I hate to sound like a wingnut, but I'm not 100% sure that this isn't some sort of 'government control'.
Yes, as a friend I must inform you that you definitely sound like a wingnut. (A) Which government? (B) For what purpose? (C) Is it beyond possibility that a bunch of disgruntled coders with a lot of incentive to sabotage would sabotage? (D) Who of B or C has the stronger incentives?
(A) the Chinese (B) Because BTC serves the same hedging purposes as precious metals, only with greater marginal utility (C) Ockham's Razor suggests that "a bunch of disgruntled coders" are most easily found in Shanghai and that a command economy with a free market in trouble might very well provide "a lot of incentive to sabotage". Let's be honest. If someone accused Goldman Sachs of currency manipulation, the world would say "duh." Goldman Sachs, for their part, allege that 80% of BTC transactions are driven by Yuan. Funny thing happened in the '90s in Vancouver. All the well-to-do of Hong Kong hopped a plane to Vancouver, bought a house to establish citizenship, set it up with a trust to manage it and jumped back on the plane. It was hell on the Vancouver real estate market - everything got crazy expensive - but it gave all these Hong Kong nationals an escape route incase the handover to China got dicey. China is currently facing a big decision: are they a command economy or a market economy? 'cuz right now they're kind of both and they're at the point of instability where pushing too much in one direction knocks over the tower. It's not like their economy runs on BTC, but it's also fair to say that in a currency designed for black markets, the biggest black market is likely to be interested in maintaining their control.
US and China are top contenders. I am not saying that this is the case. Still, when you create a new form of money that doesn't obey borders, some entities might get interested in the outcome. The CIA spoke to Andresen very early on. That's when Satoshi disappeared. This has been on intelligence radars for years. I've been following this closely, and I'll tell you, it's weird. The PM that was sent to me and many others by many accounts is just some evidence of how weird. There are also probably people trying to manipulate the price to their advantage.
I don't buy it for the simple reason that bitcoin's utility is relatively unrelated to its 'share price' (for lack of a better word. I can move money on the network whether one btc is worth $1 or $1,000,000. If the US government wants it gone, then they should be undermining it in an operational sense, not sabotaging its price, which is what this seems to be. Occam's razor does not point at the government here, I'm afraid. Edit: I readily admit that China have shown themselves to be amateurish enough in the last half year that I might not put this past them.
Yes, Chinese miners have enough hashing power that they determine the fork status. I doubt the CCP does, but that'd be a pretty awesome conspiracy, yet there is no reason to believe that at all. If you make a lot of money in China, it is difficult to stay clear of complications, however, and the CCP has gone back and forth on their bitcoin stance. Chinese miners have crappy internet, so they are at a disadvantage if the blocksize increases too much. Several months ago, they agreed that 8MB was doable, but it seems they have mostly walked that back.
Doesn't sound very tinfoilly to me. As for the anonymity, last I heard, the current policy for US taxation is to report BitCoin USD value owned on the honor system :D. Even though it may be next to impossible (and sitting on BTC flies in the face of what it was created for, pisses the community off, etc.), IRS probably wants to get in on any collections from that. At least to some degree, they view it like a novel stock/bond, and I'm sure you know that the total BTC in circulation is something like $6 trillion. Hah, that number sounds ridiculous to me. That's a lot of wealth. Now, for my tinfoil: Apparently R3 will be open source? It's backed by BIG banks. Do I think they've recently rediscovered their moral compasses? Nope. Any current "open source" claims could be undermined in the future if they achieve monopolization of the cryptocurrency market. And when you've got a widely-adopted infrastructure in place... well, America still calls Comcast for tech support, but prays for a Google Fiber. I know this isn't the same as a physical infrastructure, but still, R3 has at least some potential for strong-arming, no? Never did pony up, myself. I would have almost broken even as of a few days ago (1 BTC was $430 when I was looking to "invest"). Shoot, I might throw five bucks worth of BTC at Hubski just to be able to say I've made a transaction and have a wallet. Sorry if it's worth next to nothing a few units of time away from now. I'd be curious how many BTC donations you've seen, but if you don't/won't divulge, that's perfectly reasonable. Also, great thread. Thanks to both you and b_b for hashing ;) it out here and not face-to-face. YOUR PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP IS CONSTANTLY ROBBING THE COMMUNITY OF VALUABLE CONTENT. Edit: Oh sorry, that was just my cat stepping on my keyboard at the end part there. But seriously; all corrections, proverbial face-punching, and/or ridiculing is welcome.