Can the government acquire all bitcoins either by seizure or purchase?

[aysg76]

It's not gold bonds where they forcefully take it from you as they can't keep track records for all of them while many have been lost.They can put ban or restrictions on it but if you say about seizures then they can't do anything in that case.

[freedomgo]

I read the article you shared, and I'm a bit confused about whether the Bitcoin has already been seized and is in the possession of the Israeli government. According to the dictionary definition, 'seize' means 'to take hold of suddenly and forcibly,' which implies that the government has taken control of it, either by identifying the user of the wallet and compelling them to provide the key to access the wallet or by identifying it as an exchange wallet. The article wasn't very clear on this matter, leaving us to guess.

The thing is, they can't seize these assets if they don't know who the owner of the wallet is. Regarding financing terrorist activities, I'm certain that the sender and the receiver are well aware that transactions passing through a third-party wallet, regulated by a government, can be traced because they have the power to investigate such transactions. So, honestly, I'm still a bit confused because, if they had seized it, they would have reported a specific amount of Bitcoin seized.

This statement from the article is quite confusing.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he issued an order to seize the cryptocurrency wallets and turn over the funds to the Israeli government.

To whom they issued the seize order?

[reagansimms]

In accordance with the keyword "not your keys, not your assets". The government does not have control over every wallet where Bitcoin is stored, without a private key the government will never be able to touch the assets stored in that wallet. It is difficult for the government to trace the whereabouts of the wallet owner as long as there is no personal identity listed on each wallet in which transactions are carried out. As long as you know how to use the wallet safely, there is no loophole for the government to trace who owns the wallet.

[HmmMAA]

My reply to the OP is that no , governments will not be able to seize all bitcoins as the supply is distributed globally so each government will try to protect the wealth of it's own citizens . Of course that will not apply for acquired coins through illegal activities .
Now to the part that everyone says "it's decentralised" so no one can control it .
But what decentralised mean ? Let's consider that the network consists by three entities . Developers , block producers and users .
Developers can be "easily" controlled either by force or money . Anonymity on the internet is a no go if three letter agencies decide to go after you .
Block producers are big known entities connected to the internet , so another no go if governments want to force their will . Block reward is based on time and each msec counts , so by trying to hide your identity using "anonymous" routes affect your profitability . In other words known entities have a higher factor of solving the new blocks .
Users are spread all over the world , so there's a very low probability governments will be able to control them . In a totalitarian state things will be worse , but as most countries are based on "democracy" i think this will be fine .
Now , what happens if devs and block producers face a government order to follow specific rules ? Users might decide that it's on their best interest to not continue support the network and leave it for a fork . For that new network to continue exist , a group of developers , will have to be in charge . Probably they will try to hide their identities in a better way and 1% chance they might make it . The problem is , would users trust that team ? 99% of users have no deep knowledge of reading/understanding code so that would cause problems of trust and the slow death of that network ( consider that even monero which supports anonymity was created by a known entity and not some anonymous handle ) . Let's add to this that a large ( vast majority ) portion of hashpower will be forced to apply to the government's rules . Most hashpower is currently located in big mining farms and these farms are entities that are interested to profit . They are not ideological warriors that want to destroy governments will .
In other words , if governments wanted to destroy bitcoin they would do it in a year . Let's not take too light that their absence of actions means that the network is invulnerable . Bitcoin sooner or later will have to comply with the laws of society , or it will face it's extinction .    
    

[Despairo]

It's possible if everyone use centralized exchange and willing to sell their coins, but it's high unlikely when we talk about "every holders" since each person has it's own decision.

Even the government you refer is a rich and developed country, they can't just dump their fiat to buy Bitcoin since the more they buy, the more their fiat become worthless and Bitcoin price will rise. They can print new money, but it will destroy their country.

[Franctoshi]

The government has struggled hard to make sure that Bitcoin does not develop and grow, they have made several policies and even created their own CBDC as a competition all to suffocate Bitcoin growth. It is not impossible that they have not thought about seizing all the bitcoins so they can just hold it until we forget about bitcoins. So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

The percentage chance of it happening is now on the low side,  IMO,  they would have no option left at some point than to even adopt it.
If you check, Despite several efforts made by various governments of the world to get rid of Bitcoin, it has been a thing of difficult for them to accomplish. Bitcoin is truly decentralized and that has become a threat to the government as it opposes their old financial (centralized) system of control. Initially, the Government underrated the capability of Bitcoin and thought it was not gonna scale through, only to discover lately that is their biggest threat. They came with CBDC yet people are not buying the idea because of people's awareness of Bitcoin as a solution to today's problem of inflation and the only freedom form of money in the whole world.

[Husires]

Why all this effort? They can besiege all the mining farms, cut off their electricity, and restrict access to this technology and everything will end. Governments do not tend towards expensive solutions, but rather security solutions, and they can do that, but as long as they can get profits for free from imposing taxes and from tracking all currencies and their sources that It represents a danger, as it is a good opportunity to increase revenues without making any effort, and the currencies that are confiscated can be sold again and used. Bitcoin is not proof of stake, so purchasing all or part of Bitcoin will not make you able to change network protocols

[Peanutswar]

They can just seize but accumulate the number of bitcoin through purchasing?, I don't think so because they don't focus in this matter of budget there a lot of things they need to focus in than this crypto currency they will just a made a move if there's something really happens makes a big deal to the government or country itself, if they will collect number of bitcoin user and probits they must need to create a rule with this to prevent user to use bitcoin or else they will support the bitcoin at all using a centralized platform at this thing they can easily manupulate, fees, transaction and services from the users.

[crwth]

The article states that it is used as a channel to fund these kinds of acts, so if you are not doing anything related to that, you are safe, and of course, since you own your private key ^{assuming it's yours}, they cannot get it unless forced, which is not something, I think, that the government do.

I hope they buy though, so that we have more buyers and HODLers. 

[ultrloa]

This headline from the news is what has been making me think, Israel seizes cryptocurrency said to be used to finance Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

The government has struggled hard to make sure that bitcoin does not develop and grow, they have made several policies and even created their own CBDC as a competition all to suffocate bitcoins growth. It is not impossible that they have not thought about seizing all the bitcoins so they can just hold it until we forget about bitcoins. So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

If they retrieve all the private keys of the wallet they seize then provably that they can acquire the balances there. But if they don't have the keys and only have the hardware or aby device used then provably with that they might struggle to own that bitcoins since for sure they cannot do anything to open that and retrieve what's inside on those wallet. That's why sometimes they hate it since they don't have full control on how people use it and the only thing they can do is to regulate the platform residing on their country but for international transaction using bitcoin they can't do anything on transactions made. But I think people don't need to worry about that news since maybe the government is just monitoring those suspicious people and as stated for normal people investing on bitcoin they are away on anything that can possibly harm them since government would not provably touch them for no reason.

[knowngunman]

is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

Theoretically it's possible but in reality it would be difficult to practicalize. The only way government will be able to seize bitcoins belonging to citizens is by tracing the person and force the person to surrender their seedphrase which I don't think the owner will easily give out to government to be able to access the asset. The way government is trying everything possible to get rid of bitcoin in our community is alarming and it's enough reason for us to stop storing our asset in exchanges that government can confiscated any time they wish to. The decentralized nature of bitcoin without central authority has made it possible for us to be in full control of our assets without government interference.

If government claim they're doing this to control the illegal use of bitcoin, I think there should be a diplomatic means to go about it than to seize the assets.

[Ndabagi01]

is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

It is not possible until the user provides the government with the wallet's information before they may access it and do whatever they want with the bitcoins stored inside.

is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

Theoretically it's possible but in reality it would be difficult to practicalize. The only way government will be able to seize bitcoins belonging to citizens is by tracing the person and force the person to surrender their seedphrase which I don't think the owner will easily give out to government to be able to access the asset.

The citizen is subject to the government, thus the government can violently or lawfully order them to give their seed phrase and confiscate their assets if they are found wanting of any crime with it or interrogations leading to the linking of their wallets. That is why it is essential not to store your bitcoins in centralised exchanges, which will allow the government to track you down. They can't do that with decentralised wallets, and you're safer using them than the normal exchange wallet. HD wallet is also an excellent option for always changing your address when initiating  a new transaction.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

It seems you may have forgotten that though Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency where government, nor central banks can't have control over it, don't forget that with the use of centralized exchanges, it neutralize such effort, hereby granting access to these people to have access to your funds, simply because they own the private key and not you. So what could have happened at times may not be far from what I just said, which is why it's always advisable for people to hodl their funds on a non-custodial wallet, and not exchanges, as exchange could crash anytime just like in the case of FTX.

[nakamura12]

The answer is both yes and no. I won't dive into my answer deeper and just say this simple explanation. First, the reasons why Bitcoin is created because of this reason where no one or a group of people or even government can take control of assets that you have therefore there exists a wallet that is self-custody or you are the one responsible for keeping it safe which is on the side of NO answer meanwhile in YES answer is they can take control of centralized exchange to follow the government's rules and may have control of the exchange. Well, there are different reasons for it and that's just one of it.

[Awaklara]

is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

What the government may do is confiscate wallets, but in terms of value, I'm sure the government cannot confiscate them. unless they also get access to their wallet recovery seed. somehow they can force the captured citizens to reveal their wallet seeds.
the biggest pressure may be on exchanges, but if it's not in their country, what can those governments do for their citizens who may have accounts on other countries' exchanges who can still carry out trading activities or even keep their Bitcoins on exchanges, even if it remains just not recommended.

[Dimitri94]

There is no chance that Bitcoin will ever be seized by the government under duress until a bitcoin owner gives access to his wallet. But there can be something that is not unusual on an exchange platform. Since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel has made various news reports of the seizure of Hamas crypto accounts. There is much doubt as to how true this actually is. However, it is conceivable that they may temporarily take control of some exchange platforms. But it is not possible for anyone to withdraw bitcoins stored in personal or hardware wallets. I think saying something like that would be considered baseless.

[letteredhub]

This headline from the news is what has been making me think, Israel seizes cryptocurrency said to be used to finance Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

The government has struggled hard to make sure that bitcoin does not develop and grow, they have made several policies and even created their own CBDC as a competition all to suffocate bitcoins growth. It is not impossible that they have not thought about seizing all the bitcoins so they can just hold it until we forget about bitcoins. So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

it is for this reasons that bitcoiners are admonished to make use of self custody wallets to avoid the government doing what they feel they can do at any time with our money. The assets seized by the Israeli government can only be assets located in centralized exchange wallets. There's no way any one can have access to your funds in a self custodial wallet without your private keys except that the owners of those funds might have given out their private keys to the wallet which those cryptocurrency were seized out of duress.

It is becoming so important with the way things are going with how our governments are responding as regards to people holding cryptocurrency that we need to be secretive and private about our owning of the digital currency so we don't become a target of government or it's agency since bitcoin is a currency they can't have access to controlling it due to its decentralized nature, the government do usually feel threatened that holders of it's in much volume can use it in financing ideologies that's against  the government.

Am also using this as an opportunity to pray for a possible end to the killings of  innocent citizens in this Isreal -Hamas conflict, we can always give peace a chance cohabiting without violence.

[cryptoaddictchie]

So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

If they only see that those property or personal items has been used for illegal maybe they can but as far as decentralized concern they cannot comfiscate from anyone until proven thats an evil money acquired from hacking or anything bad. Thats too much its an extortion of highest level just because if they wanna do that. They cant argue that bitcoin is illegal since it become a mainstream decentralized system where users are freely using for transaction and finance innovative method and solutions.

[Dunamisx]

This headline from the news is what has been making me think, Israel seizes cryptocurrency said to be used to finance Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

The government has struggled hard to make sure that bitcoin does not develop and grow, they have made several policies and even created their own CBDC as a competition all to suffocate bitcoins growth. It is not impossible that they have not thought about seizing all the bitcoins so they can just hold it until we forget about bitcoins. So I am thinking, apart from physically confiscating hardware wallets and apprehending bitcoin holders to submit their seed phrase, is it possible that the government can seize bitcoins belonging to citizens even though it is a decentralized system?

Mate, if your bitcoin is not under their custodial, then they can't acquire or seize your asset from you, now what should be your greatest fear is when you're still there found with using a centralized exchange, remember we do say it that not your keys not your coins, if you're still using a custodial exchange to hold your asset then know that you're not safe, you should make use of a non custodial wallet, when government are seizing people's fund, you will be exempted because you're with your bitcoin under your control and not with centralized institutions.

[Coyster]

If they only see that those property or personal items has been used for illegal maybe they can but as far as decentralized concern they cannot comfiscate from anyone until proven thats an evil money acquired from hacking or anything bad.

Mind you that even if the Bitcoin in a particular address is stolen, the government cannot seize it, unless the address is on a centralized platform, if the address is in a non-custodial wallet like Sparrow and you have the recovery phrase, it cannot be seized. The only thing law enforcement can do is to "flag" the address and declare the coins in it "tainted", they would pass this information on to centralized services, and if those coins ever gets to a centralized platform, it would be seized, but if the hacker is shrewd, they would use mixers and decentralized exchanges without kyc and they'll not be caught.