I think there are a few viable, but expensive attack vectors that have been well known within the community for years. But one thing that's always bugged me is how many people out there seem to think that a cryptocurrency could survive being an actual target by a sufficiently powerful state. The economic damage alone just by the whisper of an actual 'war on Bitcoin' would be devastating, without anyone actually lifting a finger. Let alone putting resources into actual attacks on technical, economic, and social levels. Doesn't really matter if a few enthusiast cypherpunks around the world can keep a few nodes going and technically say 'bitcoin is not dead, see!' when the economic model and security is fundamentally based on continued demand for BTC.
I've been really interested in Bitcoin and have followed it closely since Satoshi was still active, and consider myself a pretty big fan of it in general. But the general arrogance and delusion about the reality of where real power is in the world is a bit cringeworthy. And it's always been that way in the community.
It might get interesting in the future if two or more states have competing interest in Bitcoin(or whatever). I can imagine some hypothetical situation where the US political tide turns very anti-BTC, but say China has enough money tied up in it that it's incentivized to attempt to defend it. Like say if enough people in positions of political power have significant portions of their wealth tied up in it. That's possible, I guess. Sounds messy though for something that relies on economic confidence.
Either way, so far all the luck has been on the side of Bitcoin, as really there's been little to no political pushback against the technology itself. That's pretty awesome, and it's made for a very interesting 7 years or so since BTC really woke up and people around here and elsewhere started seriously discussing it. But the political risk is very real and understated imo. The technical risk is interesting in theory for sure, but just knowing a sufficiently powerful state has the ability to attack is probably more than enough to cause massive economic damage without actually pulling any technological triggers.
I've been really interested in Bitcoin and have followed it closely since Satoshi was still active, and consider myself a pretty big fan of it in general. But the general arrogance and delusion about the reality of where real power is in the world is a bit cringeworthy. And it's always been that way in the community.
It might get interesting in the future if two or more states have competing interest in Bitcoin(or whatever). I can imagine some hypothetical situation where the US political tide turns very anti-BTC, but say China has enough money tied up in it that it's incentivized to attempt to defend it. Like say if enough people in positions of political power have significant portions of their wealth tied up in it. That's possible, I guess. Sounds messy though for something that relies on economic confidence.
Either way, so far all the luck has been on the side of Bitcoin, as really there's been little to no political pushback against the technology itself. That's pretty awesome, and it's made for a very interesting 7 years or so since BTC really woke up and people around here and elsewhere started seriously discussing it. But the political risk is very real and understated imo. The technical risk is interesting in theory for sure, but just knowing a sufficiently powerful state has the ability to attack is probably more than enough to cause massive economic damage without actually pulling any technological triggers.