SN has hosted a number of discussions about the historical precedent of the US Govt seizing gold via order 6102. The motivation for asking this question is: could history repeat itself, except w/ btc as the seizure target?
Add this writeup by Stevhen Lubka of Swan to that literature. This one is more hopeful than many:
What protections could Bitcoin offer against this tyranny? Surely, gold fell prey to such a draconian measure due to its lack of portability and concentration in large silos. Have no fear! For I am here to tell you of the many reasons we shall not see a repeat of EO 6102, and where freedom-minded Bitcoiners should direct their watchful eyes instead.
Worth a read.
I have mixed feelings about this topic, but I mostly think it's a red herring.
We were nominally on a gold standard still when order 6102 occurred. The purpose was to devalue the dollar, which wouldn't work if people were holding the commodity rather than the promissory notes.
If they seized bitcoin without outlawing it, the takings clause would apply and they'd have to compensate everyone the dollar value of the seized bitcoin. Unless the plan is to back the dollar with bitcoin, I don't quite know why they'd want to do that. Even if they wanted to back the dollar with Bitcoin, they'd want it to retain it's value, so it would be counterproductive to confiscate it, rather than just buying it.
Now, if they're feeling threatened by Bitcoin, all bets are off. They may well criminalize and attempt to confiscate it. They may charge all of us with domestic terrorism. They might take extrajudicial measures. Who knows?
Agreed that many contextual factors are different, which is one of the reason why it's interesting (and non-trivial) to think about. I don't think it's a red herring, though -- I think there's much to learn from the episode.
Yup. I expect whatever happens, this will be the motivation for it. If they're not feeling threatened, it means btc has failed. Seems like we have evidence, already, that they're feeling threatened, though.
There are lessons to be learned from previous attacks, but I don't think 6102 is likely to be analogous to how they'll go after bitcoin and bitcoiners.
I was talking to siggy earlier about how they went after the Liberty Coin guys. To me it's much more likely that they'll invoke financial crimes and domestic terrorism statutes that didn't exist in the 30's.
The solution will be the same as it was with 6102, though: don't surrender your gold/bitcoin and don't admit to owning any gold/bitcoin.
I found the second half of the article more interesting than the 6102 discussion. The ETFization of bitcoin. Banning self custody does seem to be the bigger threat.
How would they ban self custodial wallets? I can't think of any way, other than forbid transactions with Central Exchanges and Banks.
If you mean: how could they enforce it, then they couldn't, generally.
The effects of an unenforceable ban are to create a culture of fear through occasional, high-profile, and usually extreme enforcement. I assume that such a ban, in this case, would go hand in hand with laws regulating contact w/ exchanges and banks, as you mention.
Agreed, although I really liked the historical context wrt FDR a lot, too. Made me think a little differently, which I always appreciate.
Most of the gold 6102 collected was sitting in banks instead of people's hands. Probably few surrendered their gold and the state didn't knock door to door to seize it.
It is likely that for bitcoin the game that has been going on since Ross' days and intensified recently is to scare people enough so that they let go of it (e.g. linking bitcoin to financial crime, charge a few people for domestic terrorism...) and the ETFs buy all it can to centralize it. On a long enough timescale it is a serious threat because every time a bitcoiner spends there is a risk that the recipient sells it back to Blackrock, sucking everything like a blackhole
That was a time in history when they could do that.
I think people are a bit more informed of their rights now, so something like that couldnt happen.
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