Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Scaling Bitcoin conference micro-report

From: phm <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2015 16:53:21 -0500

Mike Hearn via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Governments find it hard to ban things that are wildly popular with
> their voters. This is the Uber approach: grow fast, annoy governments,
> but be popular enough that banning you is politically risky.
Governments do not find it hard to ban things that threaten their
authority, least of all their authority to control money, and they also
do not find it hard to ban things which are popular. I'm sure the
millions of people with felony drug charges for the possession of
marijuana, a plant, understand this better than you appear to. Also, in
the US, despite overwhelming resistance on a broad scale, legislation
continues to be presented which would violate the 2nd amendment right to
keep and bear arms.

Bitcoin does not enjoy nearly the popularity that marijuana and guns do,
and likely never may. But even if it did, the government can be relied
on to outlaw it once it understands the true extent to which Bitcoin can
undermine its ability to control stores of value. A mining network that
anyone can contribute to would enable Bitcoin to stay alive in spite of
this, much like torrents have enabled people to continue pirating music
regardless of how many websites have been taken down.
>
> If you don't believe that governments can end Bitcoin because of
> decentralisation, then the opposite conclusion is logical: growth can
> be dangerous because stateless money will be inherently opposed by the
> state, therefore if growth == less decentralisation, growth increases
> the risk of state shutdown.
I think there's a difference between natural growth and the kind of
growth that's being proposed by bank-backed start-ups and pro-censorship
entities.
>
> I don't think we have to choose between decentralisation and growth
> actually - computers are just amazingly fast. But that's irrelevant here.
>
> The point is, your disagreement is summed up by your statement:
>  
>
>     Bitcoin cannot be both decentralized and reliant on being,
>     "too important to close". If it can be closed there is
>     insufficient decentralization.
>
>
> I believe this statement is wrong because governments can shut down
> Bitcoin at any point regardless of its level of decentralisation. This
> is true because:
>
>   * Most governments can easily spend enough money to do a 51% attack,
>     especially if they can compel chip fabs to cooperate for free.
>     This attack works regardless of how decentralised Bitcoin is.
>
>   * Any government can end Bitcoin usage in its territory by jailing
>     anyone who advertises acceptance/trading of bitcoins, or prices in
>     BTC. Because merchants /must/ advertise in order to alert
>     customers that trades in BTC are possible, this is an attack which
>     is unsolvable. If ordinary people can find such merchants so can
>     government agents.
>
> It may appear that trade cannot be suppressed because merchants can
> all become anonymous too, a la Silk Road. However, if use of Bitcoin
> is banned then it becomes impossible to convert coins into local
> currency as that requires cooperation of banks ..... making it useless
> for even anonymous merchants. An outlaw currency is useless even to
> outlaws.
A ban on Bitcoin would lead to a rise in p2p markets. The government is
an inefficient sinkhole at its very best and it has never successfully
eradicated anything.