What threatens Bitcoin?

[lovesmayfamilis]

Today I would like to raise the question of what might threaten bitcoin. We are all very optimistic about the future of Bitcoin development. But in the growth of a product, there are always moments that slow down or inhibit development.
What is the threat to bitcoin today? Government intervention?
Regulators? They will not be able to accept the fact that many funds are not taxed?
51% attack or development of quantum computers? The emergence of new, more promising coins that will compete with bitcoin?
Are there any of the most pressing issues to be wary of?
Perhaps, when discussing the pros and cons, many will have their own opinion that  would like to hear.

[DapanasFruit]

I am not afraid of government intervention, that is if we have to based on the actions of the USA government. Well, it can be different if we are to factor in China, Russia and even India (three biggest markets not officially open for Bitcoin). The government will always regulate and make things strict and this is quite expected, like there is only a few industries in the USA that is not strictly regulated, so we should be used to that. The most important thing is that the government is not officially banning the whole thing as that can be a very different story. So what about quantum computing -- can that technology be able to make Bitcoin crushed to the ground? In my view, the only threat I can see is that the market is getting tired of Bitcoin and will instead choose another cryptocurrency that is much better and has no weak points that Bitcoin got and has become more popular than Bitcoin. Will that happen? Nobody knows, and I am hoping it will not since I am also a big fan of Bitcoin as a store of value (meaning I got BTC too and I will be crying if it becomes worthless).

[NeuroticFish]

What is the threat to bitcoin today?

Imho it's the greed, especially miners'.

They are buying more and more hardware and the overall hashrate continues to grow. Overall, this is good, even great, since Bitcoin's blockchain is safer than ever. But what will happen after one or more halving will go through? Will the price keep feeding their hunger? Or will they spam the network to gain from overly increased fees? They won't be able to do this forever and at a great level...

I know that if another crypto winter strikes some may go out of business, but the history has shown that such things happen in (way too) small numbers actually.

Then with govt-backed stable coins, many may no longer use (nor accept) Bitcoin as a mean of payment, leading to a decrease of (popularity and) overall on-chain transactions count, one source of income for miners still heavily neglected imho.

[Jating]

I'll probably say that it's more on regulations, forcing exchanges to do full and mandatory KYC and there are going to be a FINCEN meeting if I'm not mistaken this year, so I'm sure there will be more regulatory framework as far as bitcoin and the rest of cryptos. And now that big companies are into bitcoin, these financial governing bodies will have to do something, specially if we are going to talk about 'tax' so there could be new guidelines.

51% attack? Nah, it will take loads of money to perform this, so the return is not worth the risk. Quantum Computers? it might take years to developed something that can break ECDSA algorithm. And if ever there was pretty sure that bitcoin as technology will adapt and evolved in the future (you can't code a software for a hardware that doesn't exist yet).

[Charles-Tim]

Bitcoin is beyond devaluation now, only privacy can the government be looking after to deprive people from in a way to collect tax, while this is stringent is some countries and other countries not thinking yet about it.

What is the threat to bitcoin today?

People like bitcoin because it is decentralized, this has made Bitcoin having more value which will just make it be like gold in the future, as they embraced gold, Bitcoin will be embraced and likely will be the greatest asset in the future.

Government intervention?

This is not intervention but distruction because bitcoin pose no risk than their fiat. Before the days of bitcoin were terrorists that have killed millions of people, also are the days of fiat used for other criminal activities like money laundering.

Regulators?

The regulators that are also having bitcoin already, that is why some will speak against while some will support. The regulation will only wan to lead to bitcoin privacy to be compromised which I believe some people will still make sure Bitcoin privacy will not be compromised.

They will not be able to accept the fact that many funds are not taxed?

Bitcoin is an asset also, while they can use exchanges and noncustodial wallets to tax Bitcoin. This can only just lead to government Ms enforcing their citizens to register their noncustodial wallets in a way they will be looking for means to also tax it which can be difficult though.

The emergence of new, more promising coins that will compete with bitcoin?

Most of the new coins will either become dead or remain being shitcoins. The coins that are likely to compete are just the ones on the top of the market now, but that are still not compatible with bitcoin.

Perhaps, when discussing the pros and cons, many will have their own opinion that  would like to hear.

There is not cons than not to misplce the private key or seed phrase to access your bitcoin. Bitcoin will find its way to be the world's currency and remain to be an appreciative asset.

[tinopener]

For me...

(1) The green narrative about electricity use
(2) The bitcoin/gold/litecoin/silver narrative. People give this too much respect. How long will be before the public realise litecoin is just diluted bitcoin and start questioning the rarity of Bitcoin...and consequently litecoin? Whereas gold and silver have their own properties in their own right.

Gold and silver will never crash to zero, but Bitcoin and litecoin could cause each other to spiral down close to zero, because it's just psychology separating them.

[tweetbit]

Not bitcoin alone. As a whole and be the number one threat to cryptocurrency is the government (regulation). Greed from government officials and lobbying by the big businessman. But if we were to talk about bitcoin as the top crypto coin as of now there's none. It's been a while and time passes but bitcoin has constantly been set aside by mainstream acceptance.

Unfortunately, as we come and go in this forum will remain unchanged the sentiments and uncertainties as a bitcoin user from the outside perception of ordinary citizens. Bitcoin is a scam. me (laughing!!).

[Lucius]

What is the threat to bitcoin today? Government intervention?
Regulators? They will not be able to accept the fact that many funds are not taxed?

My personal opinion is that the greatest danger comes from the governments of those countries that are trying to control the world in one way or another. Each of them protects its national currency and its economy without any hesitation, even if it means completely illegitimate military interventions anywhere in the world.

China is undoubtedly a prime example of how BTC trading can be banned, while on the other hand, BTC production is still not a problem. While some think it can't happen in some let's call them civilized Western countries - if the BTC becomes a serious threat to the existing financial system, governments have the power to pass any laws to prevent it.

At the moment, BTC is quite harmless, and with all the existing regulations and the new ones that are yet to come, the whole thing is kept under control. After all, we see that the ownership structure is slowly changing - more and more BTC is passing into the hands of big players who are very likely to take over the market in the end.

[hatshepsut93]

Government ban coming from the most powerful governments in the world - USA, EU, China would deal a great amount of damage to Bitcoin, and it's the most realistic threat right now. If Bitcoin were outlawed, we'd have a fraction of today's price, liquidity, hashpower, node count, community. It would have no chance to be mass adopted as a currency. Some people believe that if Bitcoin can't be stopped completely, it can't be harmed, but those things are not the same.

[magneto]

Today I would like to raise the question of what might threaten bitcoin. We are all very optimistic about the future of Bitcoin development. But in the growth of a product, there are always moments that slow down or inhibit development.
What is the threat to bitcoin today? Government intervention?
Regulators? They will not be able to accept the fact that many funds are not taxed?
51% attack or development of quantum computers? The emergence of new, more promising coins that will compete with bitcoin?
Are there any of the most pressing issues to be wary of?
Perhaps, when discussing the pros and cons, many will have their own opinion that would like to hear.

There are 3 major ways bitcoin can be replaced/stopped.

1. By the people, if individuals recognise that technology is not that useful for the future, and people lose their trust in the currency, it'll eventually become devalued and less and fewer transactions will occur. This is often seen in bear markets, where we see less people interested in the currency and we often see miners pull out of the game (very rarely though), which hurts the overall scene as it results in longer transactions and less activity.

2. Governments. I don't feel the need to elaborate that deep here as other users have pointed out great cases (China), where governments can just destroy the crypto scene. Fortunately, in most countries, eg America, Australia, the government just doesn't have enough power to fully squash the crypto-community.

3. Technology being replaced, if there is a new currency that is better than crypto/bitcoin in all regards, we could see bitcoin phased out as a result.

[Welsh]

My personal opinion is that the greatest danger comes from the governments of those countries that are trying to control the world in one way or another. Each of them protects its national currency and its economy without any hesitation, even if it means completely illegitimate military interventions anywhere in the world.

China is undoubtedly a prime example of how BTC trading can be banned, while on the other hand, BTC production is still not a problem. While some think it can't happen in some let's call them civilized Western countries - if the BTC becomes a serious threat to the existing financial system, governments have the power to pass any laws to prevent it.

Exactly, China has banned Bitcoin several times I believe, and China still has a huge share in the Bitcoin market. The real risk, is governments drop Bitcoin from the news, and try to censor it by not actually reporting, or talking about it. Since that helps with adoption, if that was removed it would slow down the adoption rate. Although, banning it would actually likely increase the exposure Bitcoin has, and make people question why it was banned in the first place. For example, when Edward Snowden released the documents, he was wanted, and banned throughout America, and what that meant was it generated a lot of news. If, they didn't make a big deal about it, and quietly released that they had got compromised, then it likely wouldn't have reached many of the worlds population. I believe it was Edward Bernays in his book "Propaganda"  where he explains that, complete censorship is an effective way of advertising, because of the amount of discussion it creates.

An example in modern times; A video game gets banned in x country, because it breaches certain laws regarding violence. That's usually circulated worldwide that this video game is so violent that its been banned in x country, which in return creates a lot of hype. The same happens with Bitcoin, especially when people will look into the reason why Bitcoin was banned. If it was banned for a "lack of appropriate measures to regulate", that's going to interest a certain demographic. You get the point, no matter the reason, outright banning doesn't seem to have an effective way of neutralizing anything, but instead as evidenced by China's market share might in fact have the opposite effect.

China also bans the use of social media, and various other things, but almost every Chinese resident I know of gets around it via a VPN. So, China attempts to pen in their population by introducing measures for that, it only creates a barrier rather than actually being effective.

[kryptqnick]

I think the biggest threat is stagnation. Not necessarily regarding the price, but in general with the role of Bitcoin and its usage. I'm concerned that Bitcoin will remain this volatile, risky, but probably profitable long-term investment, which used to be considered an alternative to traditional money, but is actually barely used as money. It will remain this thing that some people buy and the majority of people avoid.
This is something that most probably don't even see as a problem, but that's what makes it so concerning: we're already okay with Bitcoin being basically an asset, whereas that's not what Bitcoin used to be about and what I'd like it to be about.

[DarkDays]

Today I would like to raise the question of what might threaten bitcoin. We are all very optimistic about the future of Bitcoin development. But in the growth of a product, there are always moments that slow down or inhibit development.
What is the threat to bitcoin today? Government intervention?
Regulators?

I think that the biggest challenge that's coming up ahead is the regulation of Bitcoin.

We see more and more people and investors representing large companies getting on board with BTC and that would leave a lot of room that the government can't yet control. So taxes are inevitable, as well as which banks would be allowed to accept crypto withdrawals. This is a tough one but also a challenge we all will need to address sooner or later.

[stompix]

Today I would like to raise the question of what might threaten bitcoin.

You know, there are different kinds of threats and different ways in which bitcoin can be threatend.
So, if we look at the second aspect, what should we consider, the value, the usage, decentralization, privacy, availability?
Any of those can be achieved in different ways and surprisingly not affecting others.

A government could, although in a pretty expensive way gain a foot in mining, and implement what these morons want to do, confirming blocks only from and to "clean" addresses on a whitelist.
Would that threaten value? I doubt it, the average Joe doesn't really give a damn about it and most will praise the move as they did when Coinbase blocked transactions to that twitter scam.
Would they threaten privacy by doing the same, making it mandatory for every person in the country to disclose every bitcoin transaction or making a national bitcoin wallet were not your keys your government money?! Not going to hurt the price too much either, as long as the mirage of tripling your money in a year still exist only the veterans will abandon bitcoin, the masses will still embrace it even in a centralized environment

But a total attack rendering it useless or at least making such a dent in its stability that would compromise trust in it forever would have to come either through an on all-out ban on transactions and usage or through a mining attack. I don't see the first one coming from a  country that matters (US, JP, KR any of the EU) but the second one could be doable. Not easily, not a total 51% but one powerful enough to cripple the network to either trigger a change in the protocol or have people switch to another coin.

51% attack? Nah, it will take loads of money to perform this, so the return is not worth the risk. Q

What risks?
What if the Chinese government decides such a move would hurt US interest more than theirs and seizes every miner in the country? What do they risk? An ONU resolution?  
They just have to buy around 1 billion worth of gear (what's 1 billion for them? and we're talking about end sale prices) mine with cheap government-subsidized energy and pushing all legit miners out of business and then just as the difficulty adjustment hits turn it off. One block per hour for 3 months, how it would look?

[dothebeats]

Governments trying to prevent its citizens from using and buying bitcoin would be one hell of an obstacle that wouldn’t easily be circumvented. Bitcoin can’t be stopped or shit down like what you did to a server, though those who use it can be controlled in some way. If the governments impose punishments when one uses bitcoin, the population would then be weary in buying/using bitcoin and would just drop it off. Most of us don’t want to go to jail, so most of us would abide by those laws and regulations they will set up. While bitcoin in itself is decentralized, those who hold it are still controlled by centralized authorities and there isn’t much to do about it.

[Efarilino]

From the information that I have studied about bitcoin I came to the conclusion that most people buy it for speculation or for the accumulation of funds. It seems to me that both of these things greatly impede the development of bitcoin as a means of payment. After all, some people just buy it and sell it at a higher price, while the others buy it and keep it without movement, they don't pay in bitcoin for services and products, but just keep it.

[oktana]

The only valid threat I see when it comes to Bitcoin is the government, the government can at anytime choose to ban the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, maybe ask network servers to block citizens from accessing Bitcoin related sites. So, the government can be a big threat.

[Wysi]

We better stop considering regulators as a threat because they have exhausted every single method to bring down bitcoin but failed. I feel it's the whales and amateur users who possess more threats to bitcoin than any external third party. As whales just look for an opportunity to cashout at the peak thus maximizing the profit and new users are easily convinced.

[verita1]

I agree with those who think that the threat of Bitcoin is people. We need people not to lose trust in Bitcoin.

It will be able to remain positioned as the first digital asset in the crypto market and ideally, it will continue to gain more digits in the market dominance. Now that more investment firms are participating. They are looking at Bitcoin for adoption as a treasury reserve asset.

I think this plan is underway and opens a different behavior in Bitcoin. But if people lose faith it will be very hard for all of us who support it.

[Lucius]

~snip~

However, trading cryptocurrencies in China is officially banned, which does not mean that people do not find ways to buy or sell crypto - but this is just another obstacle for the average Chinese which discourages him from trying to go in that direction at all. But China is an isolated case that does not affect other countries in the sense that it in any way leads them to do the same (ban crypto trading), but what would happen if the USA did the same?

In that case, not only Americans would be affected, but also everyone else who uses the largest exchange Coinbase and all American crypto companies. And that would certainly not be the end, because the US is known for its very aggressive methods of persuasion when it comes to their national interests, and an obvious example is what they have done to Chinese companies in the US and around the world especially in terms of Huawei and 5G technology.

It is true that bans and censorship can produce counter-effects, but banning BTC globally would mean moving underground, without legal crypto exchanges, traders accepting it as a means of payment, which ultimately means a drastic drop in prices and gradually declining interest.