Re: Will blockchain survive the crackdown on mixers and anonymization?
There's no such thing as "shutting down" Bitcoin. Especially with how distributed and decentralized it is.
Well, as we've discussed on another thread at length, it's absolutely possible for the US, China or some other major country to take over 51% of the hashrate and thus control the network, thereby controlling Bitcoin. There's no evidence any country wants to do this, but they absolutely could.
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The US government might prevent Americans from purchasing or selling Bitcoin. But that won't stop the core Blockchain network from running. People will just find a way around the government-imposed restrictions (either through a DEX, a P2P exchange, or meeting F2F).
If the US did that, something much worse would happen: the price of Bitcoin would plummet by 99% or more
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The mixers' drama is just an attempt to scare away people from obfuscating their BTC transaction info. Governments will be able to shut down centralized mixers with ease, but not decentralized/non-custodial ones.
Like money laundering in general, governments will never be able to shut it down completely, but they can certainly make it something only serious criminals would want to do. Few would risk federal prison just as a hobby.
Almost all holders of Bitcoin do so in a centralized way with a broker or an app that does KYC. Most average consumers don't want go to all of this trouble just to evade the government, they just want a safe investment that gives them a profit.