Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: What if governments make Bitcoin centralized?
by
temple
on 02/12/2021, 19:34:23 UTC
Have you ever thought about Bitcoin becoming centralized someday? The ever-growing mainstream adoption of Bitcoin worldwide will only lead us closer to such scenario. To our surprise, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. The more popular the cryptocurrency becomes, the more countries will be tempted to follow El Salvador's footsteps. Imagine governments making their own mining facilities, or even buying pre-established mining companies in order to gain a piece of the pie. If they manage to control more than 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate, the cryptocurrency will effectively become centralized. That, and the fact that they already control centralized exchanges is a very alarming situation for the future of Bitcoin.

Of course, the only way governments worldwide will be able to control 51% of Bitcoin's hashrate is if they unanimously agree on using Bitcoin is a "One World Currency". This may all sound crazy, but we cannot ignore it from happening in the future.

What are your thoughts? Will Bitcoin be able to remain decentralized for the foreseeable future? Or not? What do you think will happen if governments fully embrace Bitcoin as the replacement of Fiat? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Smiley

Good thing that bitcoin is decentralized already and there's no way they could make it centralized by cheating or hoarding coins, it would totally make no sense even if they wanted to, bitcoin had far started more a decade ago, government would take action at large as late as today.
Take for example China, we all knew that they're trying to control cryptocurrencies or atleast make them an overseer or middleman about the transactions, but look at China now, they have given up already and took a legal action to ban bitcoin across mainland China.

And I don't even trust that move by the Chinese government. Do you really think they don't possess any Bitcoin? I just can't believe that. China is a big player in literally any important game all around the world and just think about the idea that they gobbled up loads of Bitcoin when it was between $500 and $5000. 200k BTC at $5000 is just a billion USD. That's pocket money for them. Now think about the idea that they started way earlier than that. There is a real possibility that they own enough Bitcoin to certainly not miss out on the incredible potential it has financially and perhaps even geopolitically.
Lots doesnt have that trust on the government specially on banning something but they do actually possess something which it isnt really that surprising for that kind of behavior.
You couldnt really trust up on any decisions that they would make and of course they would do actions that they would benefit them out and wont really be tending to go
to the path on which they do seems that it will really be a disadvantage to them.
Making bitcoin centralized? We know it is technically impossible thats why they do focus on platforms that is attached to it.


The terms centralized/decentralized is also not either or. Could the government make Bitcoin more centralized than it is now? I guess so because governments could also acquire mining hardware and run specialized facilities, but I don't think they would do that. By now the best position a government could be in is if they already own a huge amount of Bitcoin. That is what I am saying about China. Even if they banned it, they are only in a bad position for now if they don't own any Bitcoin.