I don't like the idea of governments holding millions of Bitcoins.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Maybe in your own mind, and in minds of a few others, but the only thing most people care about is whether their wallet contains stuff that can be traded for US dollars or some other thing connected to real goods and services.

So, for the record, the government cannot change Bitcoin rules. The best it can do is create an altcoin. I'd call that entirely different.

For the same reason the rest of the world follows all kinds of things the US does: our leading economy and our nuclear weapons.

May I ask a personal question? Do you genuinely believe everything you write, or are you writing just for the sake of it? I understand you believe some of what you write, but I'm curious if you're completely honest in all your statements. No offense, but you come across as overly confident and arrogant about Bitcoin, despite lacking significant technical knowledge.

When a wannabe government (political party) promises to be pro-Bitcoin (before the elections), then it becomes a government (after the elections) and it shows an anti-Bitcoin stance, that's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship pretending to be something else!

Isn't that happening in every democracy? Politicians make promises in every breath, and obviously don't keep all of them.

[cryptosize]

When a wannabe government (political party) promises to be pro-Bitcoin (before the elections), then it becomes a government (after the elections) and it shows an anti-Bitcoin stance, that's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship pretending to be something else!

Isn't that happening in every democracy? Politicians make promises in every breath, and obviously don't keep all of them.

Yes. That's why true democracy doesn't exist anywhere.

Maybe Switzerland could be an exception, since they hold regular referendums.

[legiteum]

When a wannabe government (political party) promises to be pro-Bitcoin (before the elections), then it becomes a government (after the elections) and it shows an anti-Bitcoin stance, that's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship pretending to be something else!

So when a politician, elected by a majority and within the rules, lies to you in a way that contradicts your policy goals, then that is "dictatorship" in your mind. Interesting.

You seem to be extremely anti-American in your comments, which I guess would be a good advertisement for any American who is in favor of their country continuing to exist to... do the opposite of what you are asking to be done .

So, for the record, the government cannot change Bitcoin rules. The best it can do is create an altcoin. I'd call that entirely different.

The US government can create an "altcoin" that is:

1. Called "Bitcoin" and trademarked as such, such that if you have anything else called "Bitcoin" then you would be prosecuted;

2. Compatible with the current Bitcoin's existing blocks, such that all current holders of Bitcoin would continue to have their holdings;

3. Legal in the US and it's allies to hold and trade, as opposed to anything else, which it would deem illegal;

And then they could deem the "old" Bitcoin as:

1. In violation of their trademark, such that anybody who used the term "Bitcoin" to describe it in any variant would be prosecuted;

2. Illegal to hold or trade in the US, meaning all major US brokers, apps and wallets would instantly drop this fork for fear of prosecution.

So yes, in your own mind what the US would have created would be "not Bitcoin", but in all practicality the US government would have replaced Bitcoin as we know it with their own controlled software system.

I don't know how else this can be described. The idea that any significant number of people would risk prosecution and all of their Bitcoin holdings so they could remain "pure" is just... nuts to me. Maybe you think people would do this, and bitcoin-orig would rise above bitcoin-us somehow in the market (what market?), but I simply cannot imagine any scenario where that could happen.

For the same reason the rest of the world follows all kinds of No offense, but you come across as overly confident and arrogant about Bitcoin, despite lacking significant technical knowledge.

If you are going to start with the personal attacks then this conversation is over. I have over 30 years of system-level programming and computer architecture experience, and I know Bitcoin's architecture quite well, as well as having years of experience in transactional systems, information security, and high-value financial systems. I could easily write the Bitcoin software myself, for instance, and I have delivered systems of this complexity and scale before in my career many times.

But trying to "win" your argument with a personal attack might work for you--and might even work for a few in the audience, but it's... a waste of my time .

[PrivacyG]

If Bitcoin is forked so United States can have a 'legal' version of it while we are running the 'illegal' one, it would be useless and the original Bitcoin will still continue to reign.  Imagine people would quickly work together and create a way to Atomic Swap between the two so you could have any of the 'illegal' or 'legal' versions according to your choice.  They are not going to Fork Bitcoin, it would be stupid.

-----

2. Compatible with the current Bitcoin's existing blocks, such that all current holders of Bitcoin would continue to have their holdings;

Excuse me if I am having an empty brain moment right now but it is late here and I am tired.  How can a Bitcoin Fork be compatible with the existing Blocks of the original Bitcoin?

Anyway.  This thing can be done by ANY Government at ANY time with ANY absurd Laws included.  It did not happen however and I think your doomsday scenario of Bitcoin is pretty exaggerated.  I do not even know how the discussion of Republican vs Democrats attitude over Bitcoin turned to this scenario.  Just my opinion however.

[legiteum]

2. Compatible with the current Bitcoin's existing blocks, such that all current holders of Bitcoin would continue to have their holdings;

Excuse me if I am having an empty brain moment right now but it is late here and I am tired.  How can a Bitcoin Fork be compatible with the existing Blocks of the original Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a public ledger. All data the Bitcoin network uses is available to anybody who wants it. Anybody can create a compatible fork anytime they want.

[cryptosize]

When a wannabe government (political party) promises to be pro-Bitcoin (before the elections), then it becomes a government (after the elections) and it shows an anti-Bitcoin stance, that's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship pretending to be something else!

So when a politician, elected by a majority and within the rules, lies to you in a way that contradicts your policy goals, then that is "dictatorship" in your mind. Interesting.

You seem to be extremely anti-American in your comments, which I guess would be a good advertisement for any American who is in favor of their country continuing to exist to... do the opposite of what you are asking to be done .

Have Fun, Stay Poor (when the US collapses later on this decade).

I doubt you hold even a single satoshi judging by your ignorant comments...

If you are going to start with the personal attacks then this conversation is over. I have over 30 years of system-level programming and computer architecture experience, and I know Bitcoin's architecture quite well, as well as having years of experience in transactional systems, information security, and high-value financial systems.

I have more experience than you in the IT space (since the 80s) and I can confidently say that you constantly spout BS.

You still have not addressed my IPv4 vs IPv6 question and that says a lot about your "experience"...

I could easily write the Bitcoin software myself, for instance, and I have delivered systems of this complexity and scale before in my career many times.

@BlackHatCoiner

This guy is even more ridiculous/arrogant than HmmMAA and CSW combined!

He doesn't even know how Bitcoin works and yet, he claims he can write Bitcoin software from scratch.

If Bitcoin is forked so United States can have a 'legal' version of it while we are running the 'illegal' one, it would be useless and the original Bitcoin will still continue to reign.  Imagine people would quickly work together and create a way to Atomic Swap between the two so you could have any of the 'illegal' or 'legal' versions according to your choice.  They are not going to Fork Bitcoin, it would be stupid.

People who claim that a Bitcoin fork (let alone an unpopular one!) will ever be successful do NOT really understand how BTC works.

They treat BTC like they treat fiat currencies.

Fiat currencies are centrally controlled by a single entity (Central Bank), backed by the government/monopoly of violence (army & police). BTC is backed by math and energy, nothing else.

Bitcoin (and Gold) are decentralized.

Banning Bitcoin is like banning Gold (US has done this before).

Guess what? Gold never "vanished", nor it lost its value (quite the contrary)!

2. Compatible with the current Bitcoin's existing blocks, such that all current holders of Bitcoin would continue to have their holdings;

Excuse me if I am having an empty brain moment right now but it is late here and I am tired.  How can a Bitcoin Fork be compatible with the existing Blocks of the original Bitcoin?

He doesn't know jackshit about Bitcoin or how forks work in general!

[legiteum]

When a wannabe government (political party) promises to be pro-Bitcoin (before the elections), then it becomes a government (after the elections) and it shows an anti-Bitcoin stance, that's not a democracy, that's a dictatorship pretending to be something else!

So when a politician, elected by a majority and within the rules, lies to you in a way that contradicts your policy goals, then that is "dictatorship" in your mind. Interesting.

You seem to be extremely anti-American in your comments, which I guess would be a good advertisement for any American who is in favor of their country continuing to exist to... do the opposite of what you are asking to be done .

Have Fun, Stay Poor (when the US collapses later on this decade).

Okay. You do you. But personally I love my country. You clearly don't, which is why you hope Trump wins here. I guess we should agree to disagree.

[cryptosize]

Okay. You do you. But personally I love my country. You clearly don't, which is why you hope Trump wins here. I guess we should agree to disagree.

I love the good ol' USA of the 70s/80s/90s, not the woke monstrous USA of today.

Understand the difference?

Trump is not going to destroy America, 2025 will be fabulous for Bitcoiners. I'm willing to take a bet about it.

But there are other geopolitical factors that will manifest themselves in 2027 and they're above Trump's paygrade...

[BlackHatCoiner]

If you are going to start with the personal attacks then this conversation is over.

It wasn't a personal attack. I was genuinely curious because it seems you view the government as an extremely efficient and effective entity, whereas my life experiences and a plethora of evidence suggest otherwise. The government is a slow and inefficient organism, which is why free-market innovations like Bitcoin are always ahead of it. We can code faster than the state can regulate.

Excuse me if I am having an empty brain moment right now but it is late here and I am tired.  How can a Bitcoin Fork be compatible with the existing Blocks of the original Bitcoin?

It's called a hardfork. A hardfork is making valid what's invalid. Bitcoin Cash, for example, is compatible with Bitcoin until block 478558. After that, hardfork rules apply, such as 32 MB block size limit.

This guy is even more ridiculous/arrogant than HmmMAA and CSW combined!

Tough competitors. Remember that Craig can't tell what's an unsigned int. Hard to beat that.

[legiteum]

Okay. You do you. But personally I love my country. You clearly don't, which is why you hope Trump wins here. I guess we should agree to disagree.

Trump is not going to destroy America, 2025 will be fabulous for Bitcoiners. I'm willing to take a bet about it.

Wait, now I'm confused. You hate America so much that you are hoping it will collapse, and yet you favor Trump even though you don't think he will destroy America. That seems contradictory.

If you are going to start with the personal attacks then this conversation is over.

It wasn't a personal attack. I was genuinely curious because it seems you view the government as an extremely efficient and effective entity, [...]

I what? Huh? Where on earth did you get that? I not only don't believe that, I don't even recall discussing the relative efficiency of... governments... (?)

If you are going to say that governments being inefficient makes it impossible from them to enforce the laws their citizens pass, well, I once again wish I could believe what you believe .

[cryptosize]

Okay. You do you. But personally I love my country. You clearly don't, which is why you hope Trump wins here. I guess we should agree to disagree.

Trump is not going to destroy America, 2025 will be fabulous for Bitcoiners. I'm willing to take a bet about it.

Wait, now I'm confused. You hate America so much that you are hoping it will collapse, and yet you favor Trump even though you don't think he will destroy America. That seems contradictory.

You have serious reading comprehension issues:

Okay. You do you. But personally I love my country. You clearly don't, which is why you hope Trump wins here. I guess we should agree to disagree.

I love the good ol' USA of the 70s/80s/90s, not the woke monstrous USA of today.

Understand the difference?

Trump is not going to destroy America, 2025 will be fabulous for Bitcoiners. I'm willing to take a bet about it.

But there are other geopolitical factors that will manifest themselves in 2027 and they're above Trump's paygrade...

Maybe you should stop misquoting me?

2027 won't be the same as 2025, even a low IQ person should understand this.

[HelliumZ]

I don't think this would be that bad as it looks because if the govenmments decide to hold bitcoins the it means govenmments will support the markets and the amount of money or capital on the markets will have a huge increment. So, if we see the govs trying to do it then we should buy cryptos and ride the way because the bump should be huge.

I also agree with you because government holding bitcoin means government support for bitcoin. Moreover, if bitcoins are illegally traded in a country and confiscated, it will be held by the government. Whether there is any connection to the government holdings having a negative impact on the Bitcoin market is not very plausible to me.

[d5000]

Bitcoin is not PoS like Ethereum, so holding 30-50% (sounds overly optimistic with a 35 trillion debt, but whatever) of the total supply is not going to give them power to change the consensus rules.

Would it give them power to tank the BTC price? Yes, but only if they're foolish enough to sell the next global reserve currency.

I think our slight disagreement here is that you are generally more optimistic with respect to the future "reserve currency" status of Bitcoin. If we could "bet" that no government would bet against Bitcoin in any time this could prevent them from attacking it.

For me, this is one possibility of many. My "bullish" prediction is that Bitcoin could compete with gold but not replace it completely - i.e. not "the", but "an" important reserve currency. But there are also slightly less bullish scenarios which could also be a good outcome, e.g. an international trade and minor reserve currency.

A point we could mention is that Bitcoin's main virtue, censorship resistance, is irrelevant for reserve currencies, at least of democracies. In the case of sanctioned dictatorships this may be different. But most countries would hold Bitcoin only to participate on its value evolution. This is however similar to gold's case.

Honestly, I would love it if Satoshi came out of the woodwork and sold his huge 1.1m BTC stash, even if it means that BTC would drop all the way down to $1000.

I'd almost bet that the consequences of a "Satoshi sale event" would be far less dramatic that some people fear. My prediction would be a flash crash but of less than 50%, and mostly after Satoshi moved the first coins and not as a consequence of the sales themselves (Satoshi would be probably intelligent enough to not use a big market order, but proceed like the LKA Saxony with mostly OTC trades, almost not influencing the price at all). After the fact Bitcoin will have a better distribution and one reason for bear FUD will be gone

The problem is that we can't predict the same thing about a government or state which wants to do harm and thus sell the coins on the "wrong fork" in an aggressive way. The scenario I fear is very similar to the ETH-ETC conflict in 2016. Maybe a "FATF blacklist" would be an extreme measure (I may actually have only mentioned this one as a click/postbait ). But we can speculate about many protocol changes which would be far more subtle and "sound correct" for some user groups, for example another big block discussion, or a slight PoS addition like Ethereum's original PoW/PoS plans. They would not sound like they could destroy Bitcoin but could, for example, erode censorship resistance slightly, and move in a "certain" direction.

As I wrote I'm not totally against the "reserve currency" idea but in my opinion it's not intelligent to promote a too high state involvement.

[gunhell16]

- The US buys 1-2 million BTC, other states/central banks like the ECB, China and India follow, and together they hold let's say 5-7 million (about 25%-35% of all existing Bitcoins).

Ever since, I have not heard anything before or even currently that someone has said that a government has bought bitcoin and has accumulated 1 million or 2 million bitcoins in the history of bitcoin. Are there any? I know nothing yet. Even El Salvador has less than 1 million bitcoins in its hands.

And let's assume that there is a government that can buy or hold 2 million bitcoins. That does not mean that they have the capacity to control the market 100%;; they can only lower or raise the price of bitcoin, but to control all the market price is vague. But that will help raise the price of Bitcoin in the future.

[Abiky]

I don't like the idea of Governments holding large amounts of Bitcoin either but up until now they always sell them. They may hold for a while but they usually sell eventually, which by the way is incredibly stupid with the crumbling fiat system & mounting national debts. Nobody can control Bitcoin so don’t worry about it too much, the level of decentralisation is so high, we are not in danger now or for the foreseeable by future.

They've been selling just to help support their own currencies (Fiat). But who's stopping them from hoarding Bitcoin? If they did it with Gold, they can do it with BTC. In a country like El Salvador, Bitcoin is already being used as both a store of value and a currency. The government keeps accumulating BTC without selling.

Would you imagine if most (if not all) of the world's countries do this? There would be a massive concentration of BTC's supply among a few (centralization). Average people like you and me will be left behind in the dust. And there's nothing we can do about it (other than forking off to a new chain). It's a free market, anyways. At least, government's adoption of BTC will help boost market prices in the long term. We all want to make money, right?

[programmer3666]

Well, you are seeing this from one angle and failing to see it from another angle, the dangers you talked about are there just as you have described it, but did you even bother a bit to ask yourself, what it will take to buy up to 2 million or more bitcoin from the open market? Even buying 50,000 bitcoin can drive the price of bitcoin up high to the roof, not to talk of buying up to 1 or 2 million bitcoins, buying up to this mentioned about of bitcoin, I can tell you will drive the price of bitcoin to nothing less than a million Dollar, now think about what will happen when one have to spend up to a million dollars just to own 1 bitcoin, and you need like 1 million bitcoins, and remember the more you buying, the more expensive it gets.

This is why I think it's not really all that easy for any individual or governments to own up to 2 million bitcoins without them emptying their reserve or treasury.

Actually it`s possible with time and according to what Kennedy's planned if elected as presidents is something that is really feasible for them and with time his plans would be accomplished.

cutive-orders-if-elected]
Kennedy, who is running as an independent, said he would direct the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Sevice to transfer about 200,000 Bitcoin held by the U.S. government to the Department of Treasury to be held as a "strategic asset."

Kennedy also told participants at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville on Friday that he plans to sign a separate executive order directing the U.S. Treasury to buy 550 bitcoin daily until the U.S. has a reserve of 4 million BTC. There are about 21 million bitcoin in circulation.

This is a big issue from the fact that it could bring centralization and market manipulation which are things we Bitcoiners also not ought to ignore, which will make the government finally having somehow the ultimate say on Bitcoin.

Government had been long time made out those kind of warnings about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies but it seems that they cant really be able to stop the crypto community not only on the sense on making them stop on investing into crypto but also they cant be able to crack down those projects since these things are decentralized and couldnt be possibly be able to stop it technically on which they've decided instead on dealing or making involvement into it. They might not really be that capable on stopping things but they are really that good when it comes to manipulation aspect on which if someone could really be able to acquire coins then of course they could also do that. We do know that government funding is really that huge if they would really be that tending to purchase up something.

This is why its not really that shocking that one day they would really be owning that significant amount of coins on which it could really be causing up that kind of manipulation that could happen in the future.
Somehow basing up on the numbers that they are on possesion then it isnt really that still big basing up on the total amount of supply but pretty sure that sooner or later on the moment that
they had accumulated enough, then they do have that advantage on moving out markets basing up into their interest.

I have long known that the authorities have been playing a hidden agenda, they publicly clamp down on the cryptocurrency ecosystem, making it seem like a financial cancer that needs to be cleansed but secretly holds a larger share of it. The scary part is that they can detect how the market flows one morning if they feel like it. The ecosystem was created to put financial power in the hands of individuals but somehow the whole genesis and ground root idea is being lost. The more government authorities interface with the ecosystem the faster it becomes another government-owned financial institution.

[pawanjain]

While it will be good if the government buys bitcoin on daily basis because that would skyrocket the price of bitcoin.
But then again it would only benefit the early adopters by making them rich.
Government holding large amoutn of bitcoin would impact on decentralization nature of bitcoin and so it is better that the government sells off all the bitcoin it seizes so that the bitcoin network can be more decentralized.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I what? Huh? Where on earth did you get that?

I got it from:

• Your belief that whatever the US government enacts will be unquestionably supported by the rest of the world, which to me, seems a pipe dream, especially regarding decentralized systems. In the long run, free enterprise efficiency and innovation outperform government bureaucracy (this is why the US became the dominant world power post-WW2), and Bitcoin epitomizes the extreme free market. While Bitcoin activity in the US might decline (temporarily, since governments change), it will continue to operate internationally, as it always has. And in addition to non-US Bitcoin companies, there are also decentralized exchanges, which are even less susceptible to government intervention.
• Your claims that the US government can effectively prosecute every person using the original Bitcoin, which is the same as claiming that they can prosecute every piracy user. The entire world is hostile on piracy sites, yet the BitTorrent protocol is intact.

[legiteum]

I what? Huh? Where on earth did you get that?

I got it from:

• Your belief that whatever the US government enacts will be unquestionably supported by the rest of the world, which to me, seems a pipe dream, especially regarding decentralized systems. In the long run, free enterprise efficiency and innovation outperform government bureaucracy (this is why the US became the dominant world power post-WW2), and Bitcoin epitomizes the extreme free market. While Bitcoin activity in the US might decline (temporarily, since governments change), it will continue to operate internationally, as it always has. And in addition to non-US Bitcoin companies, there are also decentralized exchanges, which are even less susceptible to government intervention.
• Your claims that the US government can effectively prosecute every person using the original Bitcoin, which is the same as claiming that they can prosecute every piracy user. The entire world is hostile on piracy sites, yet the BitTorrent protocol is intact.

I don't believe any of those things, nor do any of the points I am making require I do.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Then you probably meant something else in here:

For the same reason the rest of the world follows all kinds of things the US does: our leading economy and our nuclear weapons.

Maybe I missed a detail or two here, but when you have infinite power to compel humans, there's no winning against the government.