"Governments will ban Bitcoin" and other bedtime stories

[Dogedegen]

A seed phrase crosses every border on earth inside a skull.

No scanner sees it. No sanction freezes it. No missile hits it. No government confiscates it.

The only thing that can destroy is amnesia.

The chance that you would get hit by a case of amnesia during a time where you are transporting a seed phrase to another location is so low that it can be completely ignored. The numbers on stuff like that is clear, we need to be careful when we bring these things up even if you are correct because some people start creating threads how we should worry about solar flares and similar. 

If one government in one country bans it, the rest of the world won't so that ban will affect absolutely nothing.

Not "absolutely nothing" imo. Bitcoin isn't going to be banned worldwide, of course, but peoples in a banned country can still have serious problems. Fiat ramps get worsen, banks refuse payments, exchanges shut, and regular users face issues when buying and selling.

So yes, while Bitcoin itself continues to function, users access and liquidity may be extremely restricted there. Users can still use VPNs and P2P, but it's not the same as before. The ban is a very real one for users in that country. Not to mention the possibility of being arrested, gossiped by neighbours, and what not...

You are correct that the citizens of such countries would be affected if Bitcoin is banned. But I guess "absolutely nothing" in this context means that it wouldn't have so much effect on the global use of Bitcoin. China's negative stance on Bitcoin has not stopped the adoption and growth of the industry. People in affected countries also have the option of relocating to a friendly country if they have the means.

A sitting president made $635m in royalties from a business that impoverished most of those who invested. If Trump were a member of this forum, many investors of his coin would have opened threads on the scam accusation board.

Just because you lost money on something that does not make that something a scam, so those would be false scam accusations. If you buy a memecoin you accept all the risk that comes with that, nobody can force you to buy it and nobody made false promises that it wasn't a memecoin so there was no scam.

Not "absolutely nothing" imo. Bitcoin isn't going to be banned worldwide, of course, but peoples in a banned country can still have serious problems. Fiat ramps get worsen, banks refuse payments, exchanges shut, and regular users face issues when buying and selling.

So yes, while Bitcoin itself continues to function, users access and liquidity may be extremely restricted there. Users can still use VPNs and P2P, but it's not the same as before. The ban is a very real one for users in that country. Not to mention the possibility of being arrested, gossiped by neighbours, and what not...

People forget that they are actually in a constant struggle and war against their own governments, and to think that some believe the all governments protect their own people! In the extreme cases of attempts at controlling its citizens, many countries have implemented different worldwide taxation laws or even exit taxes for citizenship and changes like that so even if you do not like the rules that are presented to you, they want to punish you for choosing to go somewhere else! We live in quiet crazy times and most people are distracted by things that are not so important.

[CryptoYar]

[...]

Chinese situation is interesting because it is not fully ban. Bitcoin is labeled as property, but its use is extremely limited. If there is person with large investment total, then that grey area can be a cause of serious worry for future. There is thought in there about bad advisors, not bad presidents. Policy on new technology is frequently influenced by those who have basic lack of understanding of technology and as a result take unnecessarily limiting measures. It is more important than most people realize, to vote in someone who understands technology and economics. Whoever is in power will have big impact on bitcoin policy in coming decade.

[bitgolden]

Yeah, this has been said a million times and yet it doesn't happen. Because if one government does it and benefits, others fear that it is going to end up with something less and they do it anyways.

We should not be considering this as something that will matter that badly, and we should focus on how if USA takes it, Russia has to, and if Russia does then China has to and if China does then .. .you get my point. That is how it works and has worked on a long time and that's why it will be fine everywhere for now.

[Alpha Marine]

India threatened a ban for five straight years. Then taxed it at 30%.
You don't tax what you're about to kill.
You tax what you've decided to keep.

This tax part is something I don't understand. They don't support it, they restrict it, yet they tax it. They claim the taxing is to discourage it, but they also tax other things they encourage, so how is this different? If they are against something, then they shouldn't want the revenue that comes from it.

I have a theory that some governments try to ban Bitcoin to affect how some people view its legitimacy.

Aside from the fact that they want control and all, a theory I have is that governments don't want Bitcoin to be a widely used currency because it will make things difficult for them. When the majority of people start using Bitcoin, the bank deposits reduce, and this can affect how the bank gives out loans.
The government doesn't want self-custody.

Bitcoin has made people realize that the governments can only control what is within their control.

The government doesn't control Bitcoin; they will never be able to, but they can control how people use it, and they are doing that. I feel like, within the next decade, it would be extremely difficult to use Bitcoin without a central entity involved.

[Oasisman]

India threatened a ban for five straight years. Then taxed it at 30%.
You don't tax what you're about to kill.
You tax what you've decided to keep.

This tax part is something I don't understand. They don't support it, they restrict it, yet they tax it. They claim the taxing is to discourage it, but they also tax other things they encourage, so how is this different? If they are against something, then they shouldn't want the revenue that comes from it.

Well, it's pretty simple. The government tax everything that generates income. Whether it is within their control or not. There are those they can't control, and they can shut it down before even thinking about taxing it. However, Bitcoin is way different than those, as they can't control it nor completely shut it down. Yes, they can ban it, but there are a lot of ways to bypass it. So, they were thinking, it's better to just tax , than ban it and get nothing.
Most of the government are very intelligent in terms of money, lol.

Bitcoin has made people realize that the governments can only control what is within their control.

The government doesn't control Bitcoin; they will never be able to, but they can control how people use it, and they are doing that. I feel like, within the next decade, it would be extremely difficult to use Bitcoin without a central entity involved.
[/quote]

It's not really hard, but it will become expensive for both transaction and taxation. That's something to expect.

[Asuspawer09]

For sure this is mostly what is happening behind the scenes, It sounded like governments really wanted a monopoly over cryptocurrencies, I mean for sure they see the potential of it a mile away and probably they just wanted to manipulate the market prices with this kind of restrictions, I mean the China banning was surely some kind of plan, manipulating the market and giving them a huge opportunity in order to get a whole lot of profit, and it just ridiculous how obvious it was and most of the investors are not able to see it.

With all of this happening what we can do is just straight up invest in Bitcoin, accumulate do dollar cost averaging so that you could have a piece of it in the future, most of the ban is not really that serious, there are only a few countries that is doing an actual ban where it's difficult to risk it buying, but for some countries they don't have a huge restrictions and most of the time like in my country you could invest and buy easily as long as you know what you are doing.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

They can not ban what they don't control, all their efforts is just to take full control that's the reason they have implemented KYC, the fact that all countries in the world is not ruled by one government is still an edge that proves Bitcoin can not be banned, however even in countries where Bitcoin is banned, there is never a possibility that everyone there can be stopped from transacting with Bitcoin in their room. Government will ban Bitcoin in the space of centralized transactions but they can not in the space of decentralized transactions (p2p).

[SilverCryptoBullet]

They can not ban what they don't control, all their efforts is just to take full control that's the reason they have implemented KYC, the fact that all countries in the world is not ruled by one government is still an edge that proves Bitcoin can not be banned, however even in countries where Bitcoin is banned, there is never a possibility that everyone there can be stopped from transacting with Bitcoin in their room. Government will ban Bitcoin in the space of centralized transactions but they can not in the space of decentralized transactions (p2p).

Implementing KYC does not help governments to control Bitcoin from blockchain to ownership. Because Bitcoin blockchain is decentralized and centralized exchanges don't control Bitcoin blockchain. In bitcoin ownerships, centralized exchanges can scam their users, confiscate user bitcoins or they can freeze user accounts but it can not help too much. Because Bitcoin holders can store bitcoins in non custodial wallets that means KYC is useless and again does not help to take over Bitcoin ownerships.

KYC is bad for privacy, and centralized platforms are bad to store your bitcoins there, that's it.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.

[Ziskinberg]

It's funny how bitcoin is making the government of some countries look stupid. They make a bold statement and still return to their vomit. They make laws against bitcoin and they break it to re-make another. They keep going bac and forth. But the good news is that bitcoin cannot be banned. According to you, they ban you from using it.

If the government of my country turns to be bitcoin toxic antagonist in the future, I'll just consider to relocate, just like China miners did in 2021.

Bitcoin remains a threat to their fiat and banks, and anything they will consider a threat will be subject for future banning, so I'm not really surprised why a lot of countries are racing to ban bitcoin before.

But with the rising number of institutional investors taking risk and putting their trust into bitcoin, slowly those anti-bitcoin countries are now seeing the potentials of bitcoin and start lifting those bans.

Governments will ban bitcoin, that's already highly expected. But changing their position towards bitcoin is also their new normal.

[Vaculin]

Governments ban Bitcoin, crack down Bitcoin mining, prohibit Bitcoin trading, ... many news like this appeared in Bitcoin history and the fact is Bitcoin has kept rolling and becoming stronger with time.

Only some of Government-related FUDs in history.
https://endthefud.org/governments
Critique: Government will shut Bitcoin down.

It only means bitcoin may be threatened but they can never drag bitcoin into its death. Its network security and mainstream integration are at its utmost, so no third party can easily break down bitcoin, not today or in the future as it will only get stronger and firmer in the next possible years.

The headlines that talk about governments banning bitcoin is never new at all. Bitcoin can survive without the government, but it can also lead to increasing rate of bitcoin fraudulence and continue to target the innocent people if the government will not create strict regulations for bitcoin.