Mining pool coercion could work, in theory
Furthermore, Lerner also said that miners cannot take control of the Bitcoins without changing the consensus protocol. Still, he admitted that mining pools, on the other hand, may be able to block Bitcoins if forced. He explained that governments could attempt to force most mining pools to prevent some Bitcoins from changing hands with a process similar to a 51% attack, but he does not expect this approach to work:
“The largest pools are composed by many smaller independent mining farms, and those farms would just start mining solo to prevent coercion instead of being part of such a pool. Therefore I suspect the government-controlled mining pool will just vanish from the available active and useful hashrate.”
Lerner concluded that such an approach would need law enforcement to prosecute miners that mine on pools that do not enforce censorship in many different jurisdictions. Even if such measures would be taken by governments, he expects that “Bitcoin would just switch to some other form of proof-of-work and keep moving forward.”
Author of the first proof-of-work crypto Karma System Emin Gün Sirer suggested that the claim is part of Wright’s effort to “lay down a misguided foundation to make his followers believe that miners can unilaterally reassign coins.” He said:
“This is likely part of his strategy to take ownership of Satoshi's coins. It's very transparent, shallow, and unconvincing. My professional opinion is that he's a nobody trying to pull a simple scam on unsophisticated investors captivated by his unconvincing, poorly constructed, fraud-ridden tale.”
Wright is drowned in criticism
While Wright has always been a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency space, lately he attracted much more criticism than usual.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/can-bitcoin-be-seized-as-self
