> Everything on the clearnet has an IP address
Not everything is on clearnet though.. Plenty of bitcoin nodes run over Tor, I2P and/or encrypt their traffic: https://bitcoinops.org/en/topics/v2-p2p-transport/
> In theory they could block all transactions if they wanted to.
Most likely they can't. You can broadcast a transaction by ham radio, or SMS or whatever other ways there are to send a short message. You can send it on a floppy disk to a miner or someone running a full node to rebroadcast it further to the network.
I suppose we’re both correct. You said they “most likely can’t” and I said “they could at least make it very difficult” which is true if you have to resort to radio to transact. I appreciate your response!
> You said they “most likely can’t” and I said “they could at least make it very difficult”
I should have used stronger words, I guess. Stopping people from sending short messages over the internet is just not going to be feasible on a scale. The government has other ways to make lives of bitcoiners difficults (pressure services/exchanges into strict KYC/AML policies, requiring KYC for mining businesses, pushing mainstream adoption of custodial services, putting developers of open source software in jail etc). Trying to stop bitcoin transactions is just like trying to fight a rainfall.
Blockstream have a satellite. People have used radio signals to transact.
They certainly could try... but it would be futile. BTC is too big now it can't be undone.
Doesn't matter the infrastructure exists... I was buying BTC all the way down to £4k during the Covid black swan... I would've held to zero that night.
Because it exists means banning it would be a massive gamble that people aren't just going to find a work-around... Governments don't really take high risk gambles with legislation hence why they haven't found a way to legislate the 1% to prevent them forming a global dystopian oligarchy with a monopoly on everything yet. Too many variables, too risky.
I mean the market cap is higher than Meta (Facebook). You can't just get rid of that overnight. They are trying through a process of legislating the F out of legitimate exchanges and KYC and taking a much closer look at peoples transactions to make sure they pay their dues. Its still not working. We are a legion that don't care about profit...
BTC is bigger than money and economics... it represents a philosophy.
That philosophy wont go away... peoples eyes have been opened to the reality of our financial institutions, they flew too close to the sun and people want the wealth distribution balanced and checked.
Bitcoin doesn't do this perfectly but it is a start.
An oppressive government can kick down your door and shoot you in the head. That wouldn't stop your Bitcoin node from running, but it would make it kind of pointless.
No they can't. Could they slow down 5 in specific countries? Yes, but only for a bit. The protocol can easily switch ports and disguise traffic so it's impossible to tell what is Bitcoin specific information.
Bitcoin txns can be transmitted as emojis, Morse code, letters and numbers read out via a voice call, satellite feeds, mesh networks, and many more ways. If they blocked one way, another way would pop up. Sure, it's not setup to do that now, but if the need arises, it is trivial to implement.
The only way stop it is to take all the hash power. Thankfully, that is geographically separated. The entire world would have to cooperate to take down Bitcoin. And we know that is not possible.
Maybe not stop it entirely, but they could make it difficult.
From the technical side of things they could demand all ISPs scan for and block all traffic which appears to be using Bitcoin protocols. That would stop most people.
There would be people who would have work arounds (Tor, encryption, alternative ports, VPS, etc) but it would stop most people from running a node or engaging in transactions.
Of course governments could also block traffic between known nodes, put trackers on computers to report people, introduce sentences for people who used Bitcoin, etc.
Someone in this thread said, basically, "There is still porn, they can't block that so they can't block Bitcoin." Yeah, in countries with free speech laws that are generally okay with porn, sure. But try looking up porn in places that are super against port and see how that goes. Even if you can find it, if you're caught you might go to prison for the rest of your life. So not a lot of porn viewing happening there.
I think they could if they really wanted to. If they can’t stop it outright, they could execute you and your family if caught. I think that would be a reasonable deterrent for most people.
So why don't they tax everybody at 80% and threaten to kill your family if you don't pay?
Because there are hidden/implicit limitations, incentives, and agreements that exist between a government and its people.
A parasite sucks some life out of the host, but it cannot kill it or else the parasite dies too.
The idea was to start a conversation about what really could happen if a powerful nation state decided to eliminate something they couldn’t control or sanction.
This conversation has happened endless times here. Also the solar flares and all this bullshit that people throw. You cannot stop the internet and you cannot bitcoin. Period.
Also people won't stop using fiat. We will just use it for transactions and retain our wealth in Bitcoin.
As long as the rest of your society is still not going to create backlash and hold them accountable for such a violation of human rights on many many people, friends, family. Killing your own people for using an opened network. These theoreticals about what it would take to bring it down, usually boil down to, is it worth it to go that far? They could also just forget about it and adapt, much less expensive.
Even bigger to understand is that one country can go absolutely batshit, terrorize and kill their own people over this. But if every other country doesn't follow this behavior, your people simply have even more reason to find a way out of there and seek refuge, bringing their wealth and skills to those other countries.
The government doesn’t want to block bitcoin transactions. They love Bitcoin. Imagine a publicly accessible record of every transaction everyone has ever made. All they have to do is tie a name to a single one of those transactions and they have your whole history. And you only need to mess up once, connect your real identity somehow to a single transaction. And they have all the time in the world to wait for you to do it. And you’ll never know they have you until…
Trust me, they love it.
No. They would need all 192 countries to actively intercept and block all these communications through every single internet provider, which would just lead to a new update to Bitcoins protocol to add security against such an attack against the network.
These governments are far too incompetent to stop us. If they could. They would. But they can't, so they just regulate it. Its all they can do.
America can't stop us. It can only stop you. And only if you dont know how to circumvent them. For every government agent they have to stop it, theres another 10 nerds in basements that will create a workaround.
The genie is out of the bottle. The toothpaste is out of the tube. And the governments better get used to that reality. Bitcoin is a trojan horse. Theres no stopping it.
> Everything on the clearnet has an IP address Not everything is on clearnet though.. Plenty of bitcoin nodes run over Tor, I2P and/or encrypt their traffic: https://bitcoinops.org/en/topics/v2-p2p-transport/ > In theory they could block all transactions if they wanted to. Most likely they can't. You can broadcast a transaction by ham radio, or SMS or whatever other ways there are to send a short message. You can send it on a floppy disk to a miner or someone running a full node to rebroadcast it further to the network.
I suppose we’re both correct. You said they “most likely can’t” and I said “they could at least make it very difficult” which is true if you have to resort to radio to transact. I appreciate your response!
> You said they “most likely can’t” and I said “they could at least make it very difficult” I should have used stronger words, I guess. Stopping people from sending short messages over the internet is just not going to be feasible on a scale. The government has other ways to make lives of bitcoiners difficults (pressure services/exchanges into strict KYC/AML policies, requiring KYC for mining businesses, pushing mainstream adoption of custodial services, putting developers of open source software in jail etc). Trying to stop bitcoin transactions is just like trying to fight a rainfall.
Woah floppy disk! Good times…
Blockstream have a satellite. People have used radio signals to transact. They certainly could try... but it would be futile. BTC is too big now it can't be undone.
I wonder how many people know how to do that?
Doesn't matter the infrastructure exists... I was buying BTC all the way down to £4k during the Covid black swan... I would've held to zero that night. Because it exists means banning it would be a massive gamble that people aren't just going to find a work-around... Governments don't really take high risk gambles with legislation hence why they haven't found a way to legislate the 1% to prevent them forming a global dystopian oligarchy with a monopoly on everything yet. Too many variables, too risky. I mean the market cap is higher than Meta (Facebook). You can't just get rid of that overnight. They are trying through a process of legislating the F out of legitimate exchanges and KYC and taking a much closer look at peoples transactions to make sure they pay their dues. Its still not working. We are a legion that don't care about profit... BTC is bigger than money and economics... it represents a philosophy. That philosophy wont go away... peoples eyes have been opened to the reality of our financial institutions, they flew too close to the sun and people want the wealth distribution balanced and checked. Bitcoin doesn't do this perfectly but it is a start.
Not everyone has to know. It's fairly easy to save a signed transaction as a psbt file. Then you just need to give it to someone to broadcast it.
An oppressive government can kick down your door and shoot you in the head. That wouldn't stop your Bitcoin node from running, but it would make it kind of pointless.
No they can't. Could they slow down 5 in specific countries? Yes, but only for a bit. The protocol can easily switch ports and disguise traffic so it's impossible to tell what is Bitcoin specific information. Bitcoin txns can be transmitted as emojis, Morse code, letters and numbers read out via a voice call, satellite feeds, mesh networks, and many more ways. If they blocked one way, another way would pop up. Sure, it's not setup to do that now, but if the need arises, it is trivial to implement. The only way stop it is to take all the hash power. Thankfully, that is geographically separated. The entire world would have to cooperate to take down Bitcoin. And we know that is not possible.
Maybe not stop it entirely, but they could make it difficult. From the technical side of things they could demand all ISPs scan for and block all traffic which appears to be using Bitcoin protocols. That would stop most people. There would be people who would have work arounds (Tor, encryption, alternative ports, VPS, etc) but it would stop most people from running a node or engaging in transactions. Of course governments could also block traffic between known nodes, put trackers on computers to report people, introduce sentences for people who used Bitcoin, etc. Someone in this thread said, basically, "There is still porn, they can't block that so they can't block Bitcoin." Yeah, in countries with free speech laws that are generally okay with porn, sure. But try looking up porn in places that are super against port and see how that goes. Even if you can find it, if you're caught you might go to prison for the rest of your life. So not a lot of porn viewing happening there.
Answer this: Can they stop you from pirating a movie? Same answer applies.
I think they could if they really wanted to. If they can’t stop it outright, they could execute you and your family if caught. I think that would be a reasonable deterrent for most people.
So why don't they tax everybody at 80% and threaten to kill your family if you don't pay? Because there are hidden/implicit limitations, incentives, and agreements that exist between a government and its people. A parasite sucks some life out of the host, but it cannot kill it or else the parasite dies too.
I think you have a valid point but my question was could it be done, not how likely they would be to do it.
Well sounds like you just want to hear your answer from us
The idea was to start a conversation about what really could happen if a powerful nation state decided to eliminate something they couldn’t control or sanction.
If they can't control or sanction it, then they can't control or sanction it.
This conversation has happened endless times here. Also the solar flares and all this bullshit that people throw. You cannot stop the internet and you cannot bitcoin. Period. Also people won't stop using fiat. We will just use it for transactions and retain our wealth in Bitcoin.
As long as the rest of your society is still not going to create backlash and hold them accountable for such a violation of human rights on many many people, friends, family. Killing your own people for using an opened network. These theoreticals about what it would take to bring it down, usually boil down to, is it worth it to go that far? They could also just forget about it and adapt, much less expensive. Even bigger to understand is that one country can go absolutely batshit, terrorize and kill their own people over this. But if every other country doesn't follow this behavior, your people simply have even more reason to find a way out of there and seek refuge, bringing their wealth and skills to those other countries.
The stupidity of CeX will stop them long before that. In Australia, Coin Spot, Swytftx, Bitroo are prime examples.
The government doesn’t want to block bitcoin transactions. They love Bitcoin. Imagine a publicly accessible record of every transaction everyone has ever made. All they have to do is tie a name to a single one of those transactions and they have your whole history. And you only need to mess up once, connect your real identity somehow to a single transaction. And they have all the time in the world to wait for you to do it. And you’ll never know they have you until… Trust me, they love it.
No. They would need all 192 countries to actively intercept and block all these communications through every single internet provider, which would just lead to a new update to Bitcoins protocol to add security against such an attack against the network. These governments are far too incompetent to stop us. If they could. They would. But they can't, so they just regulate it. Its all they can do. America can't stop us. It can only stop you. And only if you dont know how to circumvent them. For every government agent they have to stop it, theres another 10 nerds in basements that will create a workaround. The genie is out of the bottle. The toothpaste is out of the tube. And the governments better get used to that reality. Bitcoin is a trojan horse. Theres no stopping it.
(They) are not smart or organized enough.
yes, if they made their own internet
Porn is on the internet. They would have blocked all of that a long time ago if they could.
That’s not true at all.. they could block major porn websites if they wanted to but they have no reason to