[lotharbot]

Engineers like to use lines like "long chain of numbers", but that doesn't really hold weight. Stolen credit card numbers, digitized child porn, and terrorist communications all also qualify as "just a bunch of numbers". So does the majority of NSA surveillance, which most HN'ers oppose.

The government is pretty good at figuring out justifications for banning things. I wouldn't rely on reasoning as flimsy as "it's just numbers" for why it couldn't happen. (I'm not saying I expect them to, just that if they did, it'd most likely take the form of a merchant ban, "just numbers" would not be an adequate justification, and all the big retailers would comply because none of them want to risk a big legal fight.)

[jsprogrammer]

>Stolen credit card numbers, digitized child porn, and terrorist communications all also qualify as "just a bunch of numbers".

Sorry, are you claiming that government has stopped those things?

A government can say whatever it likes. Actually causing that to be reality is a much different problem.

[lotharbot]

I'm claiming that those things are less ubiquitous than they'd be if they were legal. You can get them, but you have to do so underground, and there are risks associated with that trade.

You seem to be thinking in terms of whether the government has the absolute power to 100% stop something. The rest of us are thinking in terms of whether, if the government declared something to be illegal, it would have a significant impact on that market. I claim that it would. Part of the value of bitcoin is that you can exchange it for physical goods at major retailers like Home Depot, Target, Subway, and TigerDirect. If the government declares a ban, those retailers would almost definitely honor that ban, and then bitcoin would become less valuable overnight.