IF Trump via Executive Order Banned Bitcoin, what are consequences if any?

[pixie85]

It would be a bad move for trump because many Americans are Bitcoin traders and holders. It would lose him a lot of votes and make people feel betrayed. They were investing in Bitcoin like they were investing in gold and Trump's ban would make them outlaws all of a sudden.

I guess a ban like that would mean a crash early on until people would realize that it's not the end of the world and that a country banning a fiat currency hedge must be fearing for its fiat. For me it would be a sign to short USD.

[samcrypto]

Big panic will be created as more investors see the US Government as the top regulating country which is normal. The price of bitcoin will taste another bottom and maybe the worst case will be dead for time. The market recession is coming so I don’t think Trump will make a bad decision like this, we need more safe place to put our money and that is for bitcoin.

[Leonardo7]

President moves can't be accurately predicted, he acts and later reviews his actions for necessary management or damage control, he is whom he his, that you can't take from him. On bitcoin, I am, certain he won't give any executive order on it. If peradventure it mistakenly happens, bitcoin will see a temporarily dump in price and spring massively almost immediately. The truth is that: USA is a very great nation but does not control the bitcoin network.

[mk4]

There's going to be a short-term dump in price in my opinion. While "banning" bitcoin is really impossible, making it illegal to have ownership of bitcoin is definitely possible, and would no doubt spread fear to those bitcoin holders that doesn't even understand that it's impossible to ban bitcoin. Pretty much the speculators that leave their funds on exchanges like Coinbase I'm guessing. In the case of a banning, I expect them to panic and dump their bags. Long term though? The price movement caused by the ban probably wouldn't matter. And of course, the more knowledgeable people would just continue to hold their bitcoin on their non-custodial wallets.

[Searing]

That's a nice thought experiment. Let's start with the powers of the US President, though. I realize that Wikipedia is not among the most reliable sources, but I find it fairly accurate is such formal matters.

The Constitution explicitly assigns the president the power to sign or veto legislation, command the armed forces, ask for the written opinion of their Cabinet, convene or adjourn Congress, grant reprieves and pardons, and receive ambassadors. The president oversees federal law execution by directing and removing executive officers. The president may make treaties, which need to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, and is accorded those foreign-affairs functions not otherwise granted to Congress or shared with the Senate. Thus, the president can control the formation and communication of foreign policy and can direct the nation's diplomatic corps. The president may also appoint Article III judges and some officers with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. In the condition of a Senate recess, the president may make a temporary appointment.

Just as I suspected (because it's similar in my country), the President cannot intervene in economic matters. It seems that executive orders should be dedicated to important governmental priorities, so I am not sure that pulling this stuff with cryptos off is even possible. However, since thought experiments usually require us to accept the initial conditions, let's assume it's possible, and Trump does that. It's known that there are quite a lot of Bitcoin users that come from the US, but it's hard to determine how many. I think it would affect the price in a negative way, leading to a 20% drop or so, but eventually, Bitcoin would recover.

The president can intervene in economic matters. Gold was banned for a bit in the USA. Trump can by executive order to tariffs.

So he could 'ban bitcoin' on national security issues rather than economic to get around this.

Again, all this is unlikely and could be challenged in court, but lately, anything is possible in the USA if legit refugees are being separated with their children and kept indefinitely apart.

There is a wide world of silliness under Trump, so I'm sure, he could try to ban bitcoin on a whim, depends on how folk take such a threat. Either he'd be laughed at or in the short

term ignored or he could get away with dumping the price down to 100 USD and drive institutional investors away.

The way the world is lately in denial in the USA with electing trump and denial of climate change etc, no idea...its all beyond the scope of me trying to keep track of.

utterly befuddled

brad

[pooya87]

the only thing that nonsense like this can affect is the price. otherwise bitcoin is designed in a way to be resilient to these things. in case you have forgotten that is exactly what being decentralized means and that is exactly what bitcoin was designed to be. if it were to be affected by some government's decision then it meant that it were a failure.

[jseverson]

the only thing that nonsense like this can affect is the price. otherwise bitcoin is designed in a way to be resilient to these things. in case you have forgotten that is exactly what being decentralized means and that is exactly what bitcoin was designed to be. if it were to be affected by some government's decision then it meant that it were a failure.

As much as I agree that Bitcoin cannot be interfered with, plenty of users will be affected. Even if you ignore the price dumps, losing access to exchanges is a big blow to a lot of people. It's also going to affect the way it's used as a currency, as deals are going to have to be done in secret, and under threat of prosecution.

Some users can choose to be resilient, which I suppose is the beauty in it, but we have to acknowledge that authorities still have a high degree of influence over Bitcoin's ecosystem, even if they can't really touch the network itself.

[pooya87]

the only thing that nonsense like this can affect is the price. otherwise bitcoin is designed in a way to be resilient to these things. in case you have forgotten that is exactly what being decentralized means and that is exactly what bitcoin was designed to be. if it were to be affected by some government's decision then it meant that it were a failure.

As much as I agree that Bitcoin cannot be interfered with, plenty of users will be affected. Even if you ignore the price dumps, losing access to exchanges is a big blow to a lot of people. It's also going to affect the way it's used as a currency, as deals are going to have to be done in secret, and under threat of prosecution.

Some users can choose to be resilient, which I suppose is the beauty in it, but we have to acknowledge that authorities still have a high degree of influence over Bitcoin's ecosystem, even if they can't really touch the network itself.

no arguments there. US citizens will be affected for sure but bitcoin will continue on since the rest of the world isn't crazy! majority of countries in the world have already accepted bitcoin with some of them letting it be used as a currency (like for paying taxes in Germany, a legal currency in Japan,...). and it would be their own fault for electing such a crazy person for the office

[sleeplesman]

I bet there would be huge pump. This is not common opinion, because most of the people here are commenting from states, but think about that. How many of you would love to have that one btc? That small dump would follow huge pump.

[Kakmakr]

Well, the immediate affect would be a massive dumping of coins, because most speculators react quickly on any negative news that might affect their investment. The price will drop with almost 80% again, until people realize that they can still "hoard" bitcoins and use them in other countries where Bitcoin is not banned.

It will also spark new black market markets and platforms to buy and sell bitcoins for the Americans and people will just resort to illegal means to protect their wealth. <The same thing happened with Gold when it was made illegal to own it and also with the Prohibition with alcohol.>

The result of a ban for the USA, will be less tax income and also less Bitcoin tourists and more people taking bitcoins out of the country to use it in countries where it is legal.    (There will also be significant job losses, because there are MANY people employed in Bitcoin businesses now.)  

[yazher]

anything can be happen if this man bad mouth bitcoin and other Altcoins. He is just not thingking. every nation that come across his guts is a worst country so he have them sunctions.
lets not hope that he will get eye on our bitcoin if he does i'm afraid that the consequences could be brutal.

[EdenHazard]

Well, the immediate affect would be a massive dumping of coins, because most speculators react quickly on any negative news that might affect their investment. The price will drop with almost 80% again, until people realize that they can still "hoard" bitcoins and use them in other countries where Bitcoin is not banned.

It will also spark new black market markets and platforms to buy and sell bitcoins for the Americans and people will just resort to illegal means to protect their wealth. <The same thing happened with Gold when it was made illegal to own it and also with the Prohibition with alcohol.>

The result of a ban for the USA, will be less tax income and also less Bitcoin tourists and more people taking bitcoins out of the country to use it in countries where it is legal.    (There will also be significant job losses, because there are MANY people employed in Bitcoin businesses now.)  

No matter the way they order through executive to ban bitcoin  ... the result would'nt much affected cryptocurrency especially bitcoin in the long term, the cryptocurrency ecosystem been built too strong and nobody/ institutions can break it down to the dust easily.

I would glad to follow the dumping till the last dip if this scenario happened, as everyone else speculated and predicted here ... about it will only become a shock therapy temporarily.

Won't be a serious threat for me , it's become an opportunity instead 

[oleg681010]

If so, then most likely everyone will be engaged in trading clandestinely

[BlackFor3st]

There is a little chance that it will happen and once it will happen this will surely affect the bitcoin prices as US is the big contributor of bitcoin and other currencies.

There is a little chance also that US and it's companion countries will follow it's move so it will be tough for the crypto currencies to move forward. One thing that is sure also, there is 0% that crypto currencies will go down.

[Lucius]

We have Tom Lee, Bitcoin, e-cigaretts and Trump in same sentence, and this is not only funny, but a little ironic. The famous Tom Lee which cannot forecast anything is now saying that Trump might one day ban Bitcoin just because some e-cigaretts are banned in US? Well that's actually good news, cigarettes cost the American health system probably billions every year.

I do not see any long-term problem if Trump is ban Bitcoin, China do the same few years ago and Bitcoin is become even stronger after that. If Americans want to be in trading war with most of the world, and to have such president again then go for Trump again next year.

[Driggers95]

There is a little chance that it will happen and once it will happen this will surely affect the bitcoin prices as US is the big contributor of bitcoin and other currencies.

There is a little chance also that US and it's companion countries will follow it's move so it will be tough for the crypto currencies to move forward. One thing that is sure also, there is 0% that crypto currencies will go down.

Certainly, the United States is a country with a relatively high number of bitcoin users, if Trump has strict rules with bitcoin, the value of bitcoin going down is an easily recognizable signal, besides, whale groups always like such community events, support pushing prices down is one thing they are happy to do. Continuing from another perspective, the US has always been a strong influence, other countries will start to have similar views, immediate and future consequences are hard to imagine, don't expect this powerful man to make bold decisions

[Artemis3]

Well Thinking Trump can't ban it in the US would be a mistake.
By using an executive order, he could make it illegal for all US citizens to own it and transact in it.
(He already block the crypto called petro.)
https://www.investopedia.com/news/trump-block-venezuelan-cryptocurrency-petro/

While their are a small minority that would break the law and keep using btc.
The Majority including the Major US Firms would not.
The consequences is that he probably give a few months for everyone to sell before that criminal penalties went into effect.
So there would be a massive sell off, and bitcoin price would be in the shitter, most likely below $500.
Which would cause another rash of miner bankruptcies.

While odds are 50/50 on what Trump does,

China is more likely to ban all crypto coins 1st ,
as they are coming out with their own State sponsored crypto coin, (which they will control).
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2111456/why-has-china-declared-war-bitcoin-and-digital-currencies
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/08/27/alibaba-tencent-five-others-to-recieve-first-chinese-government-cryptocurrency/#42a53c751a51

Many people believe bitcoin can not die, sorry to be the bearer of bad news,
but it most likely will die if all of the World powers turn against it.
With the production cost of creating new bitcoins in the thousands, a market price of below that is one of the scenarios that kills bitcoin.
Bitcoin lost it's ability to hide it's mining operations from government powers because of excessive power use.
Only staking crypto coins can hide well enough to evade government censorship, as they can be run on laptops behind tor or vpns.
The Power companies can not pinpoint their location like they can a bitcoin mining operation.

Won't this go against the States already regulating it? Can Trump also use an executive order to ban Cannabis again from the whole country?

Currently Trump is forbidding nearly anything to American citizens and companies regarding Venezuela, except for "humanitarian" things. Petro is a centralized coin, and it can only be used from a single server providing online wallets in Venezuela, i haven't tried but i guess you could connect to it via Tor. Not that you should, Petro is really bad an altcoin and should be avoided for several different reasons, not political but technical (think: State scam).

That said Bitcoin cannot die. Nope, not even if ALL states ban it (good luck with that). It would just go underground, number of transactions would decrease, perhaps mining as well, but it will not die. Price might even soar (remember, illegal = scarce therefore expensive).

We could all transact p2p using tor or similar, and no gov would ever know. ISPs can detect tor activity, but not what activity is going on in it. You could be reading some manifesto or sending bitcoin. Mining can simply shrink down as i predict will do anyway after some more years (due to economic reasons).

An American cannot come here and say they don't deal with Petros without confessing a "crime", but i have no reason to believe they cannot do it anyway. Its like saying people don't do drugs in the States.

China and Russia is more likely to try, or perhaps they have already seen the futility of it. Once upon a time, they also believed in central planned economy, but decades of famine convinced them otherwise. So in those countries they might try and see how futile is it, and end allowing it after a few years. Even Cuba is backing down some of its half century old policies, their communist party officially stating in 2017 that some amount of market and private ownership is needed, ie. following the likes of Vietnam and China.

Trump might get pissed some fellow Americans could be dealing with China secretly in bitcoin, and thus avoiding his little tax war with them. But so far i see most good citizens declaring and paying their (new) custom fees, perhaps helping pay for the mythical Mexico wall that will end all the problems for Americans, somehow?

But if America decides to join the likes of Russia, China, maybe India, Bolivia etc; i don't think people would keep calling it "land of the free"... Or, i don't know, people could vote in next presidential elections...

[mk4]

anything can be happen if this man bad mouth bitcoin and other Altcoins. He is just not thingking. every nation that come across his guts is a worst country so he have them sunctions.
lets not hope that he will get eye on our bitcoin if he does i'm afraid that the consequences could be brutal.

Welp, surprise surprise! Trump has already bad mouthed bitcoin(and a little mention of Libra) soooo..

Fun fact though, bitcoin's price rose by a bit that day. Though I'm definitely not saying that the small price rise was due to his tweet, as it could be due to whatever reason. But then again, any publicity is good publicity.

Tweet url: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1149472282584072192

[Duzter]

People always relate bitcoin with unregulated usage and illegal activities. Here Trump too is not an exception. He too states without any perfect data, before giving some negative statement regarding bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies it is always good to analyze whether there is usage of unregulated things and illegal activities even before the existence of bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

[BitHodler]

Fun fact though, bitcoin's price rose by a bit that day. Though I'm definitely not saying that the small price rise was due to his tweet, as it could be due to whatever reason. But then again, any publicity is good publicity.

Trump badmouthing Bitcoin is actually a good thing as weird as it may sound. Most things he does and say isn't taken serious at all because people just don't like him. It goes the one ear in and the other ear out.

The positive side is that his tweet made Bitcoin gain exposure throughout globe. I don't even think an ETF approval (which is a big deal) would generate Bitcoin that much exposure. It was intense.

As for the little price surge, it was more related to the volatile nature than Trump's tweet, but then again, when a lot of people believe that it was his Tweet and for that reason buy, it can accelerate the upwards movement further.