Government confiscation

[Eastwind]

Keep them in your own wallet.

[1715076034]

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[687_2]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

Yes. I think you might have a tinge of paranoia.

In reality, the bitcoin "caretakers" have all been co-opted by the establishment, and are now, for the most part, under its control. Thus, there would be no reason for the US Government to ban the currency.

If people start dumping USD en masse and a death-spiral starts to happen to fiat, the US government would certainly enact a ban/confiscation scheme on BTC. Anyone trusting a third party (ironic, since BTC eliminates that need) would immediately forfeit their assets.

[Chef Ramsay]

Sorry to say but if some interested party was cruising the web and came here to find out about options to safely secure btc and they saw that cold storage (they'd be clueless) was the only sure option out there, then off they go and never return. If we're supposed to be getting regulations in place befitting this stuff to investors and allowing accredited outfits like circle and coinbase (perhaps even blockchain) to handle the masses, we'd better be having more confidence in the latter options for storage. This can't be the tech glee club storage option only coin. There's VC money going into all this stuff for a reason.

[cozk]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

You keep 100% of your coins on online exchanges where you do not control the private keys....... punch yourself hard in the face.

This.

You currently own 0 bitcoins.

[deluxeCITY]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

You keep 100% of your coins on online exchanges where you do not control the private keys....... punch yourself hard in the face.

Although I somewhat doubt the OP is using this feature, however coinbase does offer multisig vault where they control one key, one key is stored in your browser via your account and you control the 3rd key (for a 2 of 3 mulsig).

[grappa_barricata]

Paranoid is good if it may increase your chances of survival, like in this case. If there isn't a reason for you to keep bitcoin on exchanges (you aren't trading them actively), then don't keep them on exchanges. Even if you need to sell them fast, they can be transferred in half an hour and sold (if the need arise).

[Honeypot]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

Yes. I think you might have a tinge of paranoia.

In reality, the bitcoin "caretakers" have all been co-opted by the establishment, and are now, for the most part, under its control. Thus, there would be no reason for the US Government to ban the currency.

This.

[Mortimer452]

I agree with most others - in your own offline wallet is best.

As far as government confiscation . . . in the USA at least I think that would be pretty far fetched.  I seem to recall Ben Bernanke actually sorta giving Bitcoin a little "wink" about a year ago.  He didn't necessarily say he was in support of digital currencies, but sorta suggested they might be "ok"

[exoton]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

You keep 100% of your coins on online exchanges where you do not control the private keys....... punch yourself hard in the face.

This.

You currently own 0 bitcoins.

He still owns the coins in question, however not directly. He owns the bitcoin via his legal claim to the ownership of his accounts at coinbase and btc-e. The issue is that the assets in these accounts can potentially be taken via court order, ect, while this is not the case when you control the private keys of the subject addresses

[cryptopaths]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

If you aren't the sole controller of your private keys, you don't have any bitcoins.

No government can "freeze" properly secured bitcoins.

Technically anyone with sufficient recourses could "freeze" bitcoin, governments included.

[botany]

If people start dumping USD en masse and a death-spiral starts to happen to fiat, the US government would certainly enact a ban/confiscation scheme on BTC. Anyone trusting a third party (ironic, since BTC eliminates that need) would immediately forfeit their assets.

That is unlikely and is not the only reason why the government may freeze BTC accounts.
The death spiral of USD will be a long drawn out affair. 

[tjwebb]

The US dollar is the world's reserve currency. If everyone starts "dumping" it, what are they going to trade if for? bars of gold? bitcoin? The reality is that if the dollar becomes suddenly worthless, so does just about everything else, including your life to anyone with a gun who wants your stuff.

[Soros Shorts]

The US dollar is the world's reserve currency. If everyone starts "dumping" it, what are they going to trade if for? bars of gold? bitcoin? The reality is that if the dollar becomes suddenly worthless, so does just about everything else, including your life to anyone with a gun who wants your stuff.

Yes, the USD is still the world's reserve currency. However, there has been a slow but steady downtrend starting from around 2000, mostly due to a shift to the EUR and GBP.

[Atdhe]

You should only worry about the way you store your coins.

Withdraw most of your coins to an offline wallet on your pc.

I have never seen some one who kept all his coins on exchanges 

I have seen idiot who had few thousands btc at exchange (3 yrs ago). He has not them anymore. But I think it is ok. As always money flow from idiots to lesser idiots.

[exoton]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

If you aren't the sole controller of your private keys, you don't have any bitcoins.

No government can "freeze" properly secured bitcoins.

Technically anyone with sufficient recourses could "freeze" bitcoin, governments included.

They would need to invest in more money in mining equipment that would end up costing them more money then the amount of money they wold be freezing.

Additionally any kind of 51% attack can be overcome via the network adopting to the attack's methods and essentially ignore any found blocks by the attacker

[tl121]

The U.S. government stole everyone's gold in the 1930's so you can't trust them or anyone they have their tentacles into. More to the point:  what is your strategy for defending against the $5 Wrench Attack?

[smoothie]

Move them to your own possession.

Stop using exchanges as banks.

Be your own bank.

[xxxgoodgirls]

There are several ways to secure your wallets, I'd reccomend to put them on a local storage that doesn't access to the internets daily.
I am a linux users but I had to install Windows on my pc due to my job, but I felt my coins were in danger being on a windows enviroment.
So ultimately I came up with a dual boot solution, I have my coins stored on my linux OS where I access to just for security updates whilst I use windows for daily use.
You can also setup a virtual machine on windows installed on a encrypted partition as well, or store your coins on a removable device (remember to backup!)

But for fucks sake, do not trust any third part.

[calci]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.  I always have a teeny tiny worry in the back of mind that I'll wake up one day and the headlines will read "US Government bans Bitcoin, freezes all Bitcoin assets" and I will be unable to access my Coinbase coins.  Am I paranoid?

You should never risk a penny in those sites or services, if you intend to leave them there.
There is always a huge risk .

[subcoin]

I keep about 80% of my bitcoins in my Coinbase (US company) online vault, and about 20% online in my BTC-E (foreign company) account.

It's like having a huge vault with 3 feet thick walls of steel and an unbreakable lock, but instead of storing your money in that vault you put them into a card box next to it. In fact, you are the exact opposite of paranoid - Pronoid