Most countries need USD, there will come a time most will need BTC. I wouldn't be surprised if some time in the future governments would take all the bitcoin they could from citizens and only give fiat or other form of IOUs. Coinbase will probably be forced to do this sometime in the future, people won't get bitcoin out, just fiat.
Discussion
that's an interesting view, kind of how central banks used to hold the gold and distribute IOUs among the population. But how do you think they could go about taking BTC from people at this point? I get it for BTC held in exchange but I don't see how they could go after the coins held in wallets
When you spend it to buy something, as long as along the way reaches some gov service or even force businesses or banks to hand over the btc. Business or individuals could go to a bank and put BTC as collateral for a loan, and after that point you would never get btc back, just the fiat value.
hmm I think the infrastructure is already in place to avoid this. You don't really need your BTC going through any govt service to spend it. You can deposit the BTC in a decentralised escrow protocol, where govts can't touch it. I wouldn't worry about this too much.
This is my base case. They might not overtly steal all of coinbase's corn. They may nationalize the company instead. They could also just turn the CIA on Armstrong and control him through blackmail. Many roads lead to the same destination. The longer the government delays backing the dollar with bitcoin, the more likely this outcome.
In any case, once the incentives and game theory are apparent to all in the government apparatus we will get to watch the suits turn over all their corn in exchange for gov't promises. If that's not enough, they will come for the civilian corn next. Take care that your cold storage measures are secure against the government in all it's might.
Geographically distributed multi-jurisdiction multisig self custody is the way.
Yes, they don't need to put their hands on CB coins, they will just control CB. I don't think they will take BTC out of people, but if you spend it its likely it will go to gov hands and w you won't be able to recover refill your stack.
Yeah it's gonna get real tough to stack sats once they shut down the onramp services. This is why every pleb should be looking into home mining or otherwise form relationships with local miners. Decentralize mining and ensure your income stream in a bitcoinizing world.
Secure a self-sovereign source of sats stat!
Some governments will do this. Some won’t. Guess where bitcoins brain power will migrate.