Why U.S. miners are censoring Iranian Bitcoin transactions
Iran has about as much oil as Saudi Arabia. But U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from selling this oil to China, India, and Europe. It would undercut the entire U.S. economy which rests on the petro-dollar. Oil must be sold as $USD (under threat of U.S. military intervention).
So, what does Iran do? Iran starts burning its own oil to generate electricity to fuel Bitcoin miners. Smart! And they can send the BTC to Chinese, Indian, EU exchanges for any sort of credit or cash they want. Iran now has 5-10% of the hashing rate.
Russia has the same problem with gas/oil & U.S. sanctions. The U.S. can't let its enemies win. So under pressure from the US gov, HSBC bank bans MicroStrategy due to Bitcoin. And U.S. Marathon company starts mining Bitcoin but refuses to process "certain transactions" (black-listed wallets, lots from Iran and Russia etc.)
So far, China still has 60% of global Bitcoin hashing power, so while Marathon's blocks occasionally refuse to process transactions, the majority will still be processed, and Iran & Russian can keep burning their natural resources for electricity to fuel Bitcoin miners.
So far, so ... ?
It means the U.S. is actively engaged in a crypto-war. It is likely that the U.S. will attempt to control over >50% of the Bitcoin hashing power. And if/when that happens, the U.S. will effectively start censoring "illegal transactions" including those of private individuals.
Question: How do we censor Bitcoin miners? Can we, the people, refuse to have our transactions processed by Marathon's miners? To reduce their profitability to far below that of competitors?
It's a war people, a real war, and real people will die in it. All I'm saying is, be careful which side you choose. The censors or the rebels.
[link] [comments]
from Bitcoin - The Currency of the Internet https://ift.tt/3uBE1Cw
No comments