I think I agree with you and think there's a parallel to other conventional currencies.
Controlling the hash is similar to controlling a central bank - you've got the power to trash your currency, but that's coupled with you probably having the most to lose if you do so.
You could maybe do something stupid short-term - Say you own a controlling amount of hash, but a fraction of the currency. You could seize the currency, but by doing do you devalue it all. Who in their right mind would buy a seized bitcoin from you for any price, knowing you could seize it right back?
Currency equivalent would be the Fed suddenly stating a dollar was worth half-as-much as it was before (compared to some external thing) and compensating all US citizens by doubling their dollar earnings. As a dollar earner/spender you'd notionally be unaffected.
Dollar debt the US owed would be halved - Yay!
However the effect on non-US dollar holders would be cataclysmic - "You made half my money vanish, you might do it again, I don't want to ever hold US dollars again" and bricks of your currency is being used by children worldwide to build forts.
The entire selling point of BTC is that it's outside of conventional government control. If proved otherwise, it's without value.
More realistically, "Chinese Miners" aren't the government. They're miners, who happen to be in China, due to cheap power costs. At the first whiff of any meddling, their ASICs going to be on a plane and plugged into the Hoover Damn or Iceland's geothermals.
> More realistically, "Chinese Miners" aren't the government.
I think that's largely the point, other comments are appealing that somehow the Chinese govt has a lot to lose by seizing control of bitcoin, but in reality they probably just have no reason to yet, it beggars belief that an authoritarian government would allow private citizens to control an important currency on their own soil. My own take is that they are letting it run because of the shadow of doubt it is casting on the USD.
> ASICs going to be on a plane and plugged into the Hoover Damn or Iceland's geothermals
A little simplistic to think non-negligible percentages of the hash pool would turn themselves off, relocate internationally, completely disrupt the difficulty rate, put themselves at a massive disadvantage and subject themselves to an unknown foreign government who might be completely hostile toward them.
More pertinently the CCP might "meddle" with their ability to fly out of the country as they have done with countless dissidents already.
Controlling the hash is similar to controlling a central bank - you've got the power to trash your currency, but that's coupled with you probably having the most to lose if you do so.
You could maybe do something stupid short-term - Say you own a controlling amount of hash, but a fraction of the currency. You could seize the currency, but by doing do you devalue it all. Who in their right mind would buy a seized bitcoin from you for any price, knowing you could seize it right back?
Currency equivalent would be the Fed suddenly stating a dollar was worth half-as-much as it was before (compared to some external thing) and compensating all US citizens by doubling their dollar earnings. As a dollar earner/spender you'd notionally be unaffected.
Dollar debt the US owed would be halved - Yay!
However the effect on non-US dollar holders would be cataclysmic - "You made half my money vanish, you might do it again, I don't want to ever hold US dollars again" and bricks of your currency is being used by children worldwide to build forts.
The entire selling point of BTC is that it's outside of conventional government control. If proved otherwise, it's without value.
More realistically, "Chinese Miners" aren't the government. They're miners, who happen to be in China, due to cheap power costs. At the first whiff of any meddling, their ASICs going to be on a plane and plugged into the Hoover Damn or Iceland's geothermals.
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