‘We are 100% certain that governments will start banning bitcoins in the next 12 to 18 months.’

May 16th, 2011

Well, they can’t stop people from transferring bitcoins to each other. As long as the Internet exists, bitcoins can be sent and received around the world. The governments, however, can shut down exchanges that handle national fiat currencies in and out of bitcoins.

I wonder if people will continue to be use bitcoin after the governments shut down the fiat exchanges? They just might. Like any medium of exchange, it’s fungible as long as people are willing to use it.

Via: Launch:

A month ago I heard folks talking online about a virtual currency called bitcoin that is untraceable and un-hackable. Folks were using it to buy and sell drugs online, support content they liked and worst of all — gasp! — play poker.

Bitcoin is a P2P currency that could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband.

Posted in Dictatorship, Economy, Resistance, Technology | Top Of Page

2 Responses to “‘We are 100% certain that governments will start banning bitcoins in the next 12 to 18 months.’”

  1. j.biddy says:
    May 16, 2011 at 10:09 pm

    An interesting idea, but I would caution people who are just now going to bitcoins because of the spike in media around them (like this article). That article is somewhat sensationalist and contains contradictory information (possibly written by a machine?)

    Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership.

    Then of course this: Of course, since bitcoin transactions are untraceable, you would have zero recourse if you sent a dozen bitcoins to someone for a couple of tabs of LSD. Just like you might lose your $10 if you gave it to a kid in the school yard for a dime bag and he never came back.

    Maybe I don’t understand cryptography at all, but that sounds contradictory to me.

    I would also just point out that having a money supply with predictable growth will not stop speculation bubbles like the ones we saw with subprime mortgages, cds, cdos, etc.

  2. RBNZ says:
    May 17, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    @ jbiddy

    Buying LSD has always been a risky business… people will depend on their reputations for increasing their business.

    Any alternative currency is great. The more options the better…

    Bitcoins sounds like a great idea for trading small items online… not so sure about buying a house…

    @ Kevin
    Have you seen name coin?
    https://github.com/vinced/namecoin
    cryptogon.bit?

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