Quote from: ETFbitcoin on Today at 12:20:02 PM

Quote from: BTCapsule on November 27, 2022, 07:41:23 AM

There is an ongoing battle on Bitcoin Twitter about whether Bitcoin should be considered a weapon (and protected by the Second Amendment in the US) or speech (and protected by the First Amendment in the US).

Bitcoin could be whatever depending on how it's used by its owner. And IMO forcing Bitcoin to be either weapon or speech to get protection by 1st/2nd amendment is ridiculous.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. As an American, I dont really care what the Constitution says. However, people in this country view it as a religious document, and believe everything must fall into one of its categories. The Ninth Amendment is the only one that matters to me, but it is ignored by all institutions.

Quote from: ETFbitcoin on Today at 12:20:02 PM

Quote from: BTCapsule on November 27, 2022, 09:55:42 PM

I do believe Bitcoin falls under speech because we have a 12 word seed phrase that gives us access to our property.

If you're going to force Bitcoin as speech, at least make better argument. For example, Bitcoin is used by citizen to perform freedom by speech by utilizing OP_RETURN.

Quote from: pooya87 on Today at 05:06:57 AM

That makes no sense at all. Why force bitcoin into a category that it doesn't fit into?
To be honest the whole discussion on twitter seems to be among idiots who either don't understand what "weapon" or "speech" means or they are pursing a different purpose that can only be known if we know a little background of the people who started this fake discussion.

This was so funny Cheesy

In the US, speech means much more than having the freedom to say things. It can be ideas, art, actions, etc. A political cartoon is speech like sticking up your middle finger to a politician.

Gigi argues that Bitcoin is speech because we can roll some dice or flip a coin to get our private key. We can then convert that key into a secret phrase. So creating and writing down the private key is speech. To make this action illegal is essentially restricting our freedom of speech and thought.

Jason Lowery, who works for the US military, argues that miners are at digital war against each other based on first principles of bacteria fighting for natural selection. He has build an entire philosophy on the idea that mining is a non-lethal means of warfare called soft-war that can replace a majority of hard-war that involves physical bodies. Its a noble idea on the surface, but he builds on this analogy to say mining could be a weapon of mass mutual destruction, and its in the interest of the US government to protect mining, rather than ban it. He uses the Second Amendment to explain why the government cannot forbid us from Bitcoin or mining, but this worries me because US citizens are not permitted to possess the same weapons that the government possesses (WMDs).

So none of this is about banning Bitcoin. It seems worse to me. Instead, I feel like the government wants to seize the means of Bitcoin production (mining) and start a digital war with other countries to have the biggest hash rate. This would mean individuals could no longer compete with mining.