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Comment by nash | Hacker News Reader

The way things are going with these seizures, soon governments are going to be largest holders of bitcoins.

Good work on getting a currency without government control peeps!

It would be rather strange to expect a mechanism that bars governments from holding bitcoins to be built into the protocol, and thus it is rather strange that you expect this to have ever been the intention.

Whatever the "intention" was, what the parent says was the second most advertised supposed feature of Bitcoin by crypto bros (second, as first was "getting rich quick").

Sure, lack of government control is a main selling point, they just did not mean the term "control" in the way that both of you appear to be interpreting it.

I don't think bitcoin was designed to be impervious to government influence. The intention was to not be limited to a single controller, not that no controller be a government. Despite what some people think, bitcoin is not a "stick it to the man" invention

Ultimately if bitcoin is to reach the peak of a standard currency that some feel is inevitable (and some feel is futile) it would necessarily require government involvement. It wouldn't be a single government however. Monetary policy would have to be driven by a consensus of nations. That would possibly be the best (or least worst) way do do things.

None of this has any particular bearing on today's Bitcoin, if it's going to replace money it's not going to be in the next few decades. If it's still working in 50 years time, there might be a chance.

If you eliminate the noise of speculation on day-to-day levels of bitcoin, the underlying value difference between the current usefulness of bitcoin and the current trading price represents people placing bets on the likelihood of that success condition.

I think Bitcoin was designed to be decentralized money, and the rest was all emergent behaviour.

A lot of bitcoin holders do want it to be free from governments, though.

They dont want unilateral government seizure and dont want transactions whitelisted, and it accomplishes that

How that further manifests to some bitcoin enthusiasts probably cant cover all opinions

But its not a “government not allowed” system and its not important/useful for it to be

> The seizure came after the "accused voluntarily transferred" the bitcoins to an official wallet of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), police added in a statement.

Seizure is a technical word here, not what laypeople expect when they hear the word.

But yes, governments are already very big holders. https://bitcointreasuries.net/?maximized=treemap

As long as government can't print more Bitcoin, I don't see the problem!

The US Government is already one of or the largest know holder of Bitcoin. And that is without the assumption that the US Government owns the Satoshi coins. It would be fine if governments decided they want to hold Bitcoin. I see no issues.

Dumb take, anybody can hold Bitcoin.

superpowers already are in the top 10 for some time

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