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[–]mharmless 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

The same government that made owning gold illegal for forty years is not going to be restrained from making your bitcoins into useless data if it ever actually becomes a threat to them.

When the fiat behind your currency is nuclear weapons, well... yeah.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

the same government who tried to amke torrenting music illegal?

[–]C3P0 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

How would the government make bitcoins turn into useless data?

[–]wuzizname 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

By making trading of them illegal. That would do it.

[–]Lahontan 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Making it illegal would probably make more people use it. Bootlegging crypto instead of liquor.

Imagine if there are some catastrophic crop failures around the world and food becomes scarce, and they implement the coronavirus passport that integrates your ID and ability to use money. They'll limit the amount of food you can buy no matter how much money you have. But your family is still hungry, or you want to have something extra like ice cream. Your neighbor has an illegal ice cream operation and accepts Monero. Using crypto is going to facilitate black markets for essential goods.

[–]C3P0 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I see. In no case would the coins be rendered useless data. Also, the US government's laws do not extend internationally (obviously). So you could just trade the bitcoins on foreign websites.

Perhaps you mean that the US government would make it illegal for American citizens to possess bitcoins. Maybe considering giving up your citizenship in that kind of state.