Ask HN: Can governments across the world shutdown Bitcoin nodes?

5 points·qwertyuiop_··6 comments

I couldn't the answer to this anywhere on the nets. Can goverments across the world shutdown Bitcoin nodes in a concerted effort at the protocol or traffic level ?

One possibility is they can outlaw the nodes, making it illegal to run a node with severe consequences.

Other possibility is block at protocol ISP level on massive scale.

Is this possible ?

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Are you speaking practically or legally?

Practically: yeah sure no problem. Governments already collaborate on stuff like missing people and/or terrorist tracking and civilian espionage.

On a legal basis though... where's the law that prevents me from doing the kind of math to run a bitcoin node?

And even if there was such a law, it might be unconstitutional and thus not enforceable (at least in the long run).

Yes: https://www.axios.com/cryptocurrency-china-india-legislation...

Any reports back on how effective this ban is? i.e. how much did this successfully ban nodes vs just move all their traffic to Tor?

Theoretically? Yes.

Realistically? No.

We still have bit torrent don't we?

Yes, and yes.

Never underestimate the capability of other people to ruin your day.

Governments have literally genocided, sent to concentration camps, tortured, experimented on millions of people more than a few times just in the past 100 years. Of course they can ban Bitcoin lol. The only question is the extent to which they're willing to go to stop it.

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