[2021-04-21] Governments can stop Bitcoin by shutting down mining, says Electric

[bbc.reporter]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

[Betwrong]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

Let's hope they(the government) are not so stupid to be raising taxes to the point that mining becomes unprofitable. They would gain nothing this way, while they could tax the business reasonably and be getting money flowing to the national treasury. What's the point of killing a business which could bring you money?

[Oceat]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

Let's hope they(the government) are not so stupid to be raising taxes to the point that mining becomes unprofitable. They would gain nothing this way, while they could tax the business reasonably and be getting money flowing to the national treasury. What's the point of killing a business which could bring you money?

I don't think raising taxes(I just googled that) can help them either if they just want some specific business to shut down raising taxes is not the answer since it has some negative effects on the economy also. So the best way they could do is to put more stricter rules and regulations to about the mining in crypto currency and their power consumption of electricity.

While there are still a debates about how the government can shut down Bitcoin, shutting down mining may happen if it costs too much electricity or a power outage in a specific place. But that doesn't mean they couldn't switch places to find a mining ground that could open up their business again.

[Streets 2.0]

The deterioration of the tax climate in a particular country will change nothing with the market as a whole, since it has long become global. This will only create a situation where assets and their owners, when conditions and tax rates deteriorate, simply emigrate to another jurisdiction, as they have been doing for a long time. For example, if the USA introduces a new scale for rich Americans by increasing their (already high) tax, they will simply move to other countries and change their citizenship. Money loves quietness and low taxes.

[chaoscoinz]

I really don't know if there is an actual way to kill off Bitcoin, unless it simply becomes irrelevant and people stop paying it any attention. That's the only way that I can really think of to stop Bitcoin, is for it to become irrelevant. Also if the governments around the world really wanted to play ball, they could simply prohibit the exchange of cryptocurrency into fiat and pass a law for the banks ro stop dealing with customers who make cryptocurrency related transactions.
   This could really deflate the market something serious if people were forced to hold their bags and not be able to exchange their crypro into fiat.

[Sithara007]

So the governments all over the world is going to shutdown all electricity? WTF are these people smoking.....because that will never happen. Also, if say China stop all the mining being done in China... those miners will relocate to another country and the mining will continue. (Alternatively, they will sell their ASICs to people mining in other countries)

Let's say in theory that the governments manage to shutdown electricity.... what happens then? Well, most of these mining operations can run on Solar power and Wind power and Diesel generators... etc. etc... ( A massive difficulty adjustment, will even make GPU mining possible.. so you would need much less electricity to mine Bitcoin then)  

Well said. It is not possible for the governments to shut down either electricity or the internet (if they are crazy enough to do that). Because nowadays portable solar panels can be sourced for as little as $25. And also, satellite phones are available at affordable rates, which will ensure that the internet connection is not cut. In short, there is not much the government can do against cryptocurrency. At the most they can arrest a few people and jail them. And then they can hope that it will frighten the remaining users and they will stay away from cryptocurrency.

[milewilda]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

Let's hope they(the government) are not so stupid to be raising taxes to the point that mining becomes unprofitable. They would gain nothing this way, while they could tax the business reasonably and be getting money flowing to the national treasury. What's the point of killing a business which could bring you money?

Simply those miners would just simply flock off into another country with have less in tax percentage rather than staying into a place where you had been choked up in the neck in terms of reduction.
If they would intent to make things even more strict and hard then they are the ones who had just limiting out their source of revenue or could able to take benefit from it.

Shutting down, banning businesses, impose higher tax isnt really enough to take it down.Why cant they just accept it instead of banning or restricting it? They would definitely
benefit out but of course they cant really just support on things that opposes up centralization.

[Argoo]

They are wrong. There are more than 250 countries and autonomous territories in the world and there is zero chance that all of them would crackdown on Bitcoin mining simultaneously. OK.. let's take the unlikely scenario of that happening. But that doesn't mean that all of the miners would just shut down their shop and quit. There will be some who would continue mining cryptocurrency, albeit anonymously. I don't think that the governments have the resources to track down and prosecute small scale miners.

It's right. If at least some of the miners remain, they will still mine the same amount of bitcoins as before with a large number of miners. After all, one bitcoin is mined every ten minutes. And the number of miners is no longer important here. It's just that the remaining miners will mine them more often.
In addition, about 18 million bitcoins out of 21 million have already been mined. Even if bitcoin mining stops completely, then only those that have already been mined will go, without the remaining three million.

[Betwrong]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

Let's hope they(the government) are not so stupid to be raising taxes to the point that mining becomes unprofitable. They would gain nothing this way, while they could tax the business reasonably and be getting money flowing to the national treasury. What's the point of killing a business which could bring you money?

I don't think raising taxes(I just googled that) can help them either if they just want some specific business to shut down raising taxes is not the answer since it has some negative effects on the economy also. So the best way they could do is to put more stricter rules and regulations to about the mining in crypto currency and their power consumption of electricity.

While there are still a debates about how the government can shut down Bitcoin, shutting down mining may happen if it costs too much electricity or a power outage in a specific place. But that doesn't mean they couldn't switch places to find a mining ground that could open up their business again.

I personally think that stricter rules regarding power consumption can be worse for the mining business than higher taxes. Of course, taxes shouldn't be too high, because you can kill any business with unbearable taxes, but limiting the electric power consumption by a business is ridiculous. Tax them and build more power stations if you need them, invest in the renewable energy sources, utilize the business to everyone's benefit instead of killing it.

[DapanasFruit]

Yes, technically, Bitcoin may have a big problem if miners will stop doing business. But will they and can governments really - that is simultaneously doing it - shut down all mining activities for Bitcoin? Let me say it direct: if governments can never stop illegal trade of drugs, prostitution and human trafficking with billion-dollar budgets and with already concerted efforts done internationally, are we then SANE to think that governments can have the willpower to stop something that is making money for many people and contributing tax revenue?

REALLY? Maybe if governments have that kind of resolve we might not have the full-blown Covid-19 problems we have now. To sum it up: tell that to marines!

[willoweb]

In my opinion, this is technically impossible to do today. Yes, there is an option to create a very unfavorable environment, create and sign laws that will prohibit any activity related to cryptocurrency, but you need to remember that we live in a world where there is no global government and there are still sovereign countries that independently decide how to live. Therefore, even if this can happen in a separate jurisdiction, capital and people associated with it simply emigrate to another more favorable country.

[bbc.reporter]

@ stomachgrowls. What the government might do is raise taxes on bitcoin miners and Asic manufacturers very high and make them unprofitable. Also, require them to comply with stricter rules and disapprove license applications that do not meet the criteria.

Let's hope they(the government) are not so stupid to be raising taxes to the point that mining becomes unprofitable. They would gain nothing this way, while they could tax the business reasonably and be getting money flowing to the national treasury. What's the point of killing a business which could bring you money?

I don't think raising taxes(I just googled that) can help them either if they just want some specific business to shut down raising taxes is not the answer since it has some negative effects on the economy also. So the best way they could do is to put more stricter rules and regulations to about the mining in crypto currency and their power consumption of electricity.

While there are still a debates about how the government can shut down Bitcoin, shutting down mining may happen if it costs too much electricity or a power outage in a specific place. But that doesn't mean they couldn't switch places to find a mining ground that could open up their business again.

However, what is bitcoin doing to help the economy and how would taxing bitcoin miners affect it? It is arguable that the bitcoin and cryptospace markets are helping the real economy because these coins and tokens are used predominantly as speculative investments.

[Betwrong]

~
However, what is bitcoin doing to help the economy and how would taxing bitcoin miners affect it? It is arguable that the bitcoin and cryptospace markets are helping the real economy because these coins and tokens are used predominantly as speculative investments.

I think even if they, BTC and other cryptos, are purely speculative investments(I personally don't think so, but let's imagine this is the case), they are still helping the real economy because when people have more things to spend their money on, it's good for the economy in general. CMIIW.

[posi]

People need to ignore all the false claimed from the Electricity sector, institutions, etc about the government having the capacity to shut down Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin cause they are doing this to cause fud. If it happens that the government shut down mining a lot of different ideas about Bitcoin mining have been put together to save Bitcoin from the rainy day which lightning is one of them.
Bitcoin has passed the verge where the government will decide to stop it not even this time that a lot of institutional investors and the government have even benefited from it through taxes.

[Streets 2.0]

I can agree with the technical possibility of individual governments, if they wish to limit the mining of bitcoins in those countries that occupy the highest specific shares in this process. However, if we correctly understand how this happens, it will immediately become clear that the load on the rest will increase, which in the end will simply lead to an increase in the time and complexity of production, but will not stop it in any way. So it's just a shot in the foot in terms of economics and loss of market share. That's all the government can achieve by taking such a step.

[bbc.reporter]

~
However, what is bitcoin doing to help the economy and how would taxing bitcoin miners affect it? It is arguable that the bitcoin and cryptospace markets are helping the real economy because these coins and tokens are used predominantly as speculative investments.

I think even if they, BTC and other cryptos, are purely speculative investments(I personally don't think so, but let's imagine this is the case), they are still helping the real economy because when people have more things to spend their money on, it's good for the economy in general. CMIIW.

That is hardly a good argument because those more things being spent on are not producing any goods for society. It is also not used as a medium for payments. It is only commonly used as something similar to casino chips for gambling on other something similar to casino chips.

[Betwrong]

~
However, what is bitcoin doing to help the economy and how would taxing bitcoin miners affect it? It is arguable that the bitcoin and cryptospace markets are helping the real economy because these coins and tokens are used predominantly as speculative investments.

I think even if they, BTC and other cryptos, are purely speculative investments(I personally don't think so, but let's imagine this is the case), they are still helping the real economy because when people have more things to spend their money on, it's good for the economy in general. CMIIW.

That is hardly a good argument because those more things being spent on are not producing any goods for society. It is also not used as a medium for payments. It is only commonly used as something similar to casino chips for gambling on other something similar to casino chips.

What I mean is it's always good for the economy when people have more things to spend their money on, regardless of the utility of those things. $600 tickets on the Rolling Stones and the likes are not producing any goods for society either, same goes for collectibles(just one example: more than 5 billion Hot Wheels models have been sold, making it a multibillion-dollar market). Although it's hard to imagine how to utilize those tickets, car models and whatnot, the fact that people are willing to spend money on them makes people to want to earn more money, meaning to work more, contributing to the development of the economy.

I'll say it again, rephrasing a bit my previous comment: imo, even if BTC and other cryptos are just collectibles,  it's good for the economy that they exist.

[Kittygalore]

People need to ignore all the false claimed from the Electricity sector, institutions, etc about the government having the capacity to shut down Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin cause they are doing this to cause fud. If it happens that the government shut down mining a lot of different ideas about Bitcoin mining have been put together to save Bitcoin from the rainy day which lightning is one of them.

Why though? I mean if electricity grids really did shut down, it will pretty much shut down bitcoin and all the things that are depending on electricity, don't mistake FUD with reality because just because it says something negative about bitcoin.

[cr1776]

People need to ignore all the false claimed from the Electricity sector, institutions, etc about the government having the capacity to shut down Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin cause they are doing this to cause fud. If it happens that the government shut down mining a lot of different ideas about Bitcoin mining have been put together to save Bitcoin from the rainy day which lightning is one of them.

Why though? I mean if electricity grids really did shut down, it will pretty much shut down bitcoin and all the things that are depending on electricity, don't mistake FUD with reality because just because it says something negative about bitcoin.

If the electrical grids really did shut down, we'd have a lot more problems than bitcoin mining.  Air conditioners, doctor's office, hospitals, roadways (no lights), no pumps for gas stations, no pumps for water the internet, etc. would all cease to function.  (And bitcoin mining would just slow down or freeze or migrate somewhere else).   Sure a government could shut down an electrical grid, but the populace would shut down the government.  (Unless it was something like a "One Second After" scenario).

Shutting down the grid wouldn't be a viable way to stop mining.

[posi]

People need to ignore all the false claimed from the Electricity sector, institutions, etc about the government having the capacity to shut down Bitcoin mining or Bitcoin cause they are doing this to cause fud. If it happens that the government shut down mining a lot of different ideas about Bitcoin mining have been put together to save Bitcoin from the rainy day which lightning is one of them.

Why though? I mean if electricity grids really did shut down, it will pretty much shut down bitcoin and all the things that are depending on electricity, don't mistake FUD with reality because just because it says something negative about bitcoin.

I dont mistake FUD with reality and yes Bitcoin mining will shut down if the government shutdown the electric grid but no government will dare to do that because of Bitcoin. However, the question the OP was about government shutdown Bitcoin mining through  power outage to Bitcoin mining factory.