I was thinking.

[Quantus]

Whats stopping the US government from spending 20 or 30 million bucks and wrecking havoc on the network?


I fear the biggest challenge to bitcoin will come this Dec when the block reward will be cut in half. (Question:will the difficulty drop by a lot so blocks are mined any faster?)
If the block reward is cut in half and there is no substantial reduction in difficulty the mining community will will die off.

[Gabi]

Nothing

[Enkel]

I'm new, so if there's a link that explains it better.  I won't be offended if you just post that.  BUT....

I'm trying to imagine how converting 30 million into bitcoins could put them in a position to create havoc on the network.  That would mean even individuals could do it.  Just look at how much is being spent on US superPACs.

They could buy stuff, they could convert back to USD or what ever at the current rates, they could give the BTC away (in wich case, please can I be in line?  I'm still working on my first 1BTC  )  Or they could 'disappear' the BTC which wouldn't be a whole lot different than putting it into a savings account (potentially, that could raise the value of BTC if they took out a large percentage of BTC available?)

The only way I can see that they could create havoc on the system is if they could create NEW BTC from thin air (fiat currency).  I don't think they can do that, can they?

[pieppiep]

Whats stopping the US government from spending 20 or 30 million bucks and wrecking havoc on the network?


I fear the biggest challenge to bitcoin will come this Dec when the block reward will be cut in half. (Question:will the difficulty drop by a lot so blocks are mined any faster?)
If the block reward is cut in half and there is no substantial reduction in difficulty the mining community will will die off.

The mining will be just the same, just the reward cut in half.
So people who spend more than half the money they earn on electricity will probably stop mining, unless they speculate on a rise in price of bitcoins.
If enough people stop mining because it's not profitable for them anymore, the difficulty can go lower, what can get people back to mining.
So nobody knows what will happen, time will tell.

[Foxpup]

I'm new, so if there's a link that explains it better.  I won't be offended if you just post that.  BUT....

I'm trying to imagine how converting 30 million into bitcoins could put them in a position to create havoc on the network.  That would mean even individuals could do it.  Just look at how much is being spent on US superPACs.

They could buy stuff, they could convert back to USD or what ever at the current rates, they could give the BTC away (in wich case, please can I be in line?  I'm still working on my first 1BTC  )  Or they could 'disappear' the BTC which wouldn't be a whole lot different than putting it into a savings account (potentially, that could raise the value of BTC if they took out a large percentage of BTC available?)

Buying a huge quantity of bitcoins would just drive up the price of remaining bitcoins (because not everybody is willing to sell their bitcoins for the same price, and once you've bought all the cheap ones, only expensive ones remain. Some people won't be willing to sell their bitcoins for any price, and for this reason, nobody, not even a government, could buy all the bitcoins in existence.) If they gave away the bitcoins they bought (though why would they?) the price would drop back to it's original level. If they hold on the bitcoins or destroy them (there's no practical difference as far as the remaining bitcoins are concerned), the price would stay up. These wild price swings could potentially destabilise the economy, but would have no major effect on the network itself. If anything, the price rise would just encourage more people to mine (since it would make mining more profitable), which strengthens the network.

The only way I can see that they could create havoc on the system is if they could create NEW BTC from thin air (fiat currency).  I don't think they can do that, can they?

Nope. Nobody can. That's what makes it so great.

[David_Benz]

Why would the government do that lol they don't give a shit about bitcoin.

[Gabi]

You sure? Also why not? 30 millions is nothing for them

[bitstory]

Reality is they could shut it down any time, more or less for free by ruling that US financial institutions can't touch it.

[pieppiep]

Reality is they could shut it down any time, more or less for free by ruling that US financial institutions can't touch it.

Can you explain that a little more?
How can an US financial institution stop me from using or mining bitcoins here in the Netherlands?
And if that was possible and I started to connect to the bitcoin network via TOR, how would they stop me in that?

Only way I see how anything or anyone can stop something like bitcoin is getting more than 50% of the hashing power.
If it would be done by using asic's, we can change to sha512 or something else so they have the investment costs again and we only need new software of bitfiles for fpga.

[arby]

A side note:

All you people are talking like the bitcoin network is only in the USA, and the US government controls the Internet and the world. Also, if USA banks can not touch it, then we are all doomed, theres no banks in Europe
or Asia, just in the US of A.

Only the US government can buy the bitcoins, the French, UK, and other governments do not have 20 million dollars! It just shows how strong the propaganda is over there in the USA.

I am not a terrorist, or anti american, but think about this: What if a rich arab (from oil of course) decides to buy 20,30 million dollars worth of coins? OMG, arabs cant do that, they have no money!
Even Madonna can buy I think 20,30 million dollars and shut you people down!! Think about that! If Elvis were alive, he could have shut down the bitcoin!

If you wait a few years, even Justin Bieber will be able to shut down the bitcoin network! I heard hes been saving to buy a massive amount to cause havok on the network.

[beta_tester]

If you wait a few years, even Justin Bieber will be able to shut down the bitcoin network! I heard hes been saving to buy a massive amount to cause havok on the network.

Bieber could bring down bitcoin simply by stating that he liked bitcoins.  Then we'd have millions of crazy young girls buying up whatever was on the market!

[terrytibbs]

Why buy coins when you can 51%?

[bulanula]

I fear the biggest challenge to bitcoin will come this Dec when the block reward will be cut in half. (Question:will the difficulty drop by a lot so blocks are mined any faster?)If the block reward is cut in half and there is no substantial reduction in difficulty the mining community will will die off.

Don't worry there always will be :

-botnets

-system admin miners

-children in mother's basement

-mining "for the lulz" without caring about $$$ profit or losses due to electric costs

-illegal electricity stealing from neighbours / power company / broken meter

Difficulty ain't going down any time soon

All the legit miners will be squeezed out I think and all the criminals left to play and mine.

[wareen]

Trying to buy all the Bitcoins will not in the least bring Bitcoin down - quite the opposite (rising prices will just lure in new investors). There have been discussions about more elaborate investment schemes (eg repeatedly inflating and crashing the market) but in the end I don't think those would have the intended effect.

Regulation on the other hand could certainly hurt Bitcoin quite badly - even if only the US imposes strict rules on companies/individuals dealing with Bitcoin - I'm sure the EU will follow suit and vice versa.

The big question in my opinion is however, exactly how a legal definition of Bitcoin could look like? On the one hand it must be broad enough to catch all possible variations (alternate blockchains, different network structures or coin issuing mechanisms, ...) but on the other hand it should not cause too much collateral damage by covering a lot of other things as well (ie. exchange of access keys, trading vouchers or in-game items).

I have yet to see somebody suggesting a reasonable way to define Bitcoin in legal terms.

[Quantus]

When I say that any one or any gov can take out Bitcoin at any time I"m talking about a 51% takeover of the mining community. It would cost right now around 20 million. but This DEC it could cost as little as 8 million.


EDIT: once you gain 51% of the network you could if you wanted to be an ass hole raise the transaction fees a lot or if you wanted to be really evil you could do a double spending attack. With so much fraud no one would trust the network and it would go belly up in a matter of days.  

Just one of many issues that mite bring down Bitcoin.  

[KGB_Bunny]

If anyone one group gained a >51% control I would assume people who have an interest in keeping bit coin working right would lend support to help wrest control away and drag the percent of the controlling group under 50%

[Yuhfhrh]

If anyone one group gained a >51% control I would assume people who have an interest in keeping bit coin working right would lend support to help wrest control away and drag the percent of the controlling group under 50%

There's a problem with that though. The U.S. gov has an unlimited supply of USD, so they could overpower the entire bitcoin community 10 fold if they wanted.  But I don't see why they would want to at this point.

[wareen]

When I say that any one or any gov can take out Bitcoin at any time I"m talking about a 51% takeover of the mining community. It would cost right now around 20 million. but This DEC it could cost as little as 8 million.

True, if you'd like to hamper the trust of people into Bitcoin and are willing to spend the few millions there's nothing stopping you. Mind however, that often such obvious and drastic attacks can backfire. For example: after such an expensive attack, people nowadays downplaying the relevance of Bitcoin might rethink their position.

EDIT: once you gain 51% of the network you could if you wanted to be an ass hole raise the transaction fees a lot

Nope, that's not possible, even if you had 90% of the hashing power, low-fee transactions would still be mined by the remaining (friendly) 10% and clear within a few hours - which sounds reasonable for pretty much a worst-case attack scenario.

or if you wanted to be really evil you could do a double spending attack. With so much fraud no one would trust the network and it would go belly up in a matter of days.  

It would be a major turmoil in Bitcoinland for sure and many would lose trust, but proof-of-stake forks of the blockchain with any double spends etc. reverted would probably pop up and gain traction in a matter of days. Besides: no hashing power of the world can spend coins that were in your possession before the attack started, so the long term saving quality of Bitcoin would remain unaffected.

Even with such a major attack Bitcoin would not just go belly up - in the end it would probably come out stronger than before: technically more resilient to such attacks and implicitly legitimized by the adversary who feared it so much that it was worth planning and executing a large scale attack.

If you really want to harm Bitcoin, then do it the more subtle and slower way of lobbying for laws and regulations making it harder to do legal business with Bitcoin.

[nckrazze]

I'm new, so if there's a link that explains it better.  I won't be offended if you just post that.  BUT....

I'm trying to imagine how converting 30 million into bitcoins could put them in a position to create havoc on the network.  That would mean even individuals could do it.  Just look at how much is being spent on US superPACs.

They could buy stuff, they could convert back to USD or what ever at the current rates, they could give the BTC away (in wich case, please can I be in line?  I'm still working on my first 1BTC  )  Or they could 'disappear' the BTC which wouldn't be a whole lot different than putting it into a savings account (potentially, that could raise the value of BTC if they took out a large percentage of BTC available?)

The only way I can see that they could create havoc on the system is if they could create NEW BTC from thin air (fiat currency).  I don't think they can do that, can they?

51% rule.

If the US buys out 51% of all the bitcoins out there, they could theoretically control the market.

[1l1l11ll1l]

I fear the biggest challenge to bitcoin will come this Dec when the block reward will be cut in half. (Question:will the difficulty drop by a lot so blocks are mined any faster?)If the block reward is cut in half and there is no substantial reduction in difficulty the mining community will will die off.

Don't worry there always will be :

-botnets

-system admin miners

-children in mother's basement

-mining "for the lulz" without caring about $$$ profit or losses due to electric costs

-illegal electricity stealing from neighbours / power company / broken meter

Difficulty ain't going down any time soon

All the legit miners will be squeezed out I think and all the criminals left to play and mine.

-scammers