Did you see that interview where Scottie Pippen claims he met Satoshi in the 1990s? Dude is an absolute tool.
Depends. Do you need the money? (I. E. You will suffer significant lasting harm otherwise) If no, don't. If yes, proceed below. Can you borrow fiat instead? If yes, do that. If not, sure go ahead and sell.
"The internet" does not need any government, but "the internet as we know it" does. Obviously if the right governments wanted to limit or eliminate certain actions that take place on the Internet, those actions would be limited/eliminated. This is repeating an argument we had earlier in the thread, and it is a moot point because when it comes to Bitcoin, I don't really think it will matter much (at least not anytime soon). But yes, you probably don't want the future of money relying on such a thing, especially if you're naïve enough to think it is immune to certain things just cause.
It's definitely an odd take to suggest that we shouldn't/don't want money that is digital. If America ever decided to go full North Korea and monitor every single internet transaction for Bitcoin activity, you can bet I'd be on a plane with my seed phrase probably before that even took place. Seems we already conducted this experiment with China, right? Lots of people have made arguments that Bitcoin is vulnerable to certain things 'just cause', but nobody has made arguments it is immune for the same (non)reason.
It can be digitized, but it shouldn't be all-digital IMO. Especially if we're trying to come up with some sort of system that is independent from any state. If it was state-backed, then you can maybe handwave a few things away (as certainly a state wouldn't ban or even add friction to a system it controls). They wouldn't go this far, but if some reason the US really wanted to kill Bitcoin (or something similar), it wouldn't really matter that you left the country. There are only a small number of network providers to the Internet backbone (with a good chunk belonging to American companies), and if push came to shove (I guess a possibility if you wanted to forcibly remove control from the state), they could enforce limits on that network traffic. Of course you also have entities like AWS, MS, Google, and others that could be forced to comply with certain rules. Now you can buy some network cables and routers to make your own version of the Internet in Somalia or something, but good luck connecting with the Internet as we know it. For a number of reasons, this is a bad idea and not something I'd like to happen (even though I don't care for Bitcoin/crypto), but it is something theoretically possible if one or more certain states decided to do so. And as you mentioned, some states do in fact strongly regulate certain internet activity. China is certainly on one extreme. The US does it too, though to a much lesser extent. Mostly for things like child p*rnography, or even just regular p*rn (though that's more about limiting it than banning it, and it is state-by-state vs a federal thing). Oh even this forum is limiting that activity to some degree haha (and I support it). It is 100% a moot point because it will *not* happen. But I do like to throw it out there whenever people want to talk about theoretical properties of these kinds of systems. Well I say it is unlikely, but I guess there's a possibility we just outright ban an entire social media platform in the very near future, so I guess with the right propaganda behind it, who knows what tech the US could ban/limit. I can't speak for others, but if you think I have made claims that Bitcoin is vulnerable to certain things "just cause," please expound. On the flip side, there are posts like this: Probably better ones, but this was just a few pages back. There are a lot of strong claims being made, and the reasoning behind it is essentially "just cause." Now because I've participated in this thread for years, I know the attempted route one might go in backing up these claims. Because I've already argued against them. Even some of the things I've said above can illustrate problems with these claims. And we can have an argument over semantics and No True Scotsman these things, but honestly we need to be real about Bitcoin. No matter what the idea is, it is controlled, handled, and implemented by people. That opens it up to the same problems as everything else. There's nothing magical about it. Bitcoin is great because number go up. There, now we can all agree, and we can stop pretending to argue against its usefulness for criminal activities or things like that. Of course I'm amazed that the same people who go on and on about "Money Printer Go Brrr" seem to get quiet about a crypto money printer, but hey, it helps number go up. And that's all that really matters.
Analog assets seem far, far more vulnerable to nation state control and manipulation. I believe that the US could have killed Bitcoin some time before its global spread, but that opportunity has passed. The US can absolutely ban itself from the network, however. The reasoning behind it is physics, not "just cause". To make any of those statements not true you'd need a nearly inconceivable amount of energy and computing power concentrated in one direction simultaneously for an extended period of time. If you think that the G20 are going to get together and hijack the network in some coordinated attack, or that there's a Dr. Evil somewhere sitting on an as-yet-discovered energy source he plans to use to destroy Bitcoin with for... reasons? Then sure, that's your right to believe in such things. Just don't expect much company on that island. Sidenote: It's even arguable whether this would have any lasting effect vs. a temporary disruption, but for the sake of argument I'm happy to hypothesize it would create a crisis of confidence that could be fatal. Bitcoin is controlled by the consensus protocol and the laws of nature. There is nothing else on earth that functions this way. Please give me an example of a "same problem" originating from human control/origin applying to Bitcoin as it does to everything else. Are you talking about stablecoins?
I'm not sure I'd agree, though if you explain further, there might be a form of this statement that I'd agree with. But in general, no I'd prefer analog/physical whatever vs digital whatever (especially something connected to the internet). Bonus points to the former if it can appear in both forms. For example, give me physical voting ballots vs internet based voting. The latter would be much more prone to manipulation (from states or other entities). Yes, it can ban itself from the network...and it can ban Bitcoin related traffic from even going through the Internet itself (at least through the backbone parts it can pressure/control, as noted above). You can live outside the US and want to send a transaction to someone else who lives outside the US, but if it needs to go through anything that can be controlled by the US (and there's a lot of those parts), then you might be out of luck. If the US can pressure its allies to join in, you have even more problems. Never mind other aspects to this all (e.g., you can no longer use Github to host Bitcoin core). Now I'll stress again this is near 0% chance of happening due to a number of reasons. Nothing to my knowledge currently works this way as this type of filtering would slow things down massively, plus open up slippery slope arguments...and for good reason. I'm only stating it is possible in some extreme event...and honestly just trying to shine a light on exactly how some of these things work. This is mostly for the folks who think they can give a big FU to the world powers while still leveraging something like the Internet. If these world powers *actually* cared (and honestly you'd only need like maybe 3 of them to care), good luck using the Internet. From what I gather, the crypto folks seem to be cozying up with the powers that be, so I don't expect these governments to do anything even close to this. Much more likely to go the opposite direction. You don't need any of that because Bitcoin doesn't run on physics. It runs on code. And you can throw all of that out the window when code is involved (never mind the hardware and other aspects involved). The Star Citizen devs have spent 12+ years and $750M+, and I guess they haven't figured out you can just plop in those equations from Einstein, Newton, etc., to make sure ships don't randomly explode (or maybe that's some part of quantum mechanics we just don't fully understand). I'm repeating myself from earlier in the thread, and I'm not sure why you continue to pretend this is not the case. Yes, in theory (as in...written on some PDF or whatever), Bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million. Except for those versions of Bitcoin (running in the real world) that would have accidentally allowed for more to be created due to a bug (which IIRC was caused by trying to fix a DDoS vulnerability, of which I think some might still exist). Now with a bug, it can be caught early enough and would be unintentional. It can be patched (although it can be a challenge to distribute that fix throughout the network, which...isn't a great property to have from a security standpoint). But clearly Bitcoin in reality doesn't always follow the rules that existed on some Bitcoin paper, and the fact that this is possible should give folks concern. Though it doesn't really affect "number go up," so maybe there's no concern. If we could give the Universe the idea of Bitcoin and have it implement it, then maybe I'd sing a different tune. Unfortunately, we've given that idea to man to handle. And unfortunately, that means I have to trust man when it comes to the claims you made, not Bitcoin. And man is certainly corruptible (among other things). Maybe I should post that xkcd voting software comic for the 100th time as apparently people weren't able to see it previously. Maybe the US is blocking content after all. Already stated this, but to be clear, the point is Bitcoin is a creation of (and implemented) by man. Therefore, it can be corrupted...by man. Just like all other things man has created. Ding ding ding. Technically other entities are involved in this whole "number go up" thing, but for that specific comment, yes stablecoins are what I was referring to.
Sure, congress could ban it. But it would take a constitutional crisis for it to happen. And the supreme court would overturn it. Many people forget this, but 1) We are a capitalistic country, which generally means everything is legal unless it is deemed illegal by law or regulation. 2) Our government consists of checks and balances. 1 person or a group of people can't deem something into law. Lawsuits would be lining out the door to overturn any decision. These are public companies who must answer to shareholders. People won't take well to the government forcing these companies into compliance. Bitcoin is based on formulas executed by computer code. I would argue its more physics based than code based. The most likely scenario of bitcoins decline will be a better solution, whatever that might be.
I don't disagree with much of this, which is why I repeatedly say it wouldn't happen for a variety of reasons (including these, but also some others). Again, I'm just making the point to counter anyone thinking some of these properties of Bitcoin are as solid as the laws of thermodynamics. These properties rely on the will of men, and thus, they are subject to the will of men. In comparison, no matter the will of men, we're not going faster than the speed of light or creating gold out of thin air. If men in the future want Bitcoin to raise its 21 million cap, the cap will be raised. I will note that the US even contemplating banning an entire social media platform (even if they walk it back), among other things, shows that it might not be *that* crazy to expect something like this to happen. I know some even have concerns about the future of how our country might function in the future, though that would likely take us into political/D&D talk. And that's not something I have any desire of doing, especially since none of this really matters to this topic. Again, just providing context to people who think the Internet is just some amorphous thing that runs for free and can never be changed. That doesn't apply to anyone in this thread (I think?), but I swear some people do think something along these lines. Well again, I care not about what Bitcoin is based on as that has no impact on reality (unless you count dumb arguments on the Internet). I care about what it actually does in reality, and that depends on the code. To repeat myself again, we can plug in all the formulas for how physics works into code, and you might still end up with something like this: https://owltutors.co.uk/computer-science-the-coding-error-that-blew-up-a-rocket/ (or again the Star Citizen example I provided earlier...or the case where Bitcoin in reality did allow for more than 21M, even if Bitcoin physics didn't allow for it) And those are just bugs in actually implementing formulas in code. I'm not even talking about security vulnerabilities, where it doesn't matter what your formula says because someone else can just replace it with whatever they want. I don't know. This seems super obvious to me (and seems repeated by the CS profs I've mentioned before), but I'm the guy in the XKCD comic freaking out about computerized voting which apparently is lost on folks. To repeat what I've said before, even if I liked the ideas behind Bitcoin, using code to implement anything like this is IMO a terrible idea. Having said all I've said, this is probably true. Though I suppose a "better" solution will depend on what people actually care about. Bitcoin is still hard to beat when it comes to criminal activity like ransomware. IMO the most likely scenario that would probably lead to its "decline" would involve those stablecoins and exchanges I've been alluding to, but given how corrupt/unregulated everything in crypto is (and how no one cares as long as number go up), not sure how likely that is. But yeah, probably more likely than the US attempting to ban Bitcoin traffic from the global Internet.
If you buy 100 shares of MSTR with cover calls for 5 years, your 38000k will be well over 5 million when bitcoin his 1M and MSTR is running at a 10x NAV
