There's not much reason for any government to want to crack down on BTC simply for the sake of cracking down on it. People talk about governments cracking down on BTC because it will undermine the local currency or banking system but I think that's mostly paranoia, there's not much of any evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that any government is fearful of cryptocurrencies.

There were some governments and regulatory agencies that were concerned that BTC is a scam, or needs to be subject to security regulations, and had legitimate concerns about it but for the most part governments don't care that much about BTC in terms of a danger or a threat to their legitimacy.

Whether BTC becomes a problem is a question, but if use in laundering or escaping taxes gets past a certain point, I do think it is a risk.

Incorrect, the government has no concerns over undermining the local currency. The primary purpose of banking regulations is population control, it has nothing to do with currency perservation

Know your Customer laws, book keeping regulations, etc are all about control and intelligence. If they can get this intel and allow BTC to operate as is they will leave it alone, if however they can not get the intel they need on how money is moving well you can bet your life they will crack down hard

Governments, all governments even yours, are about Power, Control, and Authority not what people seem to naively think that the government is there to "help" or "protect" or any other just altruistic goals.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the most terrifying phrase in the English language is "We must do _____ for the greater good"

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Going back to the monolith question, the other day someone at the public utility helped me fix a mistake with my bill. That individual was not irrelevant to my experience with government power.

Take for instance the following response to the Ray Dillinger’s email:

Internet also became a disaster. We're very far from original ideas: Uncensored, decentralized ideals are forgotten.

I remember, in the beginning, governments were really afraid of people's reactions, even to make small regulations. Today, we don't even discuss before accepting any regulation about Internet. Infrastructure is almost completely controlled/owned by governments or cartels. [1]

That is so far beyond reality that it’s hard to believe this person was there “at the beginning”. The Internet, after all, started as a DARPA project...

1. https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2020-Decembe...

It has been easy enough for govts to enforce tax and security laws where they’ve tried. What laws have been changed for bitcoin?

That said, even with Bitcoin, I do think it shifted the world ever so slightly in a new direction of financial independence which just wasn't there before. There is something distinctly different about sending money to someone else in any part of the world just by typing their address, with no one being able to stop you. With traditional methods, governments could impose and have regularly interfered and imposed bureaucracy already on this sending step. With Bitcoin they do not do this because it isn't very practical.

What's nearly impossible to stop? Can't the government simply shut down the internet to stop Bitcoin? Or insert itself as the man in the middle of all network traffic.

If any government did that, then the country would suffer extreme economic damages, if such a policy was maintained for a long time.

Your argument would be like if someone were to say "actually, the government can stop all theft, now and forever. All it has to do is launch 1 thousand nukes, start world war 3, and kill off 99% of the population".

Like, sure. The government could end the world, by launch a nuke at every major city in the world. And it is true that by doing this it would end all theft .. because everyone is dead.

But you are kinda missing the bigger picture if you are seriously suggesting this as a counter argument to anything.

> extreme economic damages

We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population. It seems that they don't care about damage, only power domestically, not internationally. The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy.

Yes, if you're a big enough bully, you have control over many things. However, sometimes the control would imply too much destruction so even the bully chooses not to proceed. This is essentially what is happening right now.

> In more recent years, even the state's hold on the country's financial system has been badly shaken, with the US dollar growing commonplace in day-to-day transactions. In March 2019, Venezuela's entire electric grid collapsed, leaving some regions without power for up to a week. Without electricity, electronic transactions including credit and debit card payments were impossible, and paying cash was futile with even the highest-denomination bolivar notes worth only pennies. So Venezuelans started using the option left: illegal foreign banknotes.

How would they use Bitcoin when electricity is out? Generators only last so long when fuel is rationed.

> the government for the first time allowed a private company to issue bonds in dollars, and by doing so, raise capital outside of government control.

They key word there is "allowed" because that emphasizes the ability to disallow at some point in the future.

People have this sci-fi imagining of megacorps and the collapse of government power. Instead, we have Jack Ma probably afraid for his life, because he insulted the wrong person.

And yet, here we are, living in a world where such controls are pretty difficult to enact and simply aren't happening.

Even in places where there are government controls over the internet, such controls are apparently not even close to perfect, on many many people are successfully able to get around them.

So, the evidence shows, that despite any argument that you are making about how governments might control the internet and stop anyone from ever doing anything at all that they don't like, that is simply not happening right now to such a perfect degree that you suggest should happen, even in currently authoritarian countries.

> We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population

And yet, despite all of that, it doesn't really seem to be enacting extreme/perfect control over the internet, despite many motivations to do so, that have nothing to do with crypto.

> The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuable in transactions with Venezuelan counter-parties because of Venezuela's government's damage to the domestic economy.

Ok, and Venezuela isn't at all successfully preventing this damage. They aren't doing that. So the evidence shows that, for some reason, Venezuela is unable or unwilling to put extreme controls on crypto, do the the consequences or difficulty of doing so.

Any hypothetical, or arguments that you can possibly think of, as for why Venezuela should put extreme controls on crypto or the internet, needs to deal with the fact that Venezuela simply isn't doing that right now, likely for a good reason. Because it is very difficult to do that.

I was talking about how much control they have over the internet.

The fact of the matter is, that even the most authoritarian countries out there, are simply are unable to have a 100% perfect authoritarian control over their internet, as of today.

Despite the many motivations that current authoritarian countries have for definitely wanting to control their internet, right now, the evidence is showing that they are failing to perfectly control everything over the internet.

And yet, if you look at the real world, and how things exist already, you see that these types of efforts have failed.

This is not a hypothetical situation. This is not about stuff that may or may not happen in the future.

Instead, you can look at real world situations, that happen right now, in existing countries all around the world, and you will see that the efforts to control the internet, have mostly failed.

Ex: Just look at china, which is the most famous example of internet control. . Lots of people have VPNs and can get around these restrictions in china.

The evidence already proves you wrong. There are multiple countries who have attempted to enact strict controls, over the internet, already, and they have mostly failed.

When you say, "lots of people," how many are we talking about? The majority? If so, you'd think the government would just give up trying to have control, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Remember, we're not talking about trying to have a technology that a few hobbyists can use. The goal is widespread usage, enough that it prevents governments from controlling currency.

Enough that this whole original idea that you stated which was "Can't the government simply shut down the internet", is obviously not true.

The real world examples of real world countries, show that places like china are not "shutting down the internet", and that such an idea is obviously stupid.

There are tons of stories that you could make up in your head, about why China would want to shut down the internet right now.

And yet, the fact of the matter is, that China is not "shutting down the internet". Thats the facts. Countries are simply not doing that. Despite many motivations to do so.

> you'd think the government would just give up trying to have control, it wouldn't be worth the effort

And yet we see that the governments of the world are not successfully cracking down on the internet enough to shut down crypto. Thats not happening. Despite the fact that crypto is often used for illegal purposes. And yet countries aren't enacting authoritarian control over all of the internet to shut it all down.

We do not need to consider hypotheticals here. Just look at the real world, right now, and all the illegal activity that happens using crypto, and yet we are seeing that the world governments are not willing to enact measures to shut it all down.

Apparently, it is not worth the effort to shut down that illegal activity, right now. That is already the state of the world.

I agree that it's not worth the effort for governments to shut down Bitcoin, at the moment. The US just confiscated $1 billion in coin. They're pretty happy with the pseudonyms it seems.

In order to truly prevent people from making bitcoin to transactions, a government would have to enact absolute authoritarian control over every single bit of information that goes into and out of the country.

If I could even send a text message to someone outside the country, then I can send my bitcoin. Governments are not going to shut down all methods of ever sending text information to everyone permanently.

> let you Google for examples.

There are no examples of governments having absolute authoritarian perfect control over the internet, for any extended lengths of time.

In every example of countries that have internet restrictions, there are many people who are still able to get information into and out of the country, through numerous methods.

The original statement was "What's nearly impossible to stop?". And I maintained that it absolutely is nearly impossible for a government to enact perfect authoritarian control over every single person in a country. That is just obviously false.

So no, governments cannot "simply shut down the internet to stop Bitcoin". Because no government in existence today, has enacted perfect authoritarian control, over the internet, or shut down their internet permanently and stopped every single VPN, satellite phone, ect.

> it's not worth the effort for governments to shut down Bitcoin

It will never be worth it for governments to permanently shut down all of the internet now and forever, as well as stop all of the vpns, satellite phone, ect.

This kind of a permanent shutdown is something that no government has ever done. Every single example of governments trying to control the internet, still has many ways of getting information in and out of the country.