Leo you are mistaken here.
If someone funds Wikileaks via a bank transfer, that transaction can be censored or seized.
Leo, i think the word you are searching for is 'theft'
Sure, but those custodial sites that are subject to seizure orders from the country in which they operate are not exactly part of the bitcoin whitepaper.Correct, they can't compel the blockchain to give it up, but in search & seizures authorities are successfully seizing bitcoin. So as stated in the linked article, it is resistant to seizure, but it is still subject to such in certain circumstances.
It's one of the potential benefits of bitcoin.
Imagine if people, say refugees can take their accumulated wealth across boundaries without the ability of x government to seize it?
They could do so by memorizing the password (mnemonic phrase) that unlocks their bitcoin on the blockchain.
They could cross through borders with literally empty pockets.
Many bitcoiners are also into gold.
But the scarcity of gold will soon be tested.
They say we are about 20-50 years from mining asteroids.
At that point it is expected that "rare earth" deposits will be found in abundance.
It doesn't matter if you change bitcoin code, that's what the hard forks do.I think I will bet on gold still being rare in 50 years time than on bit coin being the new gold or even being in existence. Harvesting gold from asteroids or deep in ocean's is a whole magnitude of difficulty much greater than hacking into the bit coin source code and changing it. If I were a technologist and given a big budget and a choice I know I would choose cracking into bit coin as being doable, harvesting gold from asteroids as a good Hollywood movie from 1970s.
It doesn't matter if you change bitcoin code, that's what the hard forks do.
What matters is, does anybody else accept your code?
There is a saying in bitcoin: Don't Trust, Verify.
Bitcoiners that run Full Nodes (not mining) verify transactions.
If your transaction does not compute, it's dropped.
Ive done a bit of programming back in the day and bitcoin at the end of the day is just code that was created by a human, there was an arbitrary limit when the code was originally written that set the limit at 21 million bitcoins. That is an arbitrary limit that can be changed, surely the creators of bitcoin still have access to their code. When enough resources are thrown at something all unbreakable codes can be broken, remember enigma
Gold is extremely rare even in the universe and humans cannot create gold like they can with bitcoin. Do you not think a bit far fetched to suggest that gold will become cheap because we will be able to harvest it from asteroids but breaking the bitcoin code is too difficult so it will replace gold ..... good luck with that
I disagree about the ability to "hack bitcoin"
The code is open source, anybody can copy it and make whatever changes you want.
It's not the code that runs the protocol that is unhackable, it's data that comprises the blockchain.
My point is, that the scale of resources and timing to "hack bitcoin" the bitcoin protocol is too great probably for even a nation state to attempt.
Quite right. Gold has been established over an age - that's clearly to be respected. However, otherwise, in terms of valuation, there is no difference. Some will say that it has use as jewelry or limited industrial use but the reality is that its primary use is as a store of value.Why not? Gold only has a value because the collective believe it has value i.e. you and your neighbour. This is after thousands of years of people believing it has value but in reality what is the use of gold? It is basically only useful for making Jewellery.
There is no difference with Bitcoin, if the collective believe it has a monetary value then it does.
Brendan had stated Bitcoin is not like gold.