What would happen to the price of bitcoin if it was declared illegal in the USA?

[majamalu]

This is unlike drug prices. People want cocaine, but no one really wants bitcoins. People want to use bitcoins. If it's less easy to use BTC, BTC is less valuable.

The so called black market is not easy, but it is huge and constantly expanding.

People do not want Bitcoin, people need Bitcoin.

[dancupid]

I'm not sure what it is they could make illegal.
The word 'Bitcoin' associated with your activity wouldn't be enough. The word is arbitrary and made up.
All cryptographic tokens of exchange? They'd have to ban all cryptography (which they tried with PGP)^{[not banned, but you know what I mean]}

They could only make it illegal for a business to set up an exchange based in the US.
Someone in the Isle of Man then opens an exchange with the full backing of the Isle of Man governemnt. You then legally make an international money transfer.
They are never going make international money transfers illegal., as they know the more restrictions they place on the flow of money the more problems their economy will face.

If every country in the world can be persuaded then maybe it can be banned, but even that wouldn't be enough, since people using bitcoins are not on the whole doing anything obviously immoral - and if they are it's their immoral/illegal behaviour that will face the law - not their use of Bitcoin.

[Testit]

I think if US makes bitcoin illegal. Only will increase popularity because of all media cover it would get.
+ not many laws work as they intended if people don't think its a crime

[sethsethseth]

Bitcoin will not be made illegal anytime soon.  First we will see banks refuse to work with exchanges at the direction of the US government, which will effectively shut them down and crash the price.  The power of the US government over the world's financial systems is enormous, but it's influence is much lower in states like Russia and Iran.  Bitcoin will need these states to get on board with it.

[cypherdoc]

they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal.  since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.

[N12]

they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal.  since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.

How's that been working out for drugs?

If they decide to shut down MtGox, you can say bye bye to most of Bitcoin's value in an instant.

[adamstgBit]

they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal.  since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.

How's that been working out for drugs?

If they decide to shut down MtGox, you can say bye bye to most of Bitcoin's value in an instant.

If they shut down MtGox
I'm going to get pissed off, and code you an exchange that runs on the draknet.
Try and stop me team america world police

[uck]

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Can you decode the message below?

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with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2516 , Title 4 , Section 309 . This is not a get rich scheme . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich as few as 44 months . Have you ever noticed society seems to be moving faster and faster plus people love convenience ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you increase customer response by 200% and turn your business into an E-BUSINESS . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't believe us . Mr Ames of Idaho tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" . This offer is 100% legal ! We IMPLORE you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you get half off ! Thank-you for your serious consideration of our offer . Dear Salaryman ; You made the right decision when you signed up for our club . We will comply with all removal requests ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1626 ; Title 2 ; Section 304 . This is NOT unsolicited bulk mail ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 77 weeks ! Have you ever noticed how many people you know are on the Internet and more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU turn your business into an E-BUSINESS and deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep ! You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't believe us . Ms Simpson of Wyoming tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We assure you that we operate within all applicable laws . We implore you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thank-you for your serious  consideration of our offer .

[tvbcof]

sorry, but I would like to remind people that Bitcoin is a global thing
iirc most Bitcoin exchanges aren't US based

...

I don't think that the US would take this action unless they ('we' in my case) were pretty serious about stopping it as much as possible.  In that case we'd probably leverage our position of global leadership and the rest of the world would for the most part snap to.  "If you're not with us, your with the terrorists."...haven't you heard?  That's the advantage of having the rest of the world being either our toadies (e.g., Australia...our "Sheriff in the South" <snicker>) or are intimidated and cowed.  In the case of Iran and the sanctions, for instance, many countries actually desperately need their oil.  Noting this (and thus the extreme difficulty in fully exercising our will on them because of it) we grant by our graciousness special exemptions to anyone who would be forced to break our rules that is.  In the case of Bitcoin I would bet that it would be the opposite in that most governments would welcome the excuse to clamp down.

---

More to the point of the OP, though, I think a clamp-down is possible and that it would severely limit the number of participants in the economy and also the number and nature of transactions they perform.  This could take the strain off Bitcoin in terms of block chain bloat and induce engineering efforts toward hardening the solution against various kinds of anti-use attacks.  It may not even really effect the fiat/BTC ratios that much and may even send them higher faster.

[cypherdoc]

they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal.  since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.

How's that been working out for drugs?

If they decide to shut down MtGox, you can say bye bye to most of Bitcoin's value in an instant.

Touche.  But at least they can make some headway from time to time against drugs.  How much success would they have against Bitcoin?  Seriously.

Other exchanges would take over.

[N12]

Touche.  But at least they can make some headway from time to time against drugs.  How much success would they have against Bitcoin?  Seriously.

Other exchanges would take over.

Lots, considering that they can ban all exchanges in the US and EU and extend it over all Euro and Dollar bank transactions. Without that, Bitcoin would be missing lots of liquidity.

I don't see how other exchanges could take over in that case. They would have to be completely anonymous and that would be a huge cost and hassle.

Luckily, governments are so slow and retarded that by the time they would crack down on Bitcoin, it would already be established. But if they did it NOW, I don't think Bitcoin could retain most of its value and it'd have a hard time getting bootstrapped.

[traderjoe]

Ditto with the earlier poster:  I think the price would go down quite a bit.

Sure, the exchanges aren't in USA, but the bank accounts of most of the customers are.  All it would take is a government not permitting banks to do business with the exchanges by branding them "sponsors of terror" and few users will want to deal with the inconvenience.  The US growth, which is most of the engine of growth, would die quickly because it would become too inconvenient for potential new users to buy coins to use for regular transactions.  It could live on in other countries, but it would set it back several years in terms of valuation and usefulness to the current users...

[notme]

Exchanges would become mostly irrelevant as people trade goods for bitcoin and bitcoin for goods.  "Buying in" is a black market business, and thus carries a high "exchange rate".

[bitcool]

If history is any guide, officials in China will start enforcing Bitcoin ban much earlier than their comrades in the US do. The Chinese have law on their book giving the authorities all the power to ban anything on the Internet if/when they want to. OTOH, if the communist party decide to do it, who needs the law anyway? 

For the US to ban Bitcoin, the socialist elites will have to start with a propaganda campaign, painting Bitcoin as a money of terrorist and criminals (instead of people's money as many believe) ... then there is the legislation process... there will be challenges in the court rooms ... not an easy trick
 

[N12]

Exchanges would become mostly irrelevant as people trade goods for bitcoin and bitcoin for goods.  "Buying in" is a black market business, and thus carries a high "exchange rate".

Back to 10k BTC for a pizza.

Exchanges increase liquidity, liquidity increase usefulness and usefulness increases valuation. Deal with it. Bitcoins are mainly speculative right now with a drop of Silk Road, so if that goes, so goes most of Bitcoin's value.

Bitcoins are not like drugs because drugs have intrinsic value. If Bitcoin does its job of conducting transactions more cumbersome, then there's no reason to value it higher.

[Cluster2k]

The best way to prevent Bitcoin being declared illegal in the USA or other jurisdiction is to make it broadly useful.  Quite often people point to Silk Road as a successful use of bitcoins.  That's a great example, but it's also a highly destructive one.  Imagine standing up in court and saying bitcoin is great because it allows users to trade highly illegal substances with much lower chances of being caught.

Bitcoin needs to move beyond being a method to pay for drugs, highly speculative investment, a means to gamble, and launder money.  Yes, people use it to buy snacks and trinkets, but the high value uses for bitcoin also tend to be illegal in many countries around the world.

[cbeast]

Without a clear definition of what Bitcoin is, it would be hard to make it illegal. But if it was, it could morph into so many forms it would take a full time Federal Department of Whack-a-Mole to chase down every new form that Bitcoin manifests.

[FreeMoney]

We could Hide our bitcoin addresses inside spam messages like this:  from spammimic.com

Can you decode the message below?

Dear Colleague , Thank-you for your interest in our newsletter . We will comply with all removal requests . This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2716 , Title 2 , Section 302 ! THIS IS NOT A GET RICH SCHEME . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich inside 61 DAYS ! Have you ever noticed society seems to be moving faster and faster & nobody is getting any younger . Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this . WE will help YOU decrease perceived waiting time by 140% & deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep . You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't believe us . Mr Ames of Kentucky tried us and says "My only problem now is where to park all my cars" . We are licensed to operate in all states . We BESEECH you - act now ! Sign up a friend and your friend will be rich too . Thanks ! Dear Cybercitizen ; You made the right decision when you signed up for our mailing list . If you no longer wish to receive our publications simply reply
with a Subject: of "REMOVE" and you will immediately be removed from our mailing list ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 2516 , Title 4 , Section 309 . This is not a get rich scheme . Why work for somebody else when you can become rich as few as 44 months . Have you ever noticed society seems to be moving faster and faster plus people love convenience ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! We will help you increase customer response by 200% and turn your business into an E-BUSINESS . You can begin at absolutely no cost to you . But don't believe us . Mr Ames of Idaho tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" . This offer is 100% legal ! We IMPLORE you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you get half off ! Thank-you for your serious consideration of our offer . Dear Salaryman ; You made the right decision when you signed up for our club . We will comply with all removal requests ! This mail is being sent in compliance with Senate bill 1626 ; Title 2 ; Section 304 . This is NOT unsolicited bulk mail ! Why work for somebody else when you can become rich within 77 weeks ! Have you ever noticed how many people you know are on the Internet and more people than ever are surfing the web ! Well, now is your chance to capitalize on this ! WE will help YOU turn your business into an E-BUSINESS and deliver goods right to the customer's doorstep ! You are guaranteed to succeed because we take all the risk ! But don't believe us . Ms Simpson of Wyoming tried us and says "Now I'm rich, Rich, RICH" ! We assure you that we operate within all applicable laws . We implore you - act now ! Sign up a friend and you'll get a discount of 50% . Thank-you for your serious  consideration of our offer .

Reads like 19mzL3cAeuSdV76JSusNWBvDQaxMuihQKR to me

[TraderTimm]

Two words - Striesand Effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Also, since bitcoin is international in scope - good luck censoring all communications on the globe to 'shut it down'.

Bitcoin is here to stay.

[finkleshnorts]

they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal.  since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.

How's that been working out for drugs?

A better comparison would be bittorrent.

How's that been working out for bittorent? I'm sure government/lobbyists would just love to shut down bittorrent. They would love to outlaw it if only they could enforce the ban. But that ban would not be even remotely enforcible, and they know that. Drug laws are at least somewhat enforcible.

Also, bittorrent pisses off a lot more bigwigs, at the moment, than bitcoin does. Yet it continues to thrive, as it changes the world. I'm sure that when bittorrent first hit the scene, these same conversations were taking place.