Can the government hijack Bitcoin?

[Masplanc]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

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[mu_enrico]

You are not asking a specific question mate, hijack what aspect? How do you know government does not create it in the first place? You can find many scenarios from conspiracy theorist, but they cannot prove it.

Also, don't underestimate the power of a tyrannical government. Let's say Kim Jong-un banned Bitcoin, 99% of North Korean won't be dare to touch it. However, from the technological aspect, it depends on hash power.

[zeuner]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Which government? Those that have money use it to smoothed COVID-19 impact on society.

If any government wanted to, they could have done it while Bitcoin was cheap.

[SaiyanSS3]

They’re trying to create a centralised xrp es queta pump and dump coin, that come with surveillance as a bonus and a kill switch to boom the coin access everywhere everytime.

[wheelz1200]

What do you mean hijack it?  Its not as though they can freeze p2p transfer.  Biggest way they could possibly curtail its use is by banning it which we've already seen been done and reversed because ultimately that government and country will be left behind.  Right now bitcoin IS too big to fail now.

[sunsilk]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

Not only in some countries but for every country where there are holders of it, we're all using it if it's needed for purchases that we want. It's for the application and contribution that we do because it's really made for that purpose.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

They cannot, they can stop the exchanges but transactions will continue because it can be done through peer-to-peer transactions. It's useless if they will "hijack" bitcoin not unless there's an outlet that they will unplug the wire of internet connection to stop mining which will affect all of the transactions.

[harizen]

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

By "hijacking", what are you trying to say? Do you mean taking over "fully" control of bitcoin? I don't see how it will become possible as bitcoins are not issued or backed by any banks or governments.

Or you mean, suddenly the government will ban bitcoin on that country? It's possible but I doubt it can quickly be implemented into a crypto-friendly country right away and there should be a big reason for doing that.

What the government can do to keep up with the phase of bitcoin is to have their own crypto or if not, close to the features of crypto.

[dothebeats]

Hijacking is near impossible since bitcoin is running on thousands, if not millions, of decentralized machines all over the world. They can prohibit the use of bitcoin on their respective territories, but hijacking or taking over fully is a stretch. Perhaps taking taxes from bitcoin proceeds and profits would be the best that they can do and the route that they will take instead of getting it for themselves. With the amount of money pouring in bitcoin every day, who wouldn't want to get a slice of the pie in this industry anyway? That's still a lot of $ for the governments to tax, and rather than rashly banning or hijacking it, they might as well just convert some of those $ into tax dollars instead.

[Matimtim]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Since bitcoin is digital currency and one of the  decentralize currency that we can use in online form of payment thus there's no reason or  possibilities that bitcoin be controlled by the government without any permission to the person who use it.

[Darker45]

First, don't take my word for this. This is a mere opinion of a crypto layman. Anyway, I suppose by hijack you mean take control of it. Theoretically, yes. That is possible as there is what we call the 51% attack. A government may succeed in taking over at least 51% of Bitcoin's hash rate and therefore manipulate transactions. However, it will be very costly and unsustainable. After all, Bitcoin is worth almost $1.2 trillion. It would be more practical, and indeed it happened to altcoins such as Ethereum Classic and Verge, to attack smaller blockchains.

I don't think there is a government hell-bent to hijack Bitcoin at this point in time. There wasn't a 51% attack on Bitcoin's blockchain in its earliest years. There won't be any today as it has already grown up unimaginably stronger.

[Ludmilla_rose1995]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Hijacked like what? it seems your question is incomplete. The government can only prohibit the use and circulation of bitcoin. all websites related to cryptocurrency can be banned by the government and the country. But we can still access it using VPN.

[so98nn]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

There are only two things that government can do really! First one either they BAN it, or second one they ACCEPT it. There is no such thing as hijacking the crypto currency. I mean that just does not fit with the nature of cryto currencies.

You might be imagining if government could just go around and hack the whole crypto technology and take it down! Frankly speaking, government can not touch the public ledger / public property unless and until it has proper legal protocol. Government can be sued for interfering public stuff legally and thus blockchain is safe guarded by this bypassed rule!

At least this is what it means in some of the asian countries. But as whole I doubt government can really hijack crypto.

[Ucy]

It's unlikely that a Just Government will target a Community-driven Network that's well  Decentralized, Transparent, Immutable, Ruled via network consensus, Anonymity-friendly/Privacy-friendly, Censorship resistance,  Secure, Based on good rules etc ..

The above main principles/ideals can  also make hijacking BItcoin by a lawless one difficult .

[nicecrypto]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I do not think this is very visible or that a government can hijack Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not controlled by one person or Government so it will be difficult in my opinion for a particular government to hijack it or may be they might Ban the use and trade of Bitcoin in their country but Hijacking it is not an option.

[TastyChillySauce00]

It's decentralized meaning if government really trying to hijack it they need to manipulate all the running nodes across the world which no government has authority too but they could manipulate it using tons of money I guess but considering the market capitalization of bitcoin or crypto market in general have been increasing like crazy I doubt any countries could do that, if any it's those top 5 richest countries by gdp I guess and if there's any government that could use 51% attack maybe it's china.

[ReiMomo]

I don’t think Hijack is the best term to use for this. I guess the best term is to take over.
And if that’s the case, the answer is yes. Governments can take over or remove the effect of bitcoin as long as they find a very good reason to do so. But still, that depends if they can benefit from it or not.

There was a theory that the people who founded Bitcoin has an agenda to remove currency as a medium of exchange. It said that they find currency as stupid and manipulative that’s why they had to do something about it.

In the theory, it says that once Bitcoin has been accepted by the world, it will have vanished. Resulting in worldwide recession and an alternative medium of exchange.

[ilovealtcoins]

Governments have deliberately undermined bitcoin for years in many ways, but they have failed. True to Bitcoin's proclamation, it is a private bank and people manage their own money.
Governments can only put regulations in place to prevent Bitcoin from expanding within the community. There's nothing they can do about Bitcoin because it's a decentralized currency that exists on the internet. Only when the world runs out of the internet can Bitcoin kill. Surely it won't happen.

[jrrsparkles]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Government can't stop bitcoin which was already discussed million times in bitcointalk, bitcoin is not controlled by anyone so it is not possible to hijack or stop the Bitcoin network.

[ultrloa]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Government can't stop bitcoin which was already discussed million times in bitcointalk, bitcoin is not controlled by anyone so it is not possible to hijack or stop the Bitcoin network.

Actually government can if they really want to since remember they can control the usage on it by banning this on their country. But this one will never happen as there are so many good benefits brought by bitcoin to its citizen already. But if scamming is so rampant maybe government can decide on controlling it and hopefully this will never happen.

[Sanitough]

The government cannot touch the system as it's decentralized, no one can crack it. All the government can do is use their power on regulation, if they are against bitcoin, they can simply ban bitcoin and banning bitcoin will certainly affect its good price now, slowly it will loss its investors and the government again win the battle.

[palle11]

No , to answer your question directly. The government can't hijack any aspect of bitcoin because it is not under their control. They can only restrict users from their country not to use it by making out rules against it use but they has not even also stopped the use from the information on countries that have already restricted users. Those countries that have done that restrictions are still not able to control it. That means they can't hijack any aspect.

[goldade]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I think you ask this question because you don't really know what bitcoin is. When Satoshi created bitcoin, it was because he wanted to create a currency that cannot be controlled by the banks and the government. He wanted to create to a currency that'd make us the true owner of our money. That is exactly what bitcoin is and has given to us.
The government can't hijack bitcoin because it is decentralized. It would defeat the whole purpose of bitcoin if it becomes hijacked by the government.

[Argoo]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Bitcoin is created and functions in a way that is almost impossible. States will not even be able to determine which of their citizens has bitcoins if they are simply stored in their wallets. Hacking the bitcoin blockchain is simply impossible.
In addition, states will not show much interest in bitcoins and will not use it en masse. They will create their own digitalized national central bank currencies, or regional stablecoins.

[ChiBitCTy]

The one great thing about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is that the government or governments can not control it.  This is the great part of the decentralized aspect. There will always be what's called OTC ( Over The Counter ) trades.  A simple example of this would be " you and a buddy meet up at a local gas station, they send you 1 bitcoin to your wallet and you send them 64k ( or whatever the price of bitcoin is at the time) via paypal or cashapp".  This is an OTC trade. 

Governments can make it more difficult to trade/buy/sell/transact but they can't stop it.

[Silberman]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Your question is too general since you do not really tell us what you actually mean by hijacking however there is a possibility that this becomes true, I have always thought that governments are going to try a strategy very similar to what they did to gold, they have fiat currencies that they can print indefinitely which means that they can buy a lot of bitcoin for no cost to themselves, then they can use that bitcoin to begin backing their currencies and then eventually leave that system and go back to the fiat one while they now have most of the bitcoin of the world.

[geegaw]

No , to answer your question directly. The government can't hijack any aspect of bitcoin because it is not under their control. They can only restrict users from their country not to use it by making out rules against it use but they has not even also stopped the use from the information on countries that have already restricted users. Those countries that have done that restrictions are still not able to control it. That means they can't hijack any aspect.

Bitcoin's highly secure system works to prevent government control, so many years have passed, the level of government mining for bitcoin is still very vague, they have not realized the prerequisites for controlling this system yet but perhaps, there will be some breakthrough in the future if they provide economic resources to stimulate technology development. But for now, your answer is correct, regardless of the methods of blocking from the network to the management of identity, it is almost useless to the participant and bitcoin.

[GeorgeJohn]

You are not asking a specific question mate, hijack what aspect? How do you know government does not create it in the first place? You can find many scenarios from conspiracy theorist, but they cannot prove it.

Also, don't underestimate the power of a tyrannical government. Let's say Kim Jong-un banned Bitcoin, 99% of North Korean won't be dare to touch it. However, from the technological aspect, it depends on hash power.

Due to how influential bitcoin is currently government eyes is on bitcoin, even it's obvious that while some countries is restricting bitcoin is because they interested to take over crypto, hijacking bitcoin may be possible for them and also may not be possible, it's under probability if govenment will hijack it,  if they govenment happened to gain the ground or power by  restricting bitcoin across the world by implementing law that anyone using cryptocurrency without their concern will be penalize, it's obvious that people will slide by investing in bitcoin, and they will use such opportunity of putting fear to people to introduce their coin which will be centralize, do you think it can't work out?
Everybody know that Bitcoin is decentralized currency and it operates on it's own but if world raise against cryptocurrency I think they will succeed partially, let us be realistic.

[adzino]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

They can't do anything or modify or jeopardize  the bitcoin blockchain if that's what you mean by hijacking. Bitcoin is decentralized, hence the government can't bring full control over it directly. But, they can somewhat control/manage bitcoin by imposing strict policies and regulations. They are doing this as slowly as they can so people don't notice. Look at how candidly we could use bitcoin few years ago. Everything was straightforward with no complications. Now with government intervening, things are getting more complicated and we no longer can feel the same freedom that we had few years ago. But, whatever is happening, lets think its happening for the best.

[Alert31]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

If you mean "Hijacking" by fully control the bitcoin, then its impossible because bitcoin is decentralized digital currency don't forget that. Government has no single authority over bitcoin. If you mean "Hijacking" to ban bitcoin, then I think if government want to ban it, it should be done before where bitcoins value is very low and the demand for it is not too much. It's impossible now to happen because the demand for bitcoin keep on increasing and mass adoption also increasing. Also, bitcoin help a lot of people during this pandemic, how could government stop the way of people earning financially through bitcoin while they lost their job caused of this pandemic?

[skarais]

Government can't stop bitcoin which was already discussed million times in bitcointalk,

The government can stop bitcoin or ban it but they can't control it. The government of a country can complicate bitcoin adoption, suppress business development and other things by making strict regulation. Before the regulation was made, the government must have had strong reason why they banned it and maybe one of them was the massive fraud that was detrimental to bitcoin users on a national scale.

Because bitcoin is subject to the regulations of a country, it is still possible for the government to prohibit its citizens from using bitcoin, trading it and so on. But so far, in my opinion, not many countries have strict rule about bitcoin so that residents can't buy and sell bitcoin on exchange.

[The Cryptovator]

I am quite confused about what does means hijack for Bitcoin. Hijack or ban both is impossible. The government could just announce it is an illegal use. But they can't ban using it or can't hijack as well. It's impossible to hijack or ban a decentralized cryptocurrency backed by a huge community. For example, my government doesn't allow me to use Bitcoin, but it could prevent me to use it? I don't think so since many citizens of my country including me using Bitcoin and making transactions as well. So whatever you mean the answer will be no.

[Marvelman]

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I don't know what exactly you mean by this.
If you mean if it can be confiscated by the law, then yes, Bitcoin can be seized as the proceeds of crime under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (CFTFA).
If you mean if Bitcoin can be shut down or switched off, then the answer is no. Bitcoin is a decentralised network. Many players, including government and banking representatives, have suggested shutting down the Bitcoin network in the past, but Bitcoin has been running with nearly 100% uptime for more than ten years.

[milewilda]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Technically? Its would be a No in the answer of this question because if they do able to do so then they would be definitely had done it back in the past where bitcoin
is just starting to gain some attention or support because government do really mainly hated decentralized things or something that its out of their control.
Try to look on what are the things currently happening now? Bitcoin is unstoppable and been getting much of attention by the masses.
Somehow government could really give out some impact if things in related to crypto like platforms and services would be completely blocked.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

To hijack? I don't think something like this will happen, the most that a government can do is become a Bitcoin Strong Hands, and it cannot get all the bitcoin in the world, and what it can do if it buys a lot of bitcoin is that it can move the market in a sense, but still would not have control of Bitcoin, I think the OP is referring to "Total Control" of Bitcoin.

Even so, if you buy and buy Bitcoin there are many Hodlers who will never sell their bitcoin, they also have to compete with the greats like Elon Musk, Microestrategy, it is very difficult for a Nation to have the necessary money to enter the market in that way, in the Government policies are not trusting Bitcoin, in addition, most governments depend on a congress where they then have to render annual accounts, it is very unlikely that such a movement will occur, that is why governments tend to establish their own Stablecoin.

[beerlover]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Theoretically speaking? They sort of can. How? They would have to own nearly 85%+ of all the coins, and decide to pick a blockchain they created, and move all the bitcoins there and they would have the control. This would allow them to basically destroy bitcoin, or change it however they want. But can you imagine how hard it would be to own 85%+ of all bitcoins?

 mean sure it us technically speaking possible, USA is a nation that spends 750 billion dollars on military only, and there are other nations that make a lot of money from taxes as well. So maybe all nations get together and build an anti-crypto branch and spend a trillion dollars a year buying bitcoin, eventually they may get there. But do you really think that governments will spend trillions of dollars to just destroy bitcoin? Simpler solution would be to just get into bitcoin and tax it so governments would earn from that.

[Imran232]

Well you want to say that if bitcoin becomes the world no 1 crypto currency then government should take it in their control. Well let me inform you bitcoin already a world number 1 crypto currency but the thing is bitcoin is a blockchain technology which is untraceable then how they can hijack. There has 2 possibilities like if government wants then they can buy the all bitcoin which is i think impossible. And 2nd is if they find all the bitcoin holder who hold atleast 1 bitcoin and take from him then it might be possible that they can do it what you thought. Its my opinion others could be different.

[verita1]

The government cannot, as you say, "hijack bitcoin". Because it belongs to the community, it is decentralized and sooner or later it will have to adhere to it. The conditions are being given Paypal, Visa and Master Card the main technologies as means of payment have added bitcoin among their services. Morgan Stanley the first big U.S. bank to offer its wealth management clients access to bitcoin funds.

Every day there are more important institutions that are including bitcoin among their services because not doing so is losing and staying without evolving to the new technologies that bitcoin is promoting.

[Kittygalore]

If hijacking the prices is what you mean, I think that they can do it, but they are going to need a lot of money to do so because the only way that I can think is by manipulating the market, I think that us the only way to hijack bitcoin in terms of prices.

[mezzaluna]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I believe that any government planning to Hijack Bitcoin or any other Cryptocurrencies would be impossible. Bitcoin belongs to the digital world and the owner or creator of Bitcoin is not even known to people. Its ownership is kinda blurry and its now owned by a lot of people. The Chinese government already sees it as a threat and is now creating actions that would hinder users within that country from interacting with Cryptocurrencies.

[nak02]

Bitcoins is all over the world and some countries try to shut it but the others not, so there will be wars in every countries if they going to hijack or shut it, because bitcoin is living in our world already and many people and countries adopting in to our economy and make us rich also not even you but also the countries.

[Mauser]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I don't think they can hijack your bitcoins. What they can do is prohibit bitcoins in a country and make all trading illegal. But even then they are still your coins and you might just need to sell them ASAP. For the government to take over the coins they would need to take over the ownership of all wallets, which seems impossible. Another way could be to make very high crypto taxes to take away your profits. But then you could just hold and not sell.

[Snappycoco]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Hijack in other words steal? I don't think so. Unless government could access your hard earned private keys then nobody can ever access your cold wallets besides it is a crime. Furthermore, governments would probably be implementing regulations to cryptocurrencies and that would probably be worth something to them.

[peterpanda]

It is impossible to hijack bitcoin for government but why government will hijack it? Bitcoin isn't centralized coin that government will handle it with sweet well. It is a decentralized crypto currency and not possible to hijack without private information/wallet seed.

[rosebrand]

I don't think the government can hijack bitcoin, there can only manipulate the price of bitcoin and by doing this there need a lot of money to buy as much bitcoin to become a bitcoin whale that if there dump might possibly affect the market, in other terms where government can become more effective on bitcoin is when a particular country citizens hold a large amount of bitcoin and its government  place restrictions or ban on bitcoin and its citizens start dumping suddenly bitcoin price starts deeping, in such Case we can say that particular country can manipulate the price of bitcoin but cannot hijack bitcoin.

[bitgolden]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Technically governments cannot do anything about bitcoins as long as INTERNET stays decentralized. But, governments may impose all kind of regulations on all types of crypto related entities. But, when people get into P2P level of transactions alone then government restrictions will become void. So, there are less possibilities for governments to hijack bitcoins in any means.

[teosanru]

By Hijacking. I am assuming you mean shutting down the whole system and making bitcoin useless. I don't think it's possible. It's almost impossible for every country to come into one unanimous consent. There are several major issues that are much larger than cryptocurrencies, for eg, Cyber Crime, Data Privacy, Terrorism. When the countries haven't been able to come on a unanimous consent for these issues what makes you think they would stop bitcoin? Talking about beating it using the 51% computing power. That also seems very unlikely because the super computing power of the world is pretty split amongst different parts of world no one country has all the super computers today so it's impossible to hijack bitcoin for sure.

[just_Alice]

Do you mean by "hijack" taking control of? There's no way any government could do that. They can enforce a ban, but even that can't stop people from carrying out transactions, the ban will have consequences only if you connect your wallet to a card, otherwise, they can't track you.
There could be, in theory, a 51% attack, but the Bitcoin hash rate is too big, so I hardly think that's a possibility.

[rollingdice]

What do you mean by hijacking Bitcoin? And why would the government do it?

[iv4n]

What do you mean by hijacking Bitcoin? And why would the government do it?

For one big reason, control! And all other reasons that come after that...

In theory, it's possible, in practice it's near to impossible!

It's like you are asking can someone conquer the US?! The answer is the same, can you imagine all countries to attack at the same time on all sides? But when we will see that kind of organization? Can we see so many people uniting, with enormous computing power, and trying to hijack the Bitcoin network?

In theory, things are possible because you can always find some ways that "maybe" can work, but practice and life are so different! In theory, any country can be conquered, any system can be hijacked/destroyed... I can become the president of the galaxy and League of Legends pro players... but I guess only in theory!

[Gaaara]

I don't see it happening though it is possible, the reason why I don't see it happening is that government is structured to be a majority wins in making a decision, so if any of the government officials ever wanted to hijack bitcoin then it will go through a bunch of discussion and as long as there are some that is opposed to it, it won't be possible unless the people that wants to hijack it gone rogue and ignores governments policy but if that happens then they're basically fighting against the government.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Government can commit some unseen crime that civilians doesn't understand much but if we're talking about "if bitcoin comes to number one currency in the world" then that's a large scale crime to hijack it and UN and other countries will be involved if the government in one country decided to hijack it.

[bittick]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Technically governments cannot do anything about bitcoins as long as INTERNET stays decentralized. But, governments may impose all kind of regulations on all types of crypto related entities. But, when people get into P2P level of transactions alone then government restrictions will become void. So, there are less possibilities for governments to hijack bitcoins in any means.

They could probably intervene with the ISP and tell them to block any bitcoin websites but honestly most of governments aren't that competent and usually it's also hit and miss since it could create another problem in the future as well and when it comes to P2P as you mentioned just try to look at torrent out there, despite all the effort being spent to keep people from torrenting illegal file they still can't do anything, the only thing they can do is just to find one by one who's accessing what and bitcoin p2p gonna be a lot more complicated than torrent.
They just not gonna able to contain crypto and block it because it's basically out of their abilites.

[YOSHIE]

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

How many times has a member here had to: say that Bitcoin cannot be made the number one currency in the world, Bitcoin, which is known today as a digital or electronic currency that is traded on the crypto market with the currencies in their respective countries, Not real money like what you spend in traditional markets.

OP, it needs to be noted: that something that can be hijacked by both the government and pirates / robbers is physical.
Example: cars, ships, etc.

Whereas Bitcoin is intangible and invisible, how do you want to hijack internet signals, that's for example Bitcoin, so don't dream about bitcoin being hijacked. Ok.

[RealMalatesta]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

How exactly are they going to hijack it and which government exactly? And moreover you have to understand that bitcoin becoming a ‘number one currency’ as you have said here doesn’t make it a real currency , it is still an asset that will mainly be used for investment, no country owns it, because it is decentralized.

Moreover, by being decentralized that means that no government has the power to hijack it, and I am saying this because I can’t think of any possible means that they are going to be doing such a thing. The only thing I know that the government will be able to do is to place a ban on bitcoin which doesn’t limit people from still sending and receiving the cryptocurrency.

[kpierce77]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Technically governments cannot do anything about bitcoins as long as INTERNET stays decentralized. But, governments may impose all kind of regulations on all types of crypto related entities. But, when people get into P2P level of transactions alone then government restrictions will become void. So, there are less possibilities for governments to hijack bitcoins in any means.

The essence of bitcoin itself is a decentralized system. So the point is how a system is able to run on its own without interference from other parties, and that also includes the government. The government may be able to enforce a fairly stringent regulation like in India, but a decentralized system still allows bitcoin to run even without support from other parties

[Rehan Zakir]

Yes!. I have read an article about this topic that quantum computing can break the algorithms of Bitcoin. There are huge number of Bitcoin miner's that is why it is difficult to break but i think it is possible.
Bitcoin is a decentralized technology so there is no government that controls the Bitcoin.

[DrBeer]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

The answer is simple - no, technically there is no such possibility. Neither the state nor the "superman" have anyone.
The only way is to limit as much as possible the opportunity to receive income from it or to make some kind of transactions. This can be blocking of exchanges, transfers of funds from their accounts, etc.

[isaac_clarke22]

~

You mean regulate it?
Usage of it, yes they can be regulated. They put taxes to it. They can ban it whenever they want.
However if you're pointing out that hijacking like controlling the technology itself, it is a meh for me.
We already have one trying to claim himself as Satoshi. What more can we ask for?

[Leviathan.007]

I'm not sure what do you mean by hijacking bitcoin. If you mean stealing bitcoins from the wallets of users and investors the short answer is no and none can hijack your bitcoins if you do save your recovery seeds and private keys in a safe place none can hijack it not even the government and any organization related to government. That's all because of the decentralization of bitcoin.

[nakamura12]

Government cannot hijack bitcoin. It's a decentralized cryptocurrency and they can only ban or accept bitcoin. In my country, bitcoin is not banned and they did not waste the opportunity to earn some money from people who have bitcoins. There is an app that the people can use but the price of selling their bitcoin is much lower than the current price so it's a good opportunity for the governmen when they accepted bitcoin.

[CryptoYar]

If bitcoin could be hijacked, many countries would have already hijacked it. The truth is that this is not possible at all, since there are still many countries that still hate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, so they would attack Bitcoin to prove that it is a weak currency.

Also, I don't think you know much about blockchain technology. You better learn how blockchain technology works then you will realize why everyone is saying bitcoin can't be hijacked.

[Ebede]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Very clear that Bitcoin is not easy for government to be hijacked, the necessary documents that guilds cryptocurrency is in the hand of Bitcoin founder which is satoshi Nakamoto, and I believe that such documents has not be submitted to anybody, which from such point the secret of Bitcoin is still secured, government can't hijacked cryptocurrency more especially Bitcoin because no evidence that shows that have capability, the authority to take over Bitcoin, we all know that government never in support of cryptocurrency, they hate Bitcoin that's why they attacking Bitcoin from different countries, but their plans can't workouts.

[Shasha80]

In my opinion, it is impossible for the government to hijack Bitcoin, because to control Bitcoin, no country is able to do it. If the government
can hijack Bitcoin, it has been done for a long time, but until now Bitcoin can be used by anyone who has internet access. Maybe the government
can only prohibit its citizens from using Bitcoin, even though in the end the country had banned Bitcoin also failed. Because it is proven that there
are still many people who live in countries that have banned Bitcoin, they can still use Bitcoin.

[pinggoki]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

The cryptocurrency as well as the bitcoin is decentralized in which no one is controlling it so it is impossible for the government to hijacked bitcoin and even having an access through it will be so hard. In the first place , the government hate and doesn't want bitcoin but there's way on it to hijacked nor control the bitcoin. If it is impossible then probably they've done it already before because we all know how the government hate bitcoin isn't it?

[Ridwan Fauzi]

I heard many time about news that stated a country just ban the utilization of bitcoin in the country but it is just run for a while after the government realized that they can't do that. Bitcoin is using internet network, the government just have one way to ban bitcoin and can't be used by the citizen and they should shout down the internet network in the country that most likely can't.

Unless your government is like north korea where the citizen can't use internet access. But, in the other country beside that I doubt with 100% they can shout down the internet network. As for your concern, there are so many cases about bitcoin hack, and yeah there is a chance for bitcoin can be controlled by one party.

[el kaka22]

Governments sort of do hijack bitcoin. How do they do it? They can ban it, they can ban ownership, they can ban use of it, they can ban trading of it, they can ban many things, and even if they do not ban it, they could simply just make it very hard to use and have very bad regulations as well, plus governments are just people, they are usually just politicians, they are human like us, and they are usually greedy people.

Remember New York rule? New York decided to have a horribly difficult regulation, and then the politician who put that rule became a consultant for crypto companies to overcome those regulations, dude literally put something in place to make himself more money. So long story short, even if they can't take the control and ownership of all bitcoin, they could just make the world a very difficult place for anyone in the crypto world.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

Governments sort of do hijack bitcoin. How do they do it? They can ban it, they can ban ownership, they can ban use of it, they can ban trading of it, they can ban many things, and even if they do not ban it, they could simply just make it very hard to use and have very bad regulations as well, plus governments are just people, they are usually just politicians, they are human like us, and they are usually greedy people.

Banning isn't enough because there are people that are going to use it even if it is illegal and they will always find a way to work things out. Besides banning, I think that bitcoin can only be hijacked if the government is a totalitarian and a surveillance state.

[AicecreaME]

You are not asking a specific question mate, hijack what aspect? How do you know government does not create it in the first place? You can find many scenarios from conspiracy theorist, but they cannot prove it.

Also, don't underestimate the power of a tyrannical government. Let's say Kim Jong-un banned Bitcoin, 99% of North Korean won't be dare to touch it. However, from the technological aspect, it depends on hash power.

I agree, this is all what they can do about it but not like totally hijack bitcoin internally, I meant, to hijack and make it stop working and devalue it, they can not do that because they don't have the power to do so. Even hackers can just steal Bitcoin in an exchange, but they can never play the codes inside Bitcoin to alter it's purpose etc. The Government could do is to only watch it grow and grow until they wanted to invest on it as well like what other countries already did.

[Luqman]

can it  be hijack by the government?

Which Bitcoin to be hijacked by the government? All Bitcoin? Or all Bitcoin in a country?
If you mean all the Bitcoin in the world, it should be impossible. How can they do it? 
Anyway, remember that not all governments hate Bitcoin. Some countries even are friendly with Bitcoin as it has a contribution to improve the economic sector. They mustn't try to hijack Bitcoin because they know it will give a bad impact on Bitcoin.
Also, Bitcoin is a digital asset and decentralized, it will be rather difficult to be hijacked by the government.

[blckhawk]

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

I think is number one already, anyway if the government can hijack Bitcoin then they've already done it because they won't let any currency runs without them holding it or any control over it.
Government can ban or take charges on some exchanges but it would not enough to manipulate Bitcoin because there are many ways to transact with everyone like peer-to-peer. They can interfere with transactions though but it would take a lot of effort to do so like terminating internet access which is impossible to pull off. Besides, there's been a lot of institutions and countries who already accept it so it would be a huge consequences if they try to hijack it.

[zeuner]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Hijack in other words steal? I don't think so. Unless government could access your hard earned private keys then nobody can ever access your cold wallets besides it is a crime. Furthermore, governments would probably be implementing regulations to cryptocurrencies and that would probably be worth something to them.

As of today, there are goverments that strive for access to terminal equipment connected to the internet because they want law enforcement to be able to eavesdrop end-to-end encrypted communication. If society permits this kind of access, then there wouldn't be much to keep them from also using other cryptographic keys stored on the devices, including cryptocurrency private keys.

[iamsheikhadil]

We never know and we can never predict, ngl. From a simple case scenario, the governments can actually declare dictatorship and we the common people can practically do nothing "physically' but only whine on online platforms. And then they might siege computers, hardwares which are used to mine these currencies and can take as much miner rewards as possible? Who can stop them? World is very dangerous place and scary since it's very unpredictable.

[Silberman]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Hijack in other words steal? I don't think so. Unless government could access your hard earned private keys then nobody can ever access your cold wallets besides it is a crime. Furthermore, governments would probably be implementing regulations to cryptocurrencies and that would probably be worth something to them.

I really think that what the person that began this thread means is if governments can take control of bitcoin and even if it is unlikely the possibility of that happening is not zero, this is especially true because this market is based on freedom so governments are free to participate in it and try to perform all kind of strategies to take control of the network, they can make thousands of attempts but they have only to succeed once in order to get their goal.

[jaysabi]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

No, that's kind of the point.  It's decentralized, there's no one point where you can control it.  The only way to control it is to have a significant majority of the hashpower which at this point would be nearly impossible, or to break the encryption that secures the blockchain, which with the present level of technology is also nearly impossible.

[Princejebs]

It is impossible to hijack bitcoin for government but why government will hijack it? Bitcoin isn't centralized coin that government will handle it with sweet well. It is a decentralized crypto currency and not possible to hijack without private information/wallet seed.

There are several reasons why government of her country hijack or seized bitcoin especially from hacks and theft attempt from another persons. These bitcoins are not theirs anyway, so they auction th out to the public and in return, gave it back to economy as tax since the real ownership cannot be trace though, its bad in my opinion.
There are were also some news how government close trading accounts of some users when they find out some illicit transactions. FBI is one of the government agent that loves this kind of jobs.

[blue_nexus15]

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Governments cannot "hijack" bitcoins based on authority and regulation. They have standards to regulate people who don't use bitcoins, but "expropriation, confiscation" would never have been if they didn't want a worldwide riot to take place. Bitcoin is not a crime, people have their own freedom. I am sure they understand and seriously think about this aspect.

[dezoel]

I think is number one already, anyway if the government can hijack Bitcoin then they've already done it because they won't let any currency runs without them holding it or any control over it.
Government can ban or take charges on some exchanges but it would not enough to manipulate Bitcoin because there are many ways to transact with everyone like peer-to-peer. They can interfere with transactions though but it would take a lot of effort to do so like terminating internet access which is impossible to pull off. Besides, there's been a lot of institutions and countries who already accept it so it would be a huge consequences if they try to hijack it.

That's the key there, "if government could have, they would have already" and people do not realize that unfortunately. Bitcoin could be regulated, there are nations that ban bitcoin all together, but it can't be controlled, it can't be changed, if any nation could have done that, they would have already. You know what is the funny part about it?

If you could technically find a way to take control of all bitcoins, literally every single one, one government having 21 million bitcoins (even though it is impossible) you would still have people dumping bitcoin to government, not caring about it, and start making ethereum the first one, if government gets their hand on ethereum, they would move to bnb, and then to ada, to dot, to xrp, to anything really, the more governments try, the more we will move, there are thousands of crypto, it will never be fully hijacked, no way.

[wxxyrqa]

I believe that only hackers can steal your Bitcoin, and this is only if there is a leak of secret data. The government cannot act illegally. If Bitcoin is banned in the state or is the subject of legal proceedings or Bitcoin is involved in some kind of legal proceedings, the government can seize or confiscate Bitcoin from the user. But the government will be able to receive this Bitcoin only when the user himself voluntarily provides all the secret keys to these assets.

[Distinctin]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

No, government cannot hijack bitcoin, but they can feel the positive impact of bitcoin. Since the government has no access to control bitcoin in any way, show that the government can only enjoy the benefits attached to bitcoin.

Why not hijack anyway if they can benefit from bitcoin? Government cannot destroy what had bitcoin has reached today even if they are capable of banning or even impose restrictions but users of bitcoin will still find ways to make transactions. The government has got all the chances to benefit from bitcoin like in form of tax which can contribute to more successful government projects but still they see bitcoin in a more negative way.

[2double0]

Yes they can do it. In fact, there are several countries where the governments have asked their citizens not to mine bitcoins and not even trade in cryptocurrencies, but the governments are plotting solar plants to mine btc because they think that btc can be good for their country's economy. Isn't that a clear hijack?

[bosede1]

It is not possible that the government will be in total control of bitcoin if that is what you meant by hijacking and which government are we talking about, of which country, continent, or place or is it that we are going to have a centralized government in the whole world before this could even come close to happening.

[Oasisman]

The OP wasn't so clear with his questions, I hope he'll get back here and clarity his question.
Hijack by common definitions is to take over the control forcefully.
Well, government cannot do that as Bitcoin and blockchain technology has no central authority. The least they can do is to regulate crypto through local exchange.
There has been an attempt to this from several local governments, but it didn't turn so well.

[Gheka]

Yes they can do it. In fact, there are several countries where the governments have asked their citizens not to mine bitcoins and not even trade in cryptocurrencies, but the governments are plotting solar plants to mine btc because they think that btc can be good for their country's economy. Isn't that a clear hijack?

But even if some governments undertake bitcoin mining on such a large scale and restrict the mining of citizens in their own country, that is still not enough to prove that they can usurp bitcoin too easily, it just proves that they have an advantage when making transactions with bitcoin in the future. And you should know that the rules for bitcoin are just theories that are not too binding, it is almost impossible to prevent people from participating in bitcoin with current access to software, Bitcoin has too many victories and remains free in front of the government

[sapnu]

It doesn't actually matter if they can or they cannot, what matters is the fact that they will not benefit if they would do so and they may benefit from it if they wouldn't get theirselves involved on it. There are a lot of possibilities that this would happen and for the longest run of bitcoin, we never seen it occur and maybe the reason behind that is because they are secretly storing up some of the country's money on it as they watch it go high and they would sooner collect of the benefits they got which may become detrimental for bitcoin. Even with that threat, we shoud still have faith on bitcoin, it will surely be able to make it through with the help of huge organizations that are currently supporting or planning on supporting it.

[Ebede]

Bitcoin is known as to be the biggest cryptocurrency. in some countries it can be used to purchase goods and services and some see cryptocurrency as a threat.

if Bitcoin comes to be number one currency in the world today, can it  be hijack by the government?

Bitcoin can not and will never be hijacked by government or its policies because the more they make policies to hinder the growth of crypto is the more relevant they make bitcoin to be,because it becomes scare for its users and those who have it treasure it and even inflate the price and exchange rate in peer to peer thereby making more money from it