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Join me on an interview of the average Bitcoiner!

So Bitcoiner, you believe that Government money is a scam?

> Yes, complete scam. All they do is print.

And you like Bitcoin because it isn't controlled by central bankers?

> Yes. The network is controlled by the miners.

So what happens when the Government bankers that you're seemingly slighting have no more use for Bitcoin for their own illicit purposes and outlaw the exchanges?

> ...

What happens when they shut down the Internet?

> ...

IceCubeSoup

@eriner

> outlaw the exchanges?

an unsolved problem. bitcoin will still exist and function fine, but without an infrastructure which allows for daily use of bitcoin for daily needs... well, it's utility will drop through the floor, and the price will too.

> What happens when they shut down the Internet?

lol, who cares? End of everything. What happens when they shut down the ACH system? Same question.

@eriner
> their own illicit purposes

BTW, illicit purposes == best purposes !!

But yeah, the "public ledger" aspect of bitcoin cuts both ways.

@IceCubeSoup

> lol, who cares? End of everything.

Parts of the Internet can be selectively offlined without shutting down the whole Internet. I implied a whole shutdown, but you are correct that ending the Circuses is probably not advisable, so in practice it's more likely to be a selective shutdown. They'll make laws and go after the ISPs.

> What happens when they shut down the ACH system? Same question

ACH predated the Internet, but again, see above about a selective shutting down.

@eriner Yes, they could choke off the nodes by observing the traffic.

The only countermeasure would be for something like IPSec to be implemented globally, and for all communication channels to be stuffed to capacity to make traffic analysis difficult.

@IceCubeSoup yeah, which... isn't happening.

My point is that Bitcoin is ultimately at the mercy of the same Evil shits that make the Dollar. And it *REQUIRES* an uncensored Internet. No way around it.

It's just so silly. IMO, likely a Government fabricated trap; a controlled illusion that they could create a viable parallel economy free of Government. Bleed the skeptics of their Dollars, drive them into a box, and eventually reveal who's really in charge and rug pull.

Bitcoiners will be all:

@eriner I cannot disprove your thesis.

But I don't see any movement which will result in a viable parallel economy. Lightning is going nowhere.

Crypto only works when there's no need for the exchanges at all, and I can buy a gallon of gas (or a barrel of oil) without ever touching fiat.

I don't see this happening, therefore bitcoin is "safe" indefinitely.

But it doesn't live up to its promise...

@eriner @IceCubeSoup it will survive as long as the USA doesn't have total hegemony over the planet. it will survive in the USA as long as the illusion of freedom is profitable for the state to maintain and not a second longer.
@eriner @IceCubeSoup the bitcoiner assumes that bitcoin is or will become too big to squash but they don't realize that it can't get that big and even if it did the state would gnaw off its own leg to kill the spread than willingly cede power to another entity.
@sun @IceCubeSoup @eriner i say something like xmr is hard to squash because its hard to trace. but i know the feds knows ways to crack it i am told.

@sun @IceCubeSoup

> it will survive as long as the USA doesn't have total hegemony over the planet

My view is admittedly US centric, however the logic can be applied to any Government. I guarantee when the rug-pull does happen, the US won't be the only Government doing it.

@eriner @IceCubeSoup the usa has already bullied several banking havens into compliance but there are still some that are more aligned with "the other hegemony". I honestly don't know but I don't discount it that there will remain many places that won't ban it simply because it weakens US hegemony more than it weakens theirs. really don't know.

@eriner @sun
I don't think it'll be a rug-pull, I think it will be co-opted, or nationalized, or some other maneuver like that.

There are too many whales already involved.

@sun @IceCubeSoup I don't disagree at all. Bitcoin itself will probably survive until some Government reveals that they broke all conventional prime factoring based cryptography. But it won't be usable as a currency for those that live in the "dark zone".

@eriner @IceCubeSoup the best possible outcome for government is simply that they break it and it naturally becomes worthless yeah. the second best is some kind of co-option. the government hasn't gotten serious at all about this yet. the developers aren't hidden or even well protected and the us government has no scruples whatsoever about framing, blackmail, threatening violence, committing violence on loved ones, etc.

@sun @IceCubeSoup plus, who can say with certainty that "Satoshi Nakamoto" isn't a pseudonym of Government Research Department #2293?

@eriner @sun From a mathematical point of view, it's immaterial.

Unless they broke factorization long ago, and they are playing a really REALLY long game.

But in order for the scheme to work, the crypto has to be solid.

@eriner @IceCubeSoup I can't say with certainty it's not a government ruse. our government for decades has leveraged and riled up UFO groups for still-unknown psyop uses against its own people. the reason I bring that up is that they obviously consider it important, it costs money, and it's fucking weird. so I can't write off other weird things.

that said, the paths I see for bitcoin being a giant ruse are implausible to me because it would take less time money and effort (and they also have the in-house experience) to just use terrorism to get us to switch to a cbdc
@sun @IceCubeSoup @eriner The second you can't swap hot money out of crypto, the price will crash far enough that the hodlers get wiped out. It already trades like high frequency stocks, diving on rumors, indicating it's being supported by establishment institutions chasing alpha in unconventional ways.

In other words, crypto is the 2010s version of the Latin American investment craze. Once the landscape shifts, the monetary support is yanked and the locals are left with the shattered pieces.
@PunishedD @IceCubeSoup @eriner depends on if its being propped up only by american hegemon money but yeah if it gets banned all over the West the price will drop a lot.

@sun @eriner @PunishedD

The whole viewpoint that the dollar value of bitcoin is important completely undermines its whole premise.

@IceCubeSoup @eriner @PunishedD bitcoin in practice doesn't do what it was meant to do but it still does useful stuff
@eriner @sun @IceCubeSoup why are americans so delusional? you don't live on china, you don't live on russia or memezuela, and even those states have problems controlling cryptocoins. the only way your state can rug-pull on you over the internet is if it reaches the autorotation levels of north korea, and you will have greater problems at that point
@dirb @IceCubeSoup @eriner the country will survive when the mask comes off the question is will your investments
@sun i might end up in a concentration camp but as long as my ROIs are positive, I won't care

@IceCubeSoup @eriner @dirb