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Matt Hamilton

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?

> ...

While the Liz Warren letter was fake, the FBI wants you to know that the spirit of the letter is quite real: ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240425

@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

@eriner "price" would crash, but people could still use them.

Could be valuable in countries that don't ban it. You could spend them or sell them there.

But to your point: usefulness, value, and convinience all go in the toilet.

@eriner
If "they", shut down the internet (doubtful), Bitcoin will be the least of our problems.

@adam I clarified elsewhere in the thread, but I doubt they'll shut down the Circuses in its entirety: they'll just shut down Bitcoin.

noauthority.social/@eriner/112

@eriner
I doubt that is possible anymore.
They can degrade the hash rate at best.

@adam I don't contend, short of revealing technology that reverses prime factorization (hence breaking most encryption we use today), that the Government will shutdown every machine processing transactions.

I'm saying that if the US Government dreams up some laws that ban Bitcoin, they're in essence putting a .45 to the foreheads of ISPs, exchanges, and everyone you're transacting with.

Will Bitcoin be "dead"? Technically? No. Practically? Yes.

@eriner
They need Bitcoin for their own criminal transactions. Surely that is obvious to you by now? FTX was in essence a side chain for flushing out SVB money. Bankmam fried wasn't monitored properly by his parents, so it all collapsed. Token holders still being made whole by confiscated BTC sales.

@adam my OP literally says as much:

> 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?

@eriner meh, low transaction bandwidth on Bitcoin gives preference to those with the most capital to pay insane fees anyway (particularly long-term). It's just how they want it.

@eriner

The ease of traceability of Bitcoin is suspect. It's possible that Bitcoin is controlled opposition.

The only reason crypto is allowed to exist is that it benefits the government in some way.

When they begin campaigns against it, making it illegal then you'll know they didn't have as much control as they thought they did.

Doesn't matter what crypto-nerds think. They're not in a position to negotiate.

Bitcoin requires power, compute and communication. Kill one, it dies.

🤪

@eriner they won't shut down the internet because that's their #1 propaganda machine. They rely on the internet to recruit their useful idiots as well as spy on their own opposition. If they shut it down then their plan would be in the end stages to strike the final blow against the citizens and officially make them eternal slaves, cannon fodder, and puppets

@Anthony @eriner There are no limits when it comes to *your* security. An internet shutdown would look like pandemic lock down; selective and controlled demolition. Essential networks? Don't ever forget what they did to us just a few years ago.

@eriner 1/2
@eriner

N.I.A.

BTC wholecoiners will rule during this long overdue recession, using ether and monero as "checking" and bitcoin for savings.

Resistance: unreported crypto capital gains = prison, many ways to lose it (send to wrong address, forget your pass phrase, device crash or stolen), assume all devices have back doors, exchanging in person requires trust of strangers.)

2/2
@eriner

Price: deliberately coded cycles, whales and ETF and futures have tremendous leverage. In five year fiat price chart Monero is flat and Bitcoin is at least 6x.

Any government can declare an asset, tangible or intangible, as stolen or related to illegal activity, and compel it's confiscation. Civil Asset Forfeiture.

@eriner believe it or not, most of them actually believe it's anonymous and shit, even though they all yap how awesome it is because it's open ledger 🤣

@eriner

Don’t „bitch“ Dan Ramos or he blocks you.
And i know what i‘m talking about. He‘s very sensible with words.

He‘s a coward ass faggot

@ThatCrazyDude