The Bitcoin Cold War has begun

[cbeast]

Banning things that cannot be actually regulated makes them more popular.

Prohibition anyone?

Heroin in the middle east?

Murder, Plutonium, singing "My Way" at karaoke. There are things that *should* be illegal, though they are still popular.

[franky1]

My point is: while everyone else seems to be focusing on how to get Wall Street billionaires to pump their Bitcoin wallets, I'll be focusing on getting the poorest to start saving in Bitcoin. It's like how the peasants fought back against the Samurai. Bitcoin is the ninja economy.

insert graphic of ninja with bitcoins

ask and ye' shall receive

[beetcoin]

it's not just the wall streeters, it's the people with portfolios, retirement plans, IRAs, or whatever.. it would make some rich people richer, sure, but if the bitcoin ETF were opened up, a lot of regular folk would be investing it in as well.

[ALL IN]

Bitcoin will win the war!

no . its possible but i think hard to believe , bitcoin has beeen reach about 500 now . thats will effect with demand and another reason.

[Mobius]

I am looking forward to the day when interplanetary trade becomes a factor. ... interplanetary traders ... will insist on cryptocurrencies as payment.

Bitcoin won't work in that scenario. It takes a radio signal between 4 minutes (which might be alright) to 24 minutes (won't work) to travel from Earth to Mars, depending on each planet's position on its trip around the sun. We'd need some other currency with a longer block time, or we'd need to deal with an overwhelming proportion of double spends.

A longer block time would not solve this problem. Since a block can be found at any time regardless of the target block time, there would always be a possibility of a double spend. In order to spend coins when the blockchain is both on Earth and Mars, 3 TX would be the equivalent to 0/unconfirmed. It would also be impossible to mine on both planets as the planet with the lower hashpower would have a huge amount of orphaned blocks, regardless of target block time.

[sandykho47]

Bank/Government can't delete bitcoin because Bitcoin is open source & there lot people believe in BTC
Bitcoin can't destroy Bank/Government because Bank/Government have big power

This "cold war" won't end soon, i think

[hualehua]

ban and reban,not unban.

[hualehua]

 seems more and more powerful when bitcoin was baned and rebaned.

[bitkilo]

be patient ... all banks will fail.
in Europe, it already in the way (greek, espagna, portugal, bulgaria, cyprus ... next is the italia).

in USA, you have many cities (aka. states) that it haves crash even with 80 years tresor bond ... 

Banks will not fail. Change? Maybe. Fail? No. Banks provide a vital service, you can hate the way they provide that service, but you can't deny that the service is vital and beneficial. They won't be going away any time soon.

Banks may not fail with all there goverment bailouts but people will loose more trust in them. We have all grown up beliving we can trust banks, we have now found that not to be true. We need the future generations to grow up trusting the blockchain, when that happens bitcoin could become world standard.

Thats probably when a war would start, what's happening now is just stick fights,l.

[zimmah]

My point is: while everyone else seems to be focusing on how to get Wall Street billionaires to pump their Bitcoin wallets, I'll be focusing on getting the poorest to start saving in Bitcoin. It's like how the peasants fought back against the Samurai. Bitcoin is the ninja economy.

insert graphic of ninja with bitcoins

exactly my point of view, the rich will eventually embrace bitcoin once they see there's no way out, but the thing that will really get bitcon to thrive is when the poor save what little they have in bitcoin, and they'll be richer for it.

[unpure]

Bitcoin will win the war!

The only time the public has ever won anything is when the country is too badly manage to a point when just about anything stop working.

This include the internet which bitcoin is depended on.

[galbros]

I liked the OP and related points that you can't ban distributed networks or math.  The thing countries can, and have been banning or at least clamping down on, is the conversion of bitcoin from and to their local currencies, e.g. the USD.  I don't even think the banks have to all fail to solve that problem.  Even if people just start to use bitcoin to buy and sell a little bit, it can work in conjunction with local currencies.

Bottom line, unless it blows up due to some unforeseen flaw, bitcoin wins.  Though its victory would be helped if some problems like the ever growing blockchain, security, and risk of something like Ghash.io acting opportunistically were solved.

Good Luck!

[Capt Drake]

I am looking forward to the day when interplanetary trade becomes a factor. ... interplanetary traders ... will insist on cryptocurrencies as payment.

Bitcoin won't work in that scenario. It takes a radio signal between 4 minutes (which might be alright) to 24 minutes (won't work) to travel from Earth to Mars, depending on each planet's position on its trip around the sun. We'd need some other currency with a longer block time, or we'd need to deal with an overwhelming proportion of double spends.

A longer block time would not solve this problem. Since a block can be found at any time regardless of the target block time, there would always be a possibility of a double spend. In order to spend coins when the blockchain is both on Earth and Mars, 3 TX would be the equivalent to 0/unconfirmed. It would also be impossible to mine on both planets as the planet with the lower hashpower would have a huge amount of orphaned blocks, regardless of target block time.

I think that it will need to have some kind of MARSCoin running on Mars and Bitcoin running here on Earth, two separete blockchains.
If you are on Mars and want to move your funds to Earth you would simply buy some Bitcoin.

[Yakamoto]

I am looking forward to the day when interplanetary trade becomes a factor. ... interplanetary traders ... will insist on cryptocurrencies as payment.

Bitcoin won't work in that scenario. It takes a radio signal between 4 minutes (which might be alright) to 24 minutes (won't work) to travel from Earth to Mars, depending on each planet's position on its trip around the sun. We'd need some other currency with a longer block time, or we'd need to deal with an overwhelming proportion of double spends.

A longer block time would not solve this problem. Since a block can be found at any time regardless of the target block time, there would always be a possibility of a double spend. In order to spend coins when the blockchain is both on Earth and Mars, 3 TX would be the equivalent to 0/unconfirmed. It would also be impossible to mine on both planets as the planet with the lower hashpower would have a huge amount of orphaned blocks, regardless of target block time.

I think that it will need to have some kind of MARSCoin running on Mars and Bitcoin running here on Earth, two separete blockchains.
If you are on Mars and want to move your funds to Earth you would simply buy some Bitcoin.

Or, this could open up a great opportunity for innovators and capitalists, as the invention of light-based communication would be highly valuable in a scenario like this.

Or, with a delay of a few days, Mars residents would communicate with companies on earth, and said companies would buy the BTC for the client.

There are a lot of things that would have to be done in order for this to work, but it could hypothetically work.

[arklan]

I am looking forward to the day when interplanetary trade becomes a factor. ... interplanetary traders ... will insist on cryptocurrencies as payment.

Bitcoin won't work in that scenario. It takes a radio signal between 4 minutes (which might be alright) to 24 minutes (won't work) to travel from Earth to Mars, depending on each planet's position on its trip around the sun. We'd need some other currency with a longer block time, or we'd need to deal with an overwhelming proportion of double spends.

A longer block time would not solve this problem. Since a block can be found at any time regardless of the target block time, there would always be a possibility of a double spend. In order to spend coins when the blockchain is both on Earth and Mars, 3 TX would be the equivalent to 0/unconfirmed. It would also be impossible to mine on both planets as the planet with the lower hashpower would have a huge amount of orphaned blocks, regardless of target block time.

two separate blockchains. one per planet, thenexchange them like two currencies.

[cbeast]

I liked the OP and related points that you can't ban distributed networks or math.  The thing countries can, and have been banning or at least clamping down on, is the conversion of bitcoin from and to their local currencies, e.g. the USD.  I don't even think the banks have to all fail to solve that problem.  Even if people just start to use bitcoin to buy and sell a little bit, it can work in conjunction with local currencies.

Bottom line, unless it blows up due to some unforeseen flaw, bitcoin wins.  Though its victory would be helped if some problems like the ever growing blockchain, security, and risk of something like Ghash.io acting opportunistically were solved.

Good Luck!

Right you are! At this point there is a lot of development going on with the technology, but not so much with adoption.  I think the key is to get satoshis into the hands of the poor. That way when Bitcoin does blow up, there will be a transfer of wealth that is long overdue.

[cbeast]

When most folks think of a revolutionary insurrectionist, it's someone with a bandana and a rifle. Today's rebel carries a smartphone.

[ethought]

Math is for everyone. It's not a weapon to be manipulated by bullies. This is the opportunity to develop decentralized lending and commerce. It's also the time to develop tools that can be used by the lowliest and poorest amongst us. The endgame is that Bitcoin is power. Let's make sure that power is decentralized and accessible to all.

A very good point very well put.

[Yakamoto]

When most folks think of a revolutionary insurrectionist, it's someone with a bandana and a rifle. Today's rebel carries a smartphone.

Watch_Doges? 

I agree with you, however. A rebel doesn't have to be a 40-some dressed in camo with an assault rifle.

It's easier to be a rebel than ever before, to be honest.

[movelikejagger]

I don't think that is a good comparison ("cold" war)