What if crypto mining is outlawed ?

[Chlotide]

China banned miners, the EU is thinking of doing the same and what if others will follow?

In a hypothetical scenario where China, US Canada, Russia, India and EU ban pow mining I doubt the smaller countries can sustain the current active miners. Hashrate would drop significantly and the network would be weaker.
Either there would be a massive investment in solar in many developing countries or we might see the first 51% on BTC (hope not).

Do you see this as a potential threat or did the fud get in my head?

[franky1]

what if alcohol was prohibited...........
     moonshine, bathtub gin, letting grape juice sit for 60 days to ferment (naturally made wine)
     medical liquor
     bootlegging

what if drugs was prohibited...........
     need i explain. just watch the news.

.. anyway
countries electric use for bitcoin is SMALL. if you want to do the math. take the number of cars that are fossil fuel and imagine it was 2030 when they should all be transitioning to EV. guess how much power a country would need to power all EV cars

countries should not target small industries which are paying for electric now to help power plants upgrade. they should instead invest more into upgrading power plants.. not due to fake fears that bitcoin is stealing much needed electric. (its not)
but because countries need to expand power production to meet real demands coming soon from EV cars
also. 2019 asic was 84thash for 3.25kw
also. 2022 asic was 198thash for 5.5kw
imagine hashrate was 200exahash where all asics were one or the other, lets compare:
84th asic = 7,647,059kwh
198th asic= 5,555,556kwh

meaning asics use less electric per hash at each new generation
meaning if the world put a cap of 7.7m kwh
the hashrate can still go up to 277exahash. and then new asics even more efficient can make it go higher after that

as for a fear of a 51%
firstly. a mining pool cannot change the protocol rules. if they make a block that doesnt fit the rules. instant reject. nothing to see, gone, bye bye
all they can do is just reorganise transactions in blocks in their favour
but it comes at a huge cost
right now its costs over $240k to mine a block
meaning to mine an empty block. just to be annoying is a $240k cost of electric.
(you might be thinking, but they get block reward to cover it.. ill explain this misconception later **)
to go back 1 block mine it empty(remove a confirm tx) and then catch up to overtake the network is about a 3block task minimum. meaning it would cost $720k just to un-confirm a confirm. so they can double spend what was spent

unless they bought something worth 1mill. claimed the goods and now want to undo the transaction.. its not worth trying

its far cheaper to just plod along making blocks adding in transactions to increase the reward and just be a good boy.
because even having 51% of the network means you are only going to get a chance to play around with the organisation of blocks once every 2 blocks.
**and within hours. people can just ban/reject a block that keeps orphaning off healthy blocks/ causing constant chain splits. thus the bad boys wont even get to spend the rewards in 100 blocks time(rewards cant be spent for 100 confirms(~16 hours)) because they would get rejected by merchants initially within hours..
(2013 chainsplit was handled in ~2 hours)

and then within just 2-3 blocks(~20-30mins) once it becomes a known thing to reject. meaning their bad block wont exist by the time the reward 'maturity' period is up
to have a chance to spend the first bad block. a badboy need to not just make every block for 17 hours. but also have merchants they want to spend the reward with accepting that block


so again no positive to being a bad boy, not simple to achieve. and easily dealt with before it becomes a prolonged problem

[sheenshane]

or did the fud get in my head?

That's my assumption right at this moment, just take a break and avoid reading unreliable news and update.

Maybe you forget that Bitcoin doesn't need any country's authority or government's approval for mining, trading, selling, and buying.  We don't need any central government for all of these and crypto has been existed without them, in fact, we mostly hear that there are some countries involved in cryptoeconomics.  Everyone can mine Bitcoin at home and no one will compensate for it because everyone can use any hardware to mine.

what if alcohol was prohibited...........
     moonshine, bathtub gin, letting grape juice sit for 60 days to ferment (naturally made wine)
     medical liquor
     bootlegging

what if drugs was prohibited...........
     need i explain. just watch the news.

Even if all of these are prohibited and while people keep using and doing these, the governments were left out of it.  How much more in Bitcoin mining.

[Obito]

The price will skyrocket and people will start illegal mining operations, pretty sure that even if the government outlaws mining, they wouldn't be able to block the mining softwares. Not to mention that people are creative and they will always find a way to mine those precious blocks. Also, would it mean that the price of bitcoin would go up too since getting it becomes difficult?

[franky1]

Everyone can mine Bitcoin at home and no one will compensate for it because everyone can use any hardware to mine.

what if alcohol was prohibited...........
     moonshine, bathtub gin, letting grape juice sit for 60 days to ferment (naturally made wine)
     medical liquor
     bootlegging

what if drugs was prohibited...........
     need i explain. just watch the news.

Even if all of these are prohibited and while people keep using and doing these, the governments were left out of it.  How much more in Bitcoin mining.

..
well. alcohol and drugs did not go down in price when outlawed. infact it cost more to get that illicit product.
same can happen with bitcoin

EG
bitcoins cheapest -expensive mining costs are ~$35k(kazahkstan/iceland)-$85k(germany/bermuda)
if kazehkstan and iceland banned mining. or charged a penalty tax on the industry. well the cost of mining would increase bringing the bottomup.
EG changing the iceland/kazahkstan industrial electric rate from 0.04($35k) to 0.08($43k)
iceland and kazahkstan then wont mine. but would buy. meaning more buyers, more buy pressure and less sell pressure. so the price would rise.

american ASIC farms if they were banned at their $0.07 industrial electric rate
meaning in an example only american home hobby miners mined at $0.12 residential electric rate
that too pushes the cost of mining up.

right now american mining costs are
industrial asic farming:   $41,620.43($0.07 electric rate)
home hobby mining:      $49,026.49($0.12 electric rate)

if major american businesses cant mine at $42k to get bitcoin. they will buy it.
if the only american accessible untainted fresh coin is home mining at $49k hobbiests wont sell for less. meaning americans wanting locally bought coin will pay over $49k for it

imagine if kazahkstan and iceland didnt outlaw it. but just doubled the electric fee to $0.08($43k cost instead of $35k cost)
where the market price was $50k due to american policy changes
iceland/kazahkstan would mine again as its profitable to mine

(my priced exampled of mining costs are using the s19pro 110th asics of 3.25kwh at $12k hardware with 2year ROI on hardware)

[yazher]

It will be possible for some countries but miners are quick to migrate whenever something like that will happened in the future. No one in this world will gonna unanimously agree to that kind of proposal especially it involves money loss to the government officials. not all countries have many lists of sources of income and they won't hesitate to let you mined as long you provide them their due and the result, you will be free to mine forever.

[franky1]

It will be possible for some countries but miners are quick to migrate whenever something like that will happened in the future. No one in this world will gonna unanimously agree to that kind of proposal especially it involves money loss to the government officials. not all countries have many lists of sources of income and they won't hesitate to let you mined as long you provide them their due and the result, you will be free to mine forever.

lets say a country has 20 power plants. with production capacity of say 2twh
but only demand of 1.8twh
and they know because of EV they need to get upto 5twh in 8-13 years (2030-2035)

firstly. they would love to sell just 1gwh excess to a new industry (Gw is 1000th of 1tw)
0.2tw unpaid for capacity. offering just 0.001tx to bitcoin mining
this means 310,000 asics could mine there(34exahash). and if electric was say $0.04
netting the country $353,028,000 extra income per year to build more power stations
$2.8bill over 8 years.

that buys a heck of alot of hydro/wind turbines or solar panels
that 8 year extra income can buy 2000 wind turbines
meaning the country sells 1gw over 8 years but then can build 2gw of extra renewable power.. at no cost.. because the 1gw was unpaid capacity anyway.

heck the country could then offer 2gwh (620k asics (68exa))
heck the country could then offer 4gwh (1.24m asics (136exa))

[Fundamentals Of]

Then it will be done in a clandestine manner. Will crypto mining stop? Of course not. It will only become harder for miners to do their thing but they could still continue what they have been doing. You can look at the microcosm of this scenario in places where mining is banned. Has it completely eradicate crypto mining? No. In Iran for example there was crypto mining even in the days when it was illegal. The same goes in other countries. Even in China.

[cabron]

The Chinese government knows it's not possible to eliminate Bitcoin from the finance system so it's just mining that can be regulated or outlawed. Ban mining is their solution.
Outlawing crypto mining is one way of attacking the countries that plan to take Bitcoin as legal tender. If it's going to happen then it's only staking that will likely be legal. I doubt the prices of those tokens will rise up.  

The more Bitcoin will be used for the revolution if the government keeps fighting its adoption.

[Beparanf]

China banned miners, the EU is thinking of doing the same and what if others will follow?

In a hypothetical scenario where China, US Canada, Russia, India and EU ban pow mining I doubt the smaller countries can sustain the current active miners. Hashrate would drop significantly and the network would be weaker.
Either there would be a massive investment in solar in many developing countries or we might see the first 51% on BTC (hope not).

Do you see this as a potential threat or did the fud get in my head?

There's always a country that will be open and accepts this thriving business due to a lot of potential profit from the tax of mining company operator. All the major mining company what matter most and they are already migrated on the country that open with cryptocurrency. The only people that will be affected by this scenario will be the small time miners that mining inside there houses. There contribution to the total mining power is not that significant so we are still good in the long run.

[mk4]

It will be highly likely that we're going to see a surge in retail at-home miners. Simply because if there's a huge potential for profit, then people will be trying to mine bitcoin regardless of the country they're in. Incentive is the main reason why people mine in the first place; it's not like people will spend millions and millions of money on electricity solely to secure the Bitcoin network.

[DapanasFruit]

Yes, there is a big possibility that there can be some countries that will follow China in banning crypto mining due to concern on the high demand for power but they will never do it on a synchronized matter...and just like what happened in China when a door closes there will be another one that will open so long as there is a big money that can be made in Bitcoin mining. And that is the point...we should be concerned more if there is money that can still be made because if miners are incurring losses that is the prime reason they will stop doing it. I am sure that there will be an explosion in mining investment in El Salvador once other countries will be banning Bitcoin mining. As long as there is a money opportunity in mining, there will always be countries that will allow it.

[mindrust]

China banned miners, the EU is thinking of doing the same and what if others will follow?

In a hypothetical scenario where China, US Canada, Russia, India and EU ban pow mining I doubt the smaller countries can sustain the current active miners. Hashrate would drop significantly and the network would be weaker.
Either there would be a massive investment in solar in many developing countries or we might see the first 51% on BTC (hope not).

Do you see this as a potential threat or did the fud get in my head?

The hashrate would drop but since nobody will be mining bitcoin other than the home users in those countries I don't expect a network attack. In fact, I think it is best to ban mining completely and let only the home users mine it. When bitcoin first came out, there was a saying "1 CPU 1 VOTE". Obviously satoshi thought everybody will be mining on their personal computers at first but then things changed quickly. CPU > GPU > FPGA > ASIC

[TheUltraElite]

If one country does this, it does not necessarily mean other countries are going to do it. Governments need money to run their country and this money comes from taxpayers. Instead of banning bitcoin mining, look at what India has done today, put on a 30% tax on bitcoin trades, which essentially ends up being the only way for users to transact in bitcoin.

Governments see this as an opportunity to make money and when they see it they will seize the chance and if this happens more countries will follow suit. So it will not get banned but rather may get taxed in future.

Again it is also correct that if majority of miners get stopped by their governments to mine (which firstly is absurd) - the rest of the miners get a bigger proportion of rewards. Naturally they will turn to their governments and complain about the situation at which stage again governments have to allow mining but with some restrictions, likely taxation again.

[yhiaali3]

This is a far-fetched scenario, even if all countries ban Bitcoin mining, people will continue to mine illegally, what will governments gain then? Nothing, of course, except that it will lose an important economic resource. In any case, there are many alternatives that can be used, such as clean energy and others. There are always solutions to every problem. If such a problem occurs, it is sure that a suitable solution will be found because people will not give up Bitcoin. Easily, governments have tried many times before but failed to get people to give up Bitcoin.

[Wexnident]

Do you see this as a potential threat or did the fud get in my head?

Probably just in your head OP? I mean yes, some countries are banning it, but I don't think it's something necessarily other countries would also follow? That is unless crypto mining was seen as a universal evil or something. Additionally, you'd see people still doing it on their home computers or something, just like how it was initially. Hardly doubt countries banning them would actually do anything to people who still want to mine. Plus, mining groups could easily migrate to other countries if they needed to imo.

[avikz]

China banned miners, the EU is thinking of doing the same and what if others will follow?

In a hypothetical scenario where China, US Canada, Russia, India and EU ban pow mining I doubt the smaller countries can sustain the current active miners. Hashrate would drop significantly and the network would be weaker.
Either there would be a massive investment in solar in many developing countries or we might see the first 51% on BTC (hope not).

Do you see this as a potential threat or did the fud get in my head?

We have 7 billion people in the world, so it's practically impossible to ban bitcoin mining through law. Now if I take a closer look at the law book, one of the fundamental rights is,

Right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

Exactly on this point, our Indian exchanges have defeated the central bank of India in Supreme court when RBI arbitrarily banned cryptos few years back. So it's definitely not a piece of cake. China is a country where rule of law doesn't exist. Same goes with North Korea. So you can't compare the rest of the world with an example of China.

[bittraffic]

This is a far-fetched scenario, even if all countries ban Bitcoin mining, people will continue to mine illegally, what will governments gain then? Nothing, of course, except that it will lose an important economic resource. In any case, there are many alternatives that can be used, such as clean energy and others. There are always solutions to every problem. If such a problem occurs, it is sure that a suitable solution will be found because people will not give up Bitcoin. Easily, governments have tried many times before but failed to get people to give up Bitcoin.

Not really far fetch, remember that China already did it. My country is not very different from China which is why most of the countries today prefer to have CBDC than using cryptocurrency. It's the nature of government to want to have their grips on their citizen than allowing them to have thier own wealth that the government could not hold of.

Mining being outlawed means Bitcoin will cost low or cost high, what do you think?

[davis196]

This "What if?" question has been asked a gazillion times on the forum.
There's a possibility of all major countries banning cryptocurrency mining,but there's no reason for this to happen everywhere.
The crypto miners aren't currently going anything illegal(except the miners,who are stealing electricity).
They aren't going any harm or damage to anyone.All the environmentalist bullshit about crypto mining polluting the environment is complete bullshit.
If the hashrate drops tremendously,the mining difficulty might drop back to the 2009-2012 levels and we all could start mining Bitcoins on our personal computers.Always try to see the positive side of every negative event.

[pooya87]

Do India, Europe and Canada in your example even have any considerable hashrate? I don't think they have more than 20% combined and I'm being super generous! Last I checked Canada had the biggest and it was 3 or 4%! India had virtually no hashrate and Europe was struggling to keep the lights on with soaring gas prices.

In any case, when China supposedly banned bitcoin mining a lot of people FUDed about a massive hashrate drop but we only saw a very small drop, most of which was because of the price dropped that had happened before that news!
I think that should answer your question.