So the first two articles are confiscation through an exchange, that different to owning the bitcoin yourself, the 3rd article actually explains it better that bitcoin cant be taken but if someone is blackmailed or forced in someway to hand over their keys then it can be take but the government cant just shut it down at will and take it like they do with a bank account.
There are some African countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia where the banks and government declarred bitcoin illegal and banned it, yet it continues to grow in these countries and theres nothing they can do to stop it or confiscate it.
You should be using Monero if this is your primary concern, since unlike Bitcoin it actually has anonymity and is useful as a currency. Bitcoin's public ledger means that if an address can be tied to you, your entire transaction history can easily be traced. Your Bitcoin address could be blacklisted from exchanges, meaning you would have no way of converting it to any other useful currency. You could only send it back and forth to other Bitcoin addresses, which themselves could also be blacklisted. The effect would be to strand your bitcoins on a virtual island where they would safely remain for eternity, unable to be exchanged for anything of value and only traded for other Bitcoin, completely useless and worthless.
This is because Bitcoin has nothing to do with the currencies of Nigeria and Ethiopia. But Bitcoin has a lot to do with the USD, or more accurately with the USDT Tether stable coin. The US government could literally send Bitcoin's price into the triple digits in a matter of days if they chose to do so. Just cracking down on the obvious fraud perpetrated by Tether would send the price off a cliff, as Bitcoin's price is massively inflated by Tether printing USDT out of thin air. Bitcoin maxis never want to talk about Tether for a reason. Most of them are savvy enough to recognize it's a problem, but would rather sweep it under the rug and hope that Bitcoin adoption continues increasing to the point that Tether itself is deemed "too big to fail". When you look at it from this perspective, it couldn't be more obvious that all the talk about Bitcoin reinventing the banking system and taking down the elites is nothing but hot air. Bitcoin maxis don't want to take down the financial elites, they want to become them.
How is that a bad thing though? So I could keep on trading it with other bitcoin users and also buy stuff from places that accept bitcoin as payment
If I really want to I could just open another account and send it all there in seconds or to a friend.
I dont know about tether maybe @chance vought can chime in here, bitcoin has nothing to do with the dollar though, the point is those African countries governments were powerless in stopping bitcoin trading, even the most populated country in the world, China, banned bitcoin.
Your repeating falsehoods over and over isn't a good look. It has all the best properties of money, and I've never called it a currency, because obviously anything can be a currency, which of course is irrelevant (fiat). You are confused because you can't help yourself from repeating this nonsense over and over about how it is a "currency" or trying to be one, when it's not. Why do you keep doing that?
Your view is entirely ignorant of the past. Disruptions and innovations are by definition things most people can't see, do we have to list them again? You are part of that group, which is a you problem, not a me problem. I'm sure you've read Jason Lowery's book (who is an MIT guy working for the US Space Force), Softwar. No, that would take too much time, effort and curiosity to see that someone smarter than most doesn't even bother with the fact that it's some low level "currency", it's far more. Like most, you don't know what you don't know.
Do you honestly think I'm just bag pumping for financial gain? That's humorous. The best part is that I've done more than enough to educate people on these boards what we're dealing with, yet I still get labeled a charlatan by a few, or at least (it seems) you.
This statement is completely clueless and absurd. It has reached peak participation
... sure.Sorta like gold?
Bingo. Remember when China tried to ban mining? Lol, they gave that up pretty quickly.
And unlike BTC it isn't a good store of value. Go check the market on it. Yeah, that'd be too much work.
You aren't aware of Game Theory but I feel the God State complex coming back ...
There it is!
We already did years ago when Mike Green was schlonged about his "warnings" and destroyed by Nic Carter as well. I've forgotten more about the Tether story than you know.
The God State Complex returns!
Of coarse the governments actions will affect the value of bitcoin and money
Bitcoin is not trying to be a currency? Let's take a look at the Bitcoin white paper, to see what Bitcoin's inventor had to say about that:
I'm sure you've read L. Ron Hubbard's book Dianetics, right? As well as dozens of other scientology publications? No? Well, color me shocked that you don't see any value in consuming nonsensical, pseudo-religious propaganda specifically designed to separate you from your money!
Satoshi never intended Bitcoin to be a store of value, because by definition currencies are not supposed to store value, as this encourages hoarding and defeats the entire purpose of a medium of exchange. "Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system" was the design. This "digital scarcity" nonsense was invented years after the fact by whales to encourage people like you to buy their bags.
And yet Tether still remains a massive fraud that is essentially acting like Bitcoin's own Federal Reserve by printing unbacked USDT. Funny how you will rail on and on about the Fed and fiat, but have nothing to say about Tether doing exactly the same thing for Bitcoin. Total hypocrisy, and betrays the fact that your true motivation in owning and promoting Bitcoin is nothing but naked greed.
That is a non-sensical argument disproven by history. The majority of currencies before fiat where supposed to be a store of value e.g. gold, silver etc.
Exactly the bag pumping argument from Scorpion is not credible when your audience is so small. Even if you somehow convinced every single person on ChristisKing to buy Bitcoin it would not move the price of Bitcoin. Sure if Mr. Beast or Elon Musk started talking up Bitcoin ever day that could impact the price but you talking about Bitcoin is irrelevant (in terms of its price impact).
But like it or not, that's the world we live in. For all of their flaws, the reality is that fiat currencies have helped create the modern world. They have a proven track record of success for encouraging and facilitating economic activity and investment. Also, historically precious metals were not a deflationary currency like Bitcoin. Not only was the supply of gold and silver increasing at a steady rate via mining (real mining!), but it was exceedingly common for coins to be clipped and melted down to produce new coinage (a form of inflation). Bitcoin is inherently dysfunctional as a currency, because as long as it is regarded as a "digital asset" there is zero incentive to spend or trade it for anything. According to Bitcoin maxis, there is no reason to invest in anything besides Bitcoin. No reason to start a new business or develop real estate. No reason to do anything except buy and hoard Bitcoin. It's utterly foolish nonsense, and if Bitcoin were somehow to become some sort of international currency, it would prove utterly disastrous economically for this reason.
Yes the supply of gold and silver increased gradually via mining but so did human population and GDP hence the value of gold was generally maintained despite the mining. Gold moved in cycles but on average over long periods its purchasing was stable due to the counterbalancing forces.
Also that is not quite the same as fiat being debased. Because if you had held one of the original gold coins that contained more gold it was worth more than a new coin containing less gold (it was relatively simple to ascertain the gold content of a coin) and so the value of your savings did not actually depreciate. If you have a $100 USD note from today or from 10 years ago they are both worth the same.
I'm not defending it, I'm just saying it's a reality - one that we've lived with now for quite awhile and which has facilitated the development of modern society. What we've never lived with, however, is a purely deflationary currency that is intended to be hoarded, and which therefore cannot be used to promote economic investment. Fiat currency is flawed, but like I said, at least it has a proven track record. Look around you, every bit of wealth and technology you enjoy was created in an economic system fueled by fiat currency. In contrast, Bitcoin's track record is nothing but a series of pumps and crashes and people trying to scam each other. People want to pretend like fiat currency is the worst thing ever invented, while ignoring the fact that it helped create the modern world. It's like criticizing electricity because it can kill people and burn down houses. Sure it can - but it also does a lot of good.
As somewhat of a bitcoin maxi: Tether sure looks like a house of cards. When Tether collapses, there'll be a bunch of news about it, and the price of bitcoin will crash, from which I think it will recover. I think it will recover because Tether inflates the price of bitcoin but doesn't have anything to do with the reasons people like it.
Fiat currency is the worst thing ever invented. The modern world has progressed despite fiat not because of it. The modern world progressed because of electricity, railroads, cars, the internet, etc not because of fiat. In fact all fiat did is redistribute a portion of the benefits of that progress to the elite class. If fiat was never invented the average person would be even more prosperous today. Your assertion is completely baseless. In essence what you are trying to say is inflation is good for the average person? How does that make any sense?
A totally unprovable and unfounded assertion.
Another unprovable and unfounded assertion, while accusing me of making baseless assertions!
Again, this is pure speculation on your part. The modestly inflationary USD has served rather admirably for the United States for most of the past century. You simply cannot deny the prosperity it has helped to bring about, despite its flaws. That being said, there is certainly room to improve upon our system. But my point all along has been that Bitcoin is far too flawed to be the basis for a total reinvention of the global financial system. The people promoting Bitcoin cloak their greed and delusion in idealism, but at the end of the day they're only buying it because they think they'll end up rich.