[dcolkitt]

I'm not really a big bitcoin guy (own a few hundred dollars worth), but this seems like a straw man.

I really doubt that anyone is buying bitcoin for the collapse of industrial civilization. The more prepper-case for bitcoin comes from either very high inflation, financial instability, and/or severe capital controls. It's not implausible that these conditions coexist with the continued existence of industrial civilization.

It's not implausible because it's happened many times before in history. For example, if you were a Jew in Germany circa 1936, Bitcoin would have been very very valuable to you. In much the same that diamonds were valuable to those in that time and place, because of the ease by which they could be hidden and smuggled against the authorities' wishes.

[tsimionescu]

Because a public personal ledger of every cent you ever transacted is perfect for protecting you from an authoritarian regime willing to use force against you...

[dcolkitt]

It's obviously not as simple as you conjecture. For the simple reason that the blockchain is simply a record of transactions on anonymous public keys. Generating a new private-public key pair can be done trivially and secretly.

Everyday thousands of illicit transactions are carried out on the blockchain. The US government has never shown a shortage of force when it comes to stopping drug dealers. Yet the number of people who've been arrested based on blockchain analysis can be counted on one hand.

[asymptotically2]

See Monero. Transaction senders, recipients, and amounts are hidden by default.

[mywittyname]

But a service like Paypal would likely work just as well but with the added benefit of being much more stable. That, combined with gold is really enough for most middle class people in Asia.

Once you start getting into the tens of thousands of USD, you can afford to obtain bank accounts outside of the country tied to a business. These are widely available and there's an entire cottage industry of lawyers who can provide everything you need.

[kylebenzle]

You don't see the value proposition of peer-to-peer digital cash, cool.

[foepys]

Bitcoin needs a highly reliable network to work properly. Without block propagation, you cannot do anything with it.

Thinking that there would be a network when even the slightest disruption to civilization happens is simply naïve. The internet would probably be the first thing to go. Even before electric cars.

[blaser-waffle]

Bingo. Gold is pretty straightforward -- shiny metal. You don't need any understanding of cryptography, networking, distributed services, or modulus calculus to "get" gold.

You also don't need electricity (or most other modern luxury) to modify, trade, or use gold -- plenty of gold changing hands throughout the ages.

Cryptographic currencies have their use, but if the economy is looking shaky I'd rather have cash, gold, silver, cans of beans, or ammunition; BTC wouldn't even rank top 25.

[leetcrew]

a service like paypal would not have helped in a (dramatic) example like the hypothetical jew in nazi germany. the nazis would have given paypal a list of known jews and told them to freeze their accounts if they wanted to continue doing business in germany.

[abduhl]

Oh come on man, you think that Germany directing a foreign country to freeze assets during the lead in to a war is a more likely way for a Jew in Nazi Germany to lose their hidden savings as compared to them trying to smuggle a USB wallet as they get stripped of all their belongings, clothes, and dignity and loaded on a train? Are they gonna hide it in their butthole and hope they don't have to take a dump until they get out of the concentration camp 7 years later and can finally get around to a computer so they can plug it in and access their bitcoins?

Get the fuck out of here.

[darkteflon]

You don’t need a physical token. All you need is the seed, which you can store in your head. Educate yourself.

[tshaddox]

I mean, it's no secret that foreign banks absolutely did help Nazi Germany in many ways, including transacting assets seized from Jews in Germany. We also have no shortage of stories about large transaction companies like PayPal closing or freezing people's accounts due to unspecified (but apparently political) reasons.

I wouldn't say "GTFO" quite yet. Not without some more explanation for why you think it's so improbable.