[Slartibreakfast]

I like digital currency, and at the same time I am somewhat concerned about the idea of moving away from paper currency and over to an electronic system. My main concern is that once we can't buy something with coins or paper currency, it will be too easy for the government to suppress people by threatening their ability to perform even the smallest transaction.

[zanny]

Then thats why bitcoin is a good thing. No one individual or group has control over it, and if it were adopted by a state it would have enough mining power to eclipse whatever 51% attack a state might attempt.

The only thing a state could do is try to outlaw transacting with individual addresses, which is only as effective as trying to tell people not to do in person transactions with them. I guess the downside is that you can trace all payments, but with bitcoin you can easily generate new addresses and pad your money path to obscure who you are.