Can Government Really Ban Crypto?

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I personally don't think so, the shot above says it all, Any government banning crypto is like Nokia and Android, if you know the story, then you understand what I mean, but for those who don't know the story, I will Share a little about.

When Android came out and major phone companies like Samsung, Tecko, Infinix etc, started producing Android powered phones, Nokia being one of the biggest(if not actually the biggest) phone company at that time(was even bigger than Samsung) being over confident in herself refused to switch to Android powered phones, instead they opted for windows phones which close to no one uses.

This singular decision did not only cause Nokia to loose its number 1 place in the phone industry, the owner(s) of the company later lost(sold) the company to Microsoft.
And you all can agree with me that Nokia isn't doing well today as they did back in the days.

This same thing will happen to countries that refuse to embrace crypto today.

[Charles-Tim]

I may not get the whole thing correctly, but this is my opinion:

Bill Gates bought Nokia and made its OS mobile Windows. That is normal, Bill Gates owns Windows. But mobile Windows developers failed and Android was far more better.

I remembered I used the frustrating mobile Windows 8 and also mobile Windows 8.1 at the time. There are inconveniences in the OS compared to Android, Android was and is better and people prefer what is was and is better.

About bitcoin and other decentralized currencies, each countries have their owns reasons why they ban bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but which is definitely most political.

I may not have to comment directly to you post, but I just know that cryptocurrencies have helped many people out of poverty.


Only 8 countries totally banned these decentralized currencies for now, 4 from White African (North African) countries, they are Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Qatar and Tunisia.

Most countries that ban cryptocurrencies only implicitly (not total ban) banned it, which means the government (especially the central bank) make it illegal but the citizens are allowed to do whatever they like. Direct bank transactions are not allowed but p2p is not forbidden.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2021687419/2021687419.pdf

[TheNineClub]

I wouldn't compare this situation to Nokia's situation. There is a stark difference between a private business making a wrong decision that affected them in the long term, and a country (that is represented by a government elected by a majority of its voting citizens, in a democracy) not being comfortable with disruptive technology, that is not under their control, taking a chunk out of their financial system. So yes, a government can decide to ban all crypto, but how it will affect them in the future is speculation at best. Crypto will probably coexist with FIAT in the future and we will still have to see what the benefits of introducing crypto will be. That's for some future historians.

[Mpamaegbu]

I wouldn't compare this situation to Nokia's situation. There is a stark difference between a private business making a wrong decision that affected them in the long term, and a country (that is represented by a government elected by a majority of its voting citizens,

I wouldn't too. Both situations are miles apart. Going forward, the intriguing part for me is what do these nations banning cryptos stand to gain, apart from protecting the selfish interest of a few selected among the political and ruling class? Come to think of it, most of these selected few also trade cryptos but in secret. Nigeria is a case study whose Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) in this current administration was discovered to be trading cryptos on an exchange when someone took a snapshot of his laptop tools bar or something at a time the CBN's (Central Bank of Nigeria) hammer was on cryptos in the country. The elite don't really care what hardship they put on the masses provided their selfish interest is met. Cryptocurrency is changing the narrative of economic independence and that's why retards in government aren't happy about it.

[lumbanrang]

The government will not be able to ban crypto in their country, but they can limit cryptocurrency transactions in their country with various regulations, such as what is done by China (https://fortune.com/2022/01/04/crypto-banned-china-other -countries/). In my opinion, the crypto ban is like the ban on porn sites, it won't work, because there are many ways that people can use to access crypto and transact using it.

[stompix]

When Android came out and major phone companies like Samsung, Tecko, Infinix etc, started producing Android powered phones, Nokia being one of the biggest(if not actually the biggest) phone company at that time(was even bigger than Samsung) being over confident in herself refused to switch to Android powered phones, instead they opted for windows phones which close to no one uses. This singular decision did not only cause Nokia to loose its number 1 place in the phone industry, the owner(s) of the company later lost(sold) the company to Microsoft.  And you all can agree with me that Nokia isn't doing well today as they did back in the days.

This same thing will happen to countries that refuse to embrace crypto today.

Sorry but the comparison is stupid.
To make it more realistic, just give the guys over at Nokia a gun and the power to throw in jail every Android user, give them unlimited finance and control, ban every company to release an app that runs on Android, and then let's see how things would have worked.

Oh, but we have an example of what government power can do when it comes exactly to your example.
Remember Huawei? The company that from the leader of 5g communication has turned into a phone manufacturer that can't even launch 5G ready phones?

Besides, from a government point of view and not the end-user, where would be the shooting in the foot?

[Gozie51]

This same thing will happen to countries that refuse to embrace crypto today.
[/center]

I pick the analogy you are trying to picture using the Nokia Windows phone and Android and now Nokia is trying to play a catch up game to the global world but Nokia will catch up with the backing of Microsoft and the brand . And likewise the country that are banning cryptocurrency will try to catch up when they realise their mistake. The time will come when citizen of countries that have been banning bitcoin will begin to complain because they may not get same financial freedom that their counterparts have. It is a matter of time because the world is a global village.

[batang_bitcoin]

I agree that Nokia is no longer good today but I guess they'll make a comeback. But with the comparison of those countries that don't want to adopt crypto and with that scenario, it's understandable that they won't be able to make it to the latest trend in technology.
My take is that, despite these countries have banned bitcoin and haven't announced yet their acceptance to it, it doesn't mean that they'll be firm with that decision forever.

[jrrsparkles]

I like the comparison about the adoption but that's actually not the similar case here, government knows the cryptocurrency can put an end to their centralized banking system which is why they are against it, anyway developed countries regulated it instead of banning them but wanted to pay huge tax from the user side so they want to supress it gradually instead of being dictatorship and say they are banning it.

[LostEcho]

The only way to ban crypto successful in a country is blocking internet connection for once and for all, is there any country that can do this without affecting everything in that country? I guess not even banks won't be able to function, crypto ban can't be effective no matter what they try.

[davis196]

Can a government ban crypto?Yes it can.
How effective is the government at finding and punishing all the crypto users is a different question.
That's why many underdeveloped countries have lots of cryptocurrency users,despite the fact that those governments banned cryptocurrency trading and mining.
Your example with Android and Nokia isn't really accurate.The best example of a stupid government ban would be the dry regime in the USA(1920-1933).
The process of banning alcohol in the USA backfired and fueled the organized crime with millions of dollars worth of illegal revenue.

[dothebeats]

They can always ban the use and purchase of bitcoin 100%, but they can never stop people from using it amid the legal threat of being jailed if they did not follow the enforcement of the ban. This will only force people to use it even more and even build underground networks and connections wherein bitcoin usage, purchase, and sale will thrive. Instead of the government legalizing cryptocurrencies and benefit from it, they want to force people to fend for themselves and force them to use their own fiat (and the banking system, which sucks.)

[naira]

However, the existence of the government cannot centralize the presence of cryptocurrencies. The exception is CBDC which is controlled by government institutions, because in general government policies are only able to regulate systems that are under the control of a particular country, while cryptocurrencies are decentralized in the simple sense that the state cannot take over the system. The policies that can be taken by the government only limit the scope in general, not individually.

[Gasty4]

A bit off with your examples and the topic, not too related if I should say.
But the answers to if government can ban Crypto is a capital No, we have seen countries of recent accepting Crypto Currency and bitcoin rapidly, In a short time more countries will fully embrace it.... I'm not fully certain,but my hunches tell me mot government officials are also huge investors in bitcoin and other alternative coin's.
Recent cases of countries accepting Bitcoin is El Salvador!!

[$crypto$]

The state refuses to embrace it because the government has no control over it so they prefer to reject it partly because they don't want this to rival fiat money.
This will be very different from the previous Nokia, which became number 1 as the mobile phone that ruled it, but that's because Nokia chose the wrong one so that its popularity is getting lost in the awareness of many people to mobile android.
The thing is that bitcoin will definitely be adopted, I measure the technology later in the future, however the government will definitely use this technology and admit that cryptocurrency and will not be banned anymore.

[ChiBitCTy]

In technically speaking terms, no, the government can’t technically ban something that can continue to operate via  OTC ( over the counter ) trading and decentralized exchanges but if they were to ban cryptocurrency then they’ll disallow exchanges to operate in their countries and that will chase A LOT of people off and will be pretty detrimental to crypto. I hope we don’t get there.

[fiulpro]

Not exactly.
They cannot ban cryptocurrencies entirely, just because they control the government does not mean that they can control every individual person as well. That would be a hard task to do and at the same time there are wallets that do not require KYC and also paper wallets and other kinds of offline wallets that can stay hidden for ages. At the same time people can still hold them in their overseas accounts making transactions with the same, that's not really difficult to do so. Look at China, they still have people using bitcoins ofcourse. It's a source of income for some and no one's going to let it go for one court order because of the pandemic as well, it would just get more intense.

[m2017]

Similar unpleasant stories for companies happened not only with Nokia. For example, there was Kodak, which was the first to patent a digital camera, but lost this market. How many of you currently use Kodak cameras? - No one.

Nokia and Kodak made the biggest mistake - they did not believe in the future technology and therefore lost their positions forever. The same will happen with those countries whose governments will try to ban crypto and prevent its expansion. But I think most governments will try to regulate crypto and extract money from this industry.

[Hypnosis00]

I think that people wanted to see huge changes in order to appreciate Bitcoin. These countries who ban crypto will obviously isn't seeing right but they consider Bitcoin as a useless thing with no value and soon to collapse. But I guess, they are just small to make Bitcoin go dump and agreed to their wishes as this will still be able to survive despite those numbers who hate Bitcoin.

I could assume that these countries will look back and check what this technology has been done. It can't be an easy acceptance who still in doubts but yeah, this could be done if we are just open to such development and market innovations.

[philipma1957]

Can a government ban crypto? Yes it can.
How effective is the government at finding and punishing all the crypto users is a different question.
That's why many underdeveloped countries have lots of cryptocurrency users,despite the fact that those governments banned cryptocurrency trading and mining.
Your example with Android and Nokia isn't really accurate.The best example of a stupid government ban would be the dry regime in the USA(1920-1933).
The process of banning alcohol in the USA backfired and fueled the organized crime with millions of dollars worth of illegal revenue.

Yep and the government  (pick a country) has more guns and thugs (cops,miliatary) than it average citizen.

Very few private citizens can truly say F off to the government .

Classic example was Columbia. The drug kingpin Escobar killed over 20,000 cops and soldiers and eventually he was shot to death in the streets of Medellin (actually on a rooftop)

He had money and power ,workers and  soldiers etc. And his own government took him out.

So pretty much any government can do as they please. Very rarely they fall most often they take out the people fighting them.