Can Bitcoin Be Destroyed?

[hafiztalha]

They can't destory the bitcoin literally but they can manipulate people who are using it and in the worst case scenario, everyone abandons bitcoin and it goes unused, that is kind of destroying the purpose of bitcoin's existence.

But we are so deep into the economy already that bitcoin reached top 10 marketcap of all the assets, so if they couldn't destory bitcoin when it was worth cents, now it's definitely lot more difficult when bitcoin valued at hundred thousand dollars.

It is true Bitcoin can never be destroyed as long as it remain on base protocol, but you causally dismissed thread by saying too lengthy, suggesting quick summary over this length. But i think OP did the right thing, explaining the modern attacks through social engineering, kyc surveillance etc. Assuming that Bitcoin already won and is secure is the exact type of passivity OP explained in the 6th point. Some things can be explained in short summaries, and some things should be explained in detail like this topic. And where it's necessary, length doesn't matter. I think OP did the right thing.

[ZAINmalik75]

Can the Bitcoin codebase be technically "destroyed"? No, not really.

Can your investment in $BTC be destroyed by the price going to nearly $0 ? Yes, absolutely.

There is definitely a possibility of something like that happening, but the odds for that are extremely tiny, way lower than winning the main prize in a lottery worth $1B and having hundreds of thousands of tickets sold while you only bought one, what are the odds of you winning the main prize among all those tickets? The chances of Bitcoin becoming completely irrelevant are that tiny, I would say, and I will explain why I think so.

The adoption of Bitcoin keeps increasing over time in the present, so we know that it is going to be the same case even in the future, why? Because Bitcoin has a fixed supply, and as long as there is demand for it, its price will keep going higher over time, and since the demand also decreases at times, so there will always be opportunities for people to buy when its low and sell when its high, and that is the biggest reason why most people are involved.

Now, all these people and institutions and companies will only completely stop using Bitcoin if they don't get this anymore, and I don't think anything can make them do that.

[AgriTrack]

Specially I hate the part where they added the taxes on Bitcoin lol. Even though it's decentralized not connected with government and we're not using any asset or getting any benefits from government still they are charging us back as taxes. This one would be bullshit scenerio. Also the moment they get chances they are seiging bitcoin. It's not far away that government will majority of the decentralized bitcoin and will start manipulating the system itself.

Although the bitcoin is decentralized, but if someone holds the majority of the supply then it would be easy to control the whole ecosystem itself.

They can't tax you for bitcoins that you keep in a decentralized manner, for example, if you keep your bitcoins in custodial services, then it is obvious that you will be taxed if they have regulated cryptocurrencies and crypto-related services within your country, because regulated platforms and services are supposed to provide them with all the data of their users, which includes your finances and financial activities with the platforms which is what they use to tax you if you have crypto and have capital gains within the year.

However, if you have your funds kept in a non-custodial wallet, and your wallet has no traces to your identity, like if you haven't sent or received funds from and to a custodial service where you have verified your identity, there is no way for them to find out that the wallet belongs to you, which means that they can't tax you for that since they can't find you based on what you hold in your wallet even if it's a bunch of Bitcoins.

[Freeveto]

However, if you have your funds kept in a non-custodial wallet, and your wallet has no traces to your identity, like if you haven't sent or received funds from and to a custodial service where you have verified your identity, there is no way for them to find out that the wallet belongs to you, which means that they can't tax you for that since they can't find you based on what you hold in your wallet even if it's a bunch of Bitcoins.

That’s why the Decentralized exchanges are active, if you don’t want your source of Bitcoin to be traced, it is better you purchase your bitcoins through DEX which will not require you to submit any data for KYC, with that, you have escaped tax completely, but the problem is how to convert your bitcoin to fiat? If you are using centralized exchanges that uses p2p with trusted escrow, they can get you there and that’s what most of us used, but you can decide to use DEX as well to trade your bitcoin to fiat.

[Iranus]

Specially I hate the part where they added the taxes on Bitcoin lol. Even though it's decentralized not connected with government and we're not using any asset or getting any benefits from government still they are charging us back as taxes. This one would be bullshit scenerio. Also the moment they get chances they are seiging bitcoin. It's not far away that government will majority of the decentralized bitcoin and will start manipulating the system itself.

Although the bitcoin is decentralized, but if someone holds the majority of the supply then it would be easy to control the whole ecosystem itself.

Paying taxes is considered an obligation of every citizen, contributing to the functioning and development of the national economy.

The government taxes you based on your income. They do not care whether you make money from Bitcoin, stock, or anything else. So Bitcoin being decentralized doesn't mean you can stay outside the tax system.

Do you think it is fair to refuse to pay taxes while still expecting the government to protect you when you run into trouble, such as being scammed, robbed?

In the end, Bitcoin's decentralization lies in the network itself. So even if someone holds a large portion of the supply, that doesn't mean they can control the network.

[Jubilee58]

I don't think Bitcoin can be destroyed because when Bitcoin initially came onboard their were many critics, and even some of those critics ensured Bitcoin did not exist but despite all the fight, and criticism Bitcoin is still able to exist, and even apart from individuals criticism, government have also fought the use of crypto currency, and transactions in Bitcoin as well. In my own country, there was a time when the use of Bitcoin was prohibited, and all banks that were linked to Bitcoin purchase were all disallowed, and blocked from usage.
However, the only person I think would have distroyed Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto but he did not even put Bitcoin in his own control, and since the creator of Bitcoin cannot even destroy it , I don't think any other person distroy Bitcoin.

[Giwagi56]

Can Bitcoin be destroyed?

It won't be because years ago, it was more easily to destroy Bitcoin but Bitcoin was not destroyed. Now it has become much stronger and there is very smaller risk than past years.

Many attempts to fud Bitcoin community, and there are many fud types have been used so far.
https://endthefud.org/

Bitcoin will not be destroyed by any of these fuds.
Fuds won't destroy Bitcoin, they cannot do that, it's fact.

Destroying bitcoin is like destroying half of the world assets, so the answer is no, no one can destroy bitcoin because bitcoin is bot created by those who want to destroy it, bitcoin is not created by those who don’t know what people are benefiting from them, if bitcoin is going to be destroyed it is not going to be get to the level it is today, anyone that knows how far bitcoin has gone will not think about bitcoin being destroyed.

[Supreme Donvic]

Can Bitcoin be destroyed?

It won't be because years ago, it was more easily to destroy Bitcoin but Bitcoin was not destroyed. Now it has become much stronger and there is very smaller risk than past years.

Many attempts to fud Bitcoin community, and there are many fud types have been used so far.
https://endthefud.org/

Bitcoin will not be destroyed by any of these fuds.
Fuds won't destroy Bitcoin, they cannot do that, it's fact.

if bitcoin is going to be destroyed it is not going to be get to the level it is today, anyone that knows how far bitcoin has gone will not think about bitcoin being destroyed.

Yes you are right, if bitcoin was something that can be destroyed it would have been destroyed a long time ago. There was a time that a lot of government were against Bitcoin and the restricted their citizens from investing in Bitcoin. If those government had the opportunity or the power to destroy Bitcoin I believe they would have done it, but because it cannot be destroyed that was why they could not. Some government has even started to invest in Bitcoin, since they cannot destroy it they decided to take the opportunity to make profit from bitcoin investment.
Bitcoin has come to stay and people should not be thinking about it being destroyed because it will never be destroyed, it will keep growing and becoming better as tine goes on however, the feature may bring out something that may shift the attention of people away from bitcoin.

[citywise2]

I've long since stopped thinking about whether BTC can be destroyed. Some countries, like the USA, wouldn't hold BTC if it could be destroyed. Not even the progress in quantum computing has made the USA sell its holdings entirely. If there is something that could destroy BTC, I believe the US would get the news firsthand and would make a move right away.

But since they didn't, they clearly don't see quantum computing as a threat yet. There are certain events that affect the price, which is normal, but something that could destroy BTC? That hasn't happened yet.

That was after they found out it was not possible to destroy it and they changed their tools to regulation and AML - which is what they use to monitor inflow and outflow of funds from people account. They can actually use regulation to associate a wallet to a verified user, so that they purse their tax this and that. Bottomline is that Bitcoin is not the wish of the governments, they merely embraced it as an after thought. Worse case is that they prefer no one will see it as means of payment  as they say, Bitcoin can take the shine off their local currencies, how myopic!

[Brownfish-B]

 Sir in my view  it is actually very difficult to completely destroy Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is no longer just a digital asset it is a huge global network and a growing economic ecosystem. There is no single company CEO or centralized authority behind Bitcoin which if shut down would end the entire Bitcoin network. Numerous participants miners nodes developers users and investors from different parts of the world are part of this ecosystem. Today it is difficult to understand the true importance of Bitcoin if you look at it only as a coin. A huge economic infrastructure has been built around it markets exchanges custody payment systems financial products businesses and the participation of billions of people.

Completely destroying such a large decentralized and globally distributed economic network is not an easy task.

[drangos]

I've long since stopped thinking about whether BTC can be destroyed. Some countries, like the USA, wouldn't hold BTC if it could be destroyed. Not even the progress in quantum computing has made the USA sell its holdings entirely. If there is something that could destroy BTC, I believe the US would get the news firsthand and would make a move right away.

But since they didn't, they clearly don't see quantum computing as a threat yet. There are certain events that affect the price, which is normal, but something that could destroy BTC? That hasn't happened yet.

That was after they found out it was not possible to destroy it and they changed their tools to regulation and AML - which is what they use to monitor inflow and outflow of funds from people account. They can actually use regulation to associate a wallet to a verified user, so that they purse their tax this and that. Bottomline is that Bitcoin is not the wish of the governments, they merely embraced it as an after thought. Worse case is that they prefer no one will see it as means of payment  as they say, Bitcoin can take the shine off their local currencies, how myopic!

Governments have given up on the Bitcoin ban and started regulating its relations with the traditional financial system. While regulation, AML rules, taxation and wallet monitoring might limit the Bitcoin's utility in certain areas, it is very different from the network's destruction. The most significant aspect of Bitcoin is that no government has control over it. The technology itself, therefore, may be the least of the problem, and it may be restrictions on the payment and/or the adoption. If the network remains decentralized, and people still use it, a total wipeout of Bitcoin will be very tricky.

[Sulegzy39]

In any organisation they cannot tax you for bitcoins that you keep in a decentralised manner. For example, if you keep your bitcoins in custodial services, then it is obvious that you will be taxable if they have controlled digital currency and crypto-related services within your country, because regulated services and platforms are required to provide them with all the data of their users, including your assets and financial transactions with the systems, which is what they use to tax you.

Despite that, if you keep your funds in a non-custodial wallet and your wallet contains no traces of your identity, such as if you haven't sent or received funds from and to a custody service where you have verified your identity, they will have no way of determining that the wallet belongs to you, which means they will be unable to tax you because they cannot locate you based on what you hold in your wallet, even if it contains a large number of Bitcoins.

[Plutomanian]

Can Bitcoin be destroyed?

It won't be because years ago, it was more easily to destroy Bitcoin but Bitcoin was not destroyed. Now it has become much stronger and there is very smaller risk than past years.

Many attempts to fud Bitcoin community, and there are many fud types have been used so far.
https://endthefud.org/

Bitcoin will not be destroyed by any of these fuds.
Fuds won't destroy Bitcoin, they cannot do that, it's fact.

Bitcoin is not for the weak and we know how high it have taken for this project to remain solid. Bitcoin have survived and stand tall amongst other crypto projects, it stand tall against hacks targeted from hackers, bans, pessimistic accounts, but the most important thing is that, Bitcoin is here today and we should do our very best to benefit from their project. I've never encounter a solid project like Bitcoin because it's always been the top notch project and hitting bigger heights in the market.

When I see Bitcoin, I don't think any bleak chronicles will easily slow down or affect the project in an adverse ways not when there are presence of influential investors who are ready to make good bids in Bitcoin and earn massively from this project. Do you know one of the strongest units of Bitcoin? It's because is not been controlled by one individual or a business firm, more reason it's unpredictable in the market.

[purple_sparkles]

I think bitcoin will maintain its strength for now, because there are no obvious reasons to worry that something could happen to it and cause people to start abandoning it. bitcoin is now being used not only by ordinary people, but also by huge corporations and even some governments. So it’s unlikely that negative news or criticism will be enough to undermine its strong position.
The only real concern hanging over bitcoin for now is the possibility that its code could eventually be cracked by a quantum computer. But that is still a long way off, and for now, this threat is more like a scary story than an immediate reality.
So, while everything is still going well, I believe it makes sense to keep accumulating bitcoin, and right now may be a good time to do so while its price is relatively low.

[abaeze]

OP, not everyone may have the patience to read your entire lengthy article, so it would be easier for everyone to read and understand if you summarized the content. However, to be honest, Bitcoin cannot be destroyed at this time as long as its protocol works properly. Here, I am talking about its change, because the core or strength of Bitcoin is its unchanged network protocol. Even if someone can change it in the future, no one can say in advance how long it will take for it to become ineffective.

On the other hand, it is not impossible to destroy everything that is created in a world where the world itself is not permanent. However, one thing everyone should keep in mind is that no one is trying to hide the weakness of Bitcoin, rather Bitcoin has come this far through adversity since its birth. Those who tried to weaken it have failed. Those who were once against Bitcoin are now secretly storing it as a store of value. Those who are corrupt are also now collecting Bitcoin, those who are not are storing it as a hedge against corruption.  Therefore, there is no reason to be so worried about this yet.

[alastantiger]

However, if you have your funds kept in a non-custodial wallet, and your wallet has no traces to your identity, like if you haven't sent or received funds from and to a custodial service where you have verified your identity, there is no way for them to find out that the wallet belongs to you, which means that they can't tax you for that since they can't find you based on what you hold in your wallet even if it's a bunch of Bitcoins.

Not that easy to keep yourself anonymous any more as sometimes you might not know that you have linked yourself to other address that has your government ID as you make purchase's online or have done some verification previously without you knowing, it's not only on exchanges that we can connect our identity and if you we're being investigated for tax offences then they can look for your identity in various ways and as Bitcoin can not be destroyed then you can be still traced one or the other if you continue to use centralized Apps for either exchanging your cryptocurrency or for purchase of goods on the internet. Some people have even linked their address to their social media platforms without knowing too.

[Nanga Parbat]

Everything is going to be destructed because nothing is going to stay forever in this world, but still a few things are having enough noise about their presence, just like Bitcoin. It brings flexibility and financial independence to the world. Just because of this, too many theories and conspiracies ' working against this. People are always engaged to bring negativity because they are having personal issues with this. Too many already mentioned, and the community is also watching the weakness of Bitcoin, but still, it's staying and giving good results, meaning there is nothing dangerous if using the best security and the correct Bitcoin approach is going the right way. Even officially, there are too many problems, but still, it's going smoothly. This is the best part: fiat is having its own presence, but with the Bitcoin, it's going on another level. This could be a big success for this; never fear of destroying it; nothing is happening.

[Stable090]

I think bitcoin will maintain its strength for now, because there are no obvious reasons to worry that something could happen to it and cause people to start abandoning it.

Different things have been said about bitcoin which is going to discourage people from investing in bitcoin, or having interest in bitcoin, but all of them do end up failing. The government have done everything possible to kill bitcoin, they have failed in different attempts which they have made. They always make bitcoin look bad to people, some countries have banned bitcoin before, but their citizens still looked for a way to buy bitcoin.

For now I haven’t seen anything that will make people to dump bitcoin, the government have claimed that bitcoin is mostly used by criminals, and they make fiat currency looks so clean like criminals don’t make use of it, and we all know that illegal activities have been in existence even before bitcoin was created, so they can’t blame bitcoin for illegal activities happening.

[Iamgoat]

That’s why the Decentralized exchanges are active, if you don’t want your source of Bitcoin to be traced, it is better you purchase your bitcoins through DEX which will not require you to submit any data for KYC, with that, you have escaped tax completely, but the problem is how to convert your bitcoin to fiat? If you are using centralized exchanges that uses p2p with trusted escrow, they can get you there and that’s what most of us used, but you can decide to use DEX as well to trade your bitcoin to fiat.

I will be more careful with this argument if I was the one because I see tax avoidance and privacy as two separate things because despite knowing a noncustodial wallet may not have your name attached to it, it does not mean you have escaped tax completely even when the platform does not collect KYC information, blockchain transactions leave a public trail which the government can then capitalise on to remove their tax from the process before it even lands in the noncustodial

[iBaba]

Specially I hate the part where they added the taxes on Bitcoin lol. Even though it's decentralized not connected with government and we're not using any asset or getting any benefits from government still they are charging us back as taxes. This one would be bullshit scenerio. Also the moment they get chances they are seiging bitcoin. It's not far away that government will majority of the decentralized bitcoin and will start manipulating the system itself.

Although the bitcoin is decentralized, but if someone holds the majority of the supply then it would be easy to control the whole ecosystem itself.

Paying taxes is considered an obligation of every citizen, contributing to the functioning and development of the national economy.

The government taxes you based on your income. They do not care whether you make money from Bitcoin, stock, or anything else. So Bitcoin being decentralized doesn't mean you can stay outside the tax system.

Do you think it is fair to refuse to pay taxes while still expecting the government to protect you when you run into trouble, such as being scammed, robbed?

In the end, Bitcoin's decentralization lies in the network itself. So even if someone holds a large portion of the supply, that doesn't mean they can control the network.

Bitcoin being decentralized does not mean someone is automatically free from the laws of the country they live in. If you earn money from bitcoin and the law requires you to pay tax, and then you should pay it just like you would with income from a business or other investment.

I also think it is important to separate bitcoin network from bitcoin ownership, because someone holding a huge amount of bitcoin does not automatically give them control over the network. The rules are enforced by the participants running the network, not simply by whoever owns the most coins.
At the same time government should be transparent about how taxes are used.