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Comment by jerguismi | Hacker News Reader

> even though these currencies are much more likely than bitcoin to be around in 5 years.

How so? As bitcoin is a p2p network, it is likely to be around whatever happens. The only thing that could happen would be that internet breaks down - pretty unlikely, I think. Even when internet breaks in several pieces, each "local internet" will just use their own bitcoin - the block chain will be split in to several. After the two "local internets merge", the blockchain which has more computation behind it, will win.

In discussion, you should separate two things a) bitcoin's economic value/utility b) bitcoin network itself. I'm pretty sure that bitcoin itself will be here about forever, however it is pretty unclear if anyone will use it.

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BTC will be around but a fluid market for BTCUSD or BTCEUR -- ie. a plentiful amount of people interested in buying or selling bitcoin for other currencies -- won't necessarily be.

This is true. Goverments could start shutting down bitcoin exchanges any day. Luckily we can still survive with cash exchanges and/or decentralized exchanges.

Or maybe people would simply lose their interest in to bitcoins, or start using something else. Maybe Google will invent their own bitcoin, and everyone starts using that. Or maybe something else happens.

Upvoted.

When the USG starts shutting down the exchanges, which will happen any minute now, Bitcoin will go to zero and stay there. Everyone who thought their BTC was worth USG will want out - and find that the doors are now locked. The BTC price won't even be epsilon. It'll be zero.

The monetary design of Bitcoin is sound. The political design, not so.

Most exchanges are outside the USG's jurisdiction. Even if the USG tries to crack down, there will always be workarounds. The USG has been cracking down on online poker and gambling sites fir years, but that has never stopped the growth of the online-poker market in the US (to this day, online poker sites continue to sponsor poker tournaments that are aired on ESPN).

The USG has been successful killing payment companies before (eg e-gold, epassporte, neteller), but those were of course centralized systems. Bitcoin is decentralized, which is why its supporters believe that it is here to stay regardless of the actions of any particular government.

The agencies fighting against online poker are much weaker; also, poker is a profitable business that can defend itself.

The US dollar is a centralized system. US financial regulation is in effect worldwide (except now Iran, I guess). If you have a decentralized system dependent on a centralized one, it's a centralized system.

Bitcoin is not dependent on the USD for its operations, just for its value. The day after MtGox (for instance) is indicted, everyone will be selling and no one will be buying. Also, all payment processors everywhere will cut off all Bitcoin exchanges everywhere.

(Everywhere excluding Iran, I guess. Is Bitcoin big in Iran?)

> (Everywhere excluding Iran, I guess. Is Bitcoin big in Iran?)

I wouldn't say 'big' exactly, but the participation is non-zero: http://blockchain.info/nodes-globe?series=48hrs

Let's imagine that the entire staff of MtGox were to be arrested tomorrow. Their homes burned, the earth salted, etc. So no more Bitcoin to USD trades at MtGox.

But what about your neighbor Bob's place? You buy him dinner, and the next day a string of bits comes your way via Tor (or somesuch.) There is no need to utter the word "Bitcoin" during said dinner. A wink, a nudge, etc. will suffice. The next day, Bob does the same with his neighbor Charlie. And so on.

And, naturally, if Bob were a traitor, he could rat you out to the Gestapo. But he could just as easily rat you out for [insert extremely popular but highly-illegal-in-the-USA activity here.] No digital cocaine required - the analog kind will do. And if you haven't any under your bed, Bob will helpfully leave a kilo in your toilet tank.

Most people have already had plenty of practice exchanging highly-illegal strings of bits. Now they will just need to learn to give each other "free" stuff as well.

Bitcoin hasn't reached the critical mass needed for this kind of thing, but there is no reason why it could not.

Consider hawala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala) which is doing quite well despite draconian bans. On which currencies do hawala transactions depend? All of them and none of them.

I'm talking about a), of course. In this context, I don't see the point of talking about b) regardless of a). You might as well say that the pre-war German mark "is still around" since some people happen to be holding old German coins, and maybe are trading them on ebay.

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