[MarcusBrutus]

I argued that the US govt. can deploy its force to protect the dollar (as has done in the past even to the point of going to war) and the assurance of such a powerful guardian undergirds the trust in US dollar. Other have already answered as to how it can deploy force against Bitcoin (although not part of my argument). Governments can also act in concert. Invoking images of pedophiles or drug dealers using BTC would be more than enough to secure public support for such measures as blocking BTC port numbers, Deep Packet Inspection for BTC protocol content and ensuring that no legitimate retailer wants to be seen associating its name with the "pedophiles currency".

[XorNot]

People always propose ridiculously convoluted solutions to simple problems.

Step 1: make Bitcoin exchanges illegal to operate. There is no Step 2.

All the supposed uncensorability of BitCoin doesn't matter once you do that, because no one conducting legal business activities is going to bother with it after that. Al Capone was arrested for tax fraud.

[ferdo]

> Step 1: make Bitcoin exchanges illegal to operate. There is no Step 2.

Step 2 is moving my Bitcoin business to a country that's not afraid of Bitcoin.

[XorNot]

Thus losing all your customers in a large, well-established 1st world market.

Again: if you can't buy BitCoin in your native currency legally, no one would bother trying to do it except if they had a compelling reason.

[ferdo]

> if you can't buy BitCoin in your native currency legally

My native currency is now Bitcoin. ;)