What is stopping the US Government from outright BANNING Bitcoin?

[sovie]

What is stopping the US Government from outright BANNING Bitcoin?  For argument's sake lets say today (23JAN2020) 3% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 3% of their purchases or financial transfers/transactions. And, let's say 5 years from now around 2025, 30% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 30% of their purchases and financial transfers/transactions.  Consequently, the US Government monitoring this situation sees the trend that 30% fewer transactions are being done with the all mighty US Dollar. Well, it would seem that the US Gov would hold the view that the popularity or use of their US currency is being threatened by Bitcoin. And so, what is stopping or what would stop the US Gov to outright make it ILLEGAL to use Bitcoin at some such time?

U.S government cant totally ban bitcoin, since its a decentralized currency that cant be totally banned (U.S government has no control over crypt). But to have there share from crypto they are introducing strict regulations like KYC and Tax, so that they are not totally out of this market.

[eaLiTy]

Actually, nothing. While yes, it might not be in their best interest to illegalize bitcoin for reasons stated above and while they really can't totally ban bitcoin like how the US government cant really totally ban torrenting and piracy, the government can theoretically illegalize the ownership of bitcoin.

This is partially true that no one can completely block the entire network but if the authorities wanted to block the network they can identify big mining farms anywhere in the world and they can shut them down and everyone knows what happens if the majority of the mining power vanishes, the network becomes weak for anyone to attack. So the idea of nothing can be done to BTCitcoin is not entirely true. When it comes to torrent and piracy if an authority targets a certain group they usually bring them down and we have seen many legal actions against torrent owners and release groups in the past.

[Darooghe]

Nothing prevents any government from making anything illegal. If something could prevent government, then that thing would be the new government. however I hope that rational self-interest by certain interested parties in the government would prevail. The first realization is that the country the bans it would fall behind Fintech development. Then there may be a migration of Crypto related wealth to countries which are Crypto-friendly. In the long run, the Crypto-friendly nations would become rich, and the banners would be left biting the dust.

[alicecrowl966]

They dont see real problems in crypto in my opinion. And its hard to really ban btc

[Winscosinally]

Hm I wonder how bitcoin can get banned when it's decentralized and can't be control, the only thing one can control about bitcoin is price drive, like whales buying with huge money to pump price or dumping to decrease value, other than this it's impossible

[Leonardo7]

As powerful as the US government is, sorry they can't do anything to stop the bitcoin. They will need to shut down the internet, which will spell hell on their defense system. So nothing can be done about bitcoin. Bitcoin is predicted to replace this current walking dead money called the fiat.

[Amel]

It's probably because they know it that even they stop it, they can't stop people from using it from their homes. Bitcoin is decentralized as it's very popular description of bitcoin.

So, it wouldn't matter whether they will give an outright ban or not to it because it will keep on moving and will continuously be used by everybody.

yeah, no matter how tight the US government tried to stop bitcoin, people always found a way to use it. The US government also can't sue anyone about bitcoin because bitcoin belongs to everyone. Just like the Chinese government stopped gambling, but in the end China is one of the countries with the biggest gambling contribution.

[Linkkoin]

What is stopping the US Government from outright BANNING Bitcoin?  For argument's sake lets say today (23JAN2020) 3% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 3% of their purchases or financial transfers/transactions. And, let's say 5 years from now around 2025, 30% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 30% of their purchases and financial transfers/transactions.  Consequently, the US Government monitoring this situation sees the trend that 30% fewer transactions are being done with the all mighty US Dollar. Well, it would seem that the US Gov would hold the view that the popularity or use of their US currency is being threatened by Bitcoin. And so, what is stopping or what would stop the US Gov to outright make it ILLEGAL to use Bitcoin at some such time?

The answer is simple - taxes and mafia.

The USA once banned alcohol. As a result, authorities lost part of their revenue, mafia became rich and powerful (ever heard about Las Vegas), and people had been drinking anyway - but without the supervision of the state and health standards, people had been dying because they bought poison instead of liquors (as eg. you cannot distinguish methanol from ethanol in taste or smell).

[hatshepsut93]

It doesn't make much sense to ban Bitcoin, with its current level of adoption its not a threat to the established financial system, so the government would have to waste resources on enforcing the ban (more work for officials, law enforcement, etc.) and achieve what - nothing? Plus they will be killing some legitimate businesses that could be paying taxes, creating jobs, etc. - even if its small compared to the whole economy.

[mk4]

This is partially true that no one can completely block the entire network but if the authorities wanted to block the network they can identify big mining farms anywhere in the world and they can shut them down and everyone knows what happens if the majority of the mining power vanishes, the network becomes weak for anyone to attack. So the idea of nothing can be done to BTCitcoin is not entirely true.

Well, you're right. But that's assuming that the world governments would all go hand in hand and shut down all the mining farms. If that's likely to happen or not is another topic for another conversation, but remember that we're talking specifically about the US government(as per OP's title). Shutting down US mining farms and small time miners would definitely affect the hashrate negatively, but it wouldn't be THAT bad.

[johnwest]

Only a dictatorship could ban crypto completely and make their own coin or just never use them. In a world of democracy it is highly impossible to ban something and stop people from using it. Also is there any strong reason to outright ban bitcoin..? People will ask questions and then they have to think of ways to regulate it.

[Lucius]

It doesn't make much sense to ban Bitcoin, with its current level of adoption its not a threat to the established financial system, so the government would have to waste resources on enforcing the ban (more work for officials, law enforcement, etc.) and achieve what - nothing? Plus they will be killing some legitimate businesses that could be paying taxes, creating jobs, etc. - even if its small compared to the whole economy.

Exactly, it would be correct to say that the USA does not consider BTC a threat at this time, whether for financial or national security. Those who followed what was happening in the USA when it came to Libra, could hear what some politicians think about BTC. Congressman Brad Sherman is a great opponent of crypto, and calls for complete ban - but at the same time, he is saying that BTC is just a small baby (compared to Libra project).

Today everything is viewed through money, and let's be honest and admit that the current market cap of all BTC is just $154 billion, and the USA budget for 2020 is $4,746 trillion. Of course, $154 billion looks like pocket money when compared to all that trillions of dollars.

In fact, it would not be difficult to ban BTC - first declare it illegal, then ban all crypto-exchanges and remove all crypto ATMs. Declare it terrorists and criminals money, and accordingly punish anyone who is caught using and possessing it under existing laws.

[dothebeats]

They once tried but they know they can't. And right now, banning the usage of it within their country wouldn't make much of a difference as it's already spread far and wide between other countries and parts of the world. At this point it's just a matter of who sticks with it and who sticks with it best in order to win the trust of crypto companies who has the potential to bring in millions upon millions of money into the country. Japan is currently leading in a lot of things about crypto adoption, but Malta has the upper hand in attracting the entities into establishing HQ and starting their business due to their friendly laws regarding crypto services.

[Kevondo]

What is stopping the US Government from outright BANNING Bitcoin?  For argument's sake lets say today (23JAN2020) 3% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 3% of their purchases or financial transfers/transactions. And, let's say 5 years from now around 2025, 30% of the US population is using Bitcoin for 30% of their purchases and financial transfers/transactions.  Consequently, the US Government monitoring this situation sees the trend that 30% fewer transactions are being done with the all mighty US Dollar. Well, it would seem that the US Gov would hold the view that the popularity or use of their US currency is being threatened by Bitcoin. And so, what is stopping or what would stop the US Gov to outright make it ILLEGAL to use Bitcoin at some such time?

The answer is simple - taxes and mafia.

The USA once banned alcohol. As a result, authorities lost part of their revenue, mafia became rich and powerful (ever heard about Las Vegas), and people had been drinking anyway - but without the supervision of the state and health standards, people had been dying because they bought poison instead of liquors (as eg. you cannot distinguish methanol from ethanol in taste or smell).

I would like to add a little, it is also because of the realization by the lawmakers and people in authority that they cannot Bann Bitcoin, which was developed in a nature that cannot be put under control by the authorities. The authorities realize that they do not have potential to do this as it is a global innovation and people likely to adopt all the innovations of time so it is very difficult process.

[de_ingenious]

I just found this online article describing how the US Government at one point in 2012 had looked into "Shutting Down" bitcoin .... and concluded that it simply could not! Here is the link to the article.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2019/10/08/the-us-government-tried-to-shut-down-bitcoin/#4db451741966

I'm going to finish reading the rest of that article now, but just wanted to quickly post the link to it, bc of this excerpt that is in the very beginning of it, which should be very comforting and encouraging to us Bitcoin adopters / enthusiasts.

Here is the excerpt:

Any serious attempt made by the U.S. Department of Justice to shut down bitcoin inevitably came to naught, with Haun saying, "it would have been akin to saying ‘let’s go prosecute cash.'"

Thank god democracy exists, even is such a corrupt form

[eaLiTy]

~snip
Well, you're right. But that's assuming that the world governments would all go hand in hand and shut down all the mining farms. If that's likely to happen or not is another topic for another conversation, but remember that we're talking specifically about the US government(as per OP's title). Shutting down US mining farms and small time miners would definitely affect the hashrate negatively, but it wouldn't be THAT bad.

I was having an account in Liberty Reserve back in the day and i am sure many here knew about that, i started using LR because Paypal froze my account without any notice and i had to wait around an year to get my funds unlocked back in 2006 and i thought it was a legal system as they were having huge number of transactions during those period but US government along with other government took the entire network down and luckily for me i withdrew my funds when there were rumors that investigation is going on with the operation of the site and there was BTCitcoin gaining momentum during that period, so what i meant is if a powerful government wants to take down something they will go to any distance even if they spend millions.
We have seen the movie industry lobbying the government to take down servers and networks outside US in the past and the amount of money they spend on those were ridiculous but still they went after certain sites in the past even though they were all hosted outside US.