strong as the US  that's gonna take over, maybe Japan or Canada, one's country's loss is another country's gain, we will see dump but knowing the Americans they will always find a way to get involved with cryptocurrency, but this thing is unlikely to happen.

[pushups44]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

First off, this law would be challenged in the courts, so it would likely not be implemented any time soon. But assuming the law were somehow put into place and approved by Congress, it would have a severely negative effect on bitcoin in terms of price and network activity. There would be an underground market, obviously. I suspect most Americans would sell their bitcoin to the government or whoever is willing to buy it. Perhaps seeing the antagonism to bitcoin, China and Russia would consider it an alternative to the U.S. dollar, thus possibly offsetting the impact of American prohibition.

Bitcoin would still be around, however.

[goaldigger]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

US is a country with so much power and influence and im sure that its alliance also makes bitcoin illegal. It can be a main source for cryptocurrency extinction because the punishment is too much for a digital currency involvement. It will take about a year or two for its full obsoletion. Lets just hope it will not happen.

[michellee]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

I am not sure what happened to the price because the bitcoin price does not just move because of one action. It will move from what traders demand and supply. I think that will happen too with the hash power, maybe it will reduce for a while, but that will not affect to the most hash power because we know that the mining process is not just come from the US. There are many other countries will still mining bitcoin, and if the US make bitcoin illegal, we don't have to worry about that. The recover will always happen, but we don't know how long it will recover, and bitcoin does not depend on one or two countries but it depends on how people use bitcoin itself.

[Rufsilf]

If that ever happens, I expect many to go underground. Some crypto enthusiasts might even migrate to other countries where bitcoin is legal. Traders will most likely dump their holdings also. I don't about hash power.

Yes that's right, traders or crypto user may either go underground or go to a place where bitcoin is useful. I think the one's who will drop their holdings are those who have fewer coins in their wallet but for those who have many may not dump their holding besides it still money, they might opt to exchange it to the accepted currency instead. Regarding the price it might impact bitcoin badly since US has a lot of crypto investors or users.

[stadus]

It would certainly create some panic, but that is just a temporary panic.
I really don't see they will make it illegal as I believe they are pro crypto and this technology could help the economy of a certain country.

Bitcoin has been banned by some countries, but it's still here, kicking and alive, it dump and almost died but it recovers.
I guess BTC is one of the strongest investment due to its capability to recover in time in terms of value.

[iamverybusyperson]

Demand fluctuates, but supply cannot adapt. This is fundamentally laid instability course. The speculators are good, the business is bad. The result is pitiable.

[omone1]

What will happen if US government chooses bitcoin as their reserve currency? And what will happen if US government advises all citizens to buy bitcoin and secure their future and that of their future? Well if what you say happens, I see many bitcoin either relocating from USA or adopting another country's citizenship. True, USA government will be pro bitcoin.

[xWolfx]

If that ever happens, I expect many to go underground. Some crypto enthusiasts might even migrate to other countries where bitcoin is legal. Traders will most likely dump their holdings also. I don't about hash power.

Of course that will happen, especially in the U.S.

It was already proven with the alcohol prohibition in the 20s-30s. However, it would definitely affect price, volume, data and everything.

This makes me think that a Cyberpunk like situation could happen any moment in the future. Sounds fun.

[acroman08]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

Price of bitcoin would crash since US has a huge influence on bitcoin's market and people would be panic selling creating a massive dump that would worsen the crash.

The Blocks produced per day will decrease. Here is a link about a similar topic where what if the hash rate drops. :https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=232325.0

It could take months for bitcoin to recover. but as long as there are miners to mine the blocks bitcoin will eventually recover.

[Shenzou]

Let's say tomorrow there's a US law that any US person who gets caught with bitcoin server goes automatically to jail for lifetime.
And the 2400 US bitcoin nodes would go offline.
What would happen to price?
What would happen to hash power?
How long would it take to recover?
Let's speculate!

Assuming that bitcoin gets banned from the US it won't happen in a day or tow, people will have a notice before it does, and therefore i believe that between the time when the ban is announced and leading to the start of taking it into measure there will be a mayhem in the network , as all those coins and bitcoin that are owned by US resident start being moved, imagine how much bitcoin will be available to buy and that would mean that the supply will increase and that will actually affect the price in a bad way and we will see a high drop in it.