Quote from: mmitech on October 07, 2014, 05:48:21 PM

I was having an argument in the speculation sub-forum when someone said "the only way to stop Bitcoin would be to ban the entire internet"... see I often hear that, but being in IT as a profession that statement give me a real hard time, so I thought it is time to discuss it, maybe there is something I am not aware off !!

So if Bitcoin becomes a real threat to governments, and if they agree on banning it and killing it, one way to go would be just changing regulation (FCC) for internet service providers and force them to ban the port that Bitcoin uses (8333 now), this would mean certain death to Bitcoin.

I want to hear your opinion, and how do you think this could be prevented ?

there are a few ways bitcoin could be destroyed.. i posted one example on a past thread..

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=766406.msg9084503#msg9084503

not saying this is happening or will happen but its very possible..

quote from above link -

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perhaps they think if bitcoin is dumped into oblivion all the way down to the point that even the biggest of miners cant afford to mine it would essentially break bitcoin.. image if all the small guys drop out on the way down leaving say 5 mega miners, then btc sees the biggest dump off all collapsing from the hundreds to double or single digits forcing all the last 5 to shut up shop... difficulty would be left way to high for anyone to mine preventing any conformations (im guessing) for days?

this would leave behind only the "unknown entity" with complete control over the network. one entity that could turn on and off raising the difficulty and then crashing it again. while also keeping the price of bitcoin so unprofitable that no one in their right mind would try to mine or buy it.

a malicious entity does not need to buy enough mining power to get 51%. they only need enough to continuously suppress the price and push it down gradually forcing out other miners, getting back some of the money invested and also raising their percentage of hashing power as other miners drop out. it would be a slow process and costly but not even close to impossible.

for someone with millions with a seriously high vested interest in the old money status quo it would probably be the best way to go about destroying bitcoin. if you fight a decentralized network you may harm it but it will come back stronger in one form or another. but if you crush it with out revealing yourself as a malicious entity and crush every little hope of the people they will not be so keen to fight back a second time. and once an idea fails the first time it is much harder for it to catch on a second time thus also suppressing the hopes of a reincarnation in another form.

not only that.. but with some(wouldnt take much) of the bitcoins they mine they could slowly acquire massive amounts of all the coins they cant do that to (PoS) and then just royal fuck with their respective markets for years to come as their little play toy. no investor in their right mind would buy crypto ever again. isnt it strange how many altcoins are actually not crashing (against bitcoin) while bitcoin plummets... not the norm right? i say fuck with their markets because it would be far cheaper than acquiring 50% in a PoS system - not impossible - but way too expensive an option when all you want to do is prevent adoption.

im not saying this is whats happening.. but it is certainly a possibility. dont underestimate the ones pulling the strings behind the current financial system. governments learnt their lesson about decentralised networks when file sharing effectively took down the music and film industry. why would they let a threat grow to the point that it could actually challenge them. if i were them i would invest the "pennies" to protect the pounds. and it would take fewer pennies now than in 5 years time.