I don’t know a whole lot about bitcoins, so maybe you can help me. You argued that decentralization makes the bitcoin system difficult to shut down. I’m assuming that before the US government would want to shut bitcoins down, bitcoins would have to significantly grow in prominence, and be accepted by a number of large businesses (Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble, Target, JC Penny’s, etc) with websites. Because bitcoins would then be available for a wider variety of purchases, they would get a lot of new users. Assuming that the government then decided to shut it down, couldn’t they just make it illegal for businesses to accept bitcoins? Bitcoins might still be available for person-to-person transactions, and maybe some small businesses, but if a business is present in the real world, and has to pay taxes, and so can be audited, that would put them pretty much at the mercy of the government.
Is what I’m talking about possible, or is there something in the bitcoin system that would prevent this?
If there’s an safe and relatively quick way to change your bitcoins into USD or Euros or any other currency, then it would be easy to spend them on Amazon anyway—as an end-user, you might even semi-automate* the conversion when shopping at such sites.
*Presumably you would want to at least sign off on the current exchange rate first.
I don’t know a whole lot about bitcoins, so maybe you can help me. You argued that decentralization makes the bitcoin system difficult to shut down. I’m assuming that before the US government would want to shut bitcoins down, bitcoins would have to significantly grow in prominence, and be accepted by a number of large businesses (Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble, Target, JC Penny’s, etc) with websites. Because bitcoins would then be available for a wider variety of purchases, they would get a lot of new users. Assuming that the government then decided to shut it down, couldn’t they just make it illegal for businesses to accept bitcoins? Bitcoins might still be available for person-to-person transactions, and maybe some small businesses, but if a business is present in the real world, and has to pay taxes, and so can be audited, that would put them pretty much at the mercy of the government.
Is what I’m talking about possible, or is there something in the bitcoin system that would prevent this?
If there’s an safe and relatively quick way to change your bitcoins into USD or Euros or any other currency, then it would be easy to spend them on Amazon anyway—as an end-user, you might even semi-automate* the conversion when shopping at such sites.
*Presumably you would want to at least sign off on the current exchange rate first.