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Notice in Bitcoin the new coin production schedule is designed such that rate of increase is declining and the total supply is designed to never exceed 21 million BTC coins. However, IMO that is myopic because the mining is already centralized and if the government takes over, there is no limit to what they might do with the protocol. I argued that more upthread or in the past, where I said once the masses dominate the coin userbase, they really don't care as long as they get their debt and Walmart goodies.
Bitcoin mining is global. If somehow the government took over the major miners in the United States and forced them to change the protocol, wouldn't that just create a forked coin which people could choose not to use and instead keep using the real Bitcoin which is still mined throughout the rest of world and by smaller miners in the United States? For your scenario to play out, a total government takeover of the Internet (far more severe than the Great Firewall) and well as blanket observation and control of all commerce would be required. Even if it were technically possible for this regime to carry out this kind of extreme totalitarianism, I do not think it has the political capital and economic resources to do it. Nor do I think they are stupid enough to try. Power will adapt to Bitcoin, not destroy it.
Circle CEO apparently
disagrees and says the G20 will cooperate. I have also provided citations upthread about G20 declarations on their plans to cooperate.
Two or three pools control > 50% of the hash rate. That isn't the entire internet. That is only three businesses that have to be raided.
The masses won't care. Who is going to support your fork? You won't even have a majority of mining hash rate.As for individual miners switching to another pool upon that event, note one miner in East Washington had already 6 - 7% of the total Bitcoin network hash rate and is aiming to reach 10%. ASICs concentrate mining power and this will continue to get worse.
The one that is modified by government mandate to issue additional coins and have white/blacklists would be the fork, even if it has more hashing power, not the original Bitcoin protocol. Why do you think everyone would adopt the government-mutilated fork? People can still use Litecoin and Dogecoin even though they have less hashing power. In those cases, they are the clones; in the case you describe, the government version, even with more hashing power, would be the massively inferior imitator.
Because the masses don't care. They shop at websites, not via a downloadable Bitcoin client. The Amazons, Walmarts, etc.. will follow the government's regulation to send transactions only through regulated pools.
I had made this point in great detail at the
Transactions Withholding Attack. It is not surprising to me that the Bitcoin diehards refused to accept my point.
You are free to think I am wrong, and even try to succinctly refute my point here. But let's please not repeat ad nauseum that entire debate again in this thread. I don't have time and it will muck up this thread with too much extraneous tangential discussion. That thread is still open to debate it further there. I would prefer to keep this thread more high-level in scope so that it is digestible.
I think the following point about 'dependency' applies to my point about the masses above.
I hope that as a society we can break away from the dependency before the system collapses on top of us. The risk of dependency is just too great under this form of financial system. I hope we can change it before it mutates...
I do not refuse to accept your point. Your predictions may very well come true, but I think that it is not a certainty as you make it seem. Unlike China, the United States actually has to pass regulations through a legislative process. I am well aware of the government's disregard for the Constitution, but public opinion does carry some weight. Congress's approval rating is 10 percent, Obama is despise by more than half the country, and the Federal Reserve/Goldman/Morgan is justifiably reviled by powerful elements on the left and the right. How will the government sell the idea that an amazing new free-market technology that is generating jobs, innovation, and wealth should be taken over by the hated banking sector? Imagine if the government tried to legislate that Tesla be taken over by GM, or that Netflix be taken over by Blockbuster.